Episodios
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The history of the Pontiac Aztek, from conception through to its legacy. Why did GM green-light this car when focus groups said they hated it, and why did it come with a tent?
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In part one we looked at electric vehicles and hybrids from the 1960s and 70s. We now move onto the 1980s where individuals all around the world didn’t want to give up on finding an alternative to the internal combustion engine. These were the days before our knowledge of global warming, and the motivation was around reducing city pollution and freedom from the reliance on foreign oil.
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You might not think it, but the 60s and 70s were a hot bed of innovation in electric car design. Environmental and political events collided that got people questioning our reliance on the internal combustion engine and thinking about alternatives. So why was so much effort put into electric cars when so few people bought them, and how close did we come to perfecting hybrid and EV technology?
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After decades of progress, and at a time Nissan were going to make their next step forward with the luxury Infiniti brand, Nissan’s Figaro was in a sense a next evolution in car design, in progress, but at the same time it was an exercise in looking back, of taking stock of just how far Nissan had come. It was also a conscious effort by its designers to push against progress with something more gentle and organic. But the Figaro didn’t come out of a vacuum. It was the culmination of several years of new design thinking. So, how popular was the “organic” Figaro in its native Japan, and how has it found a new home on the other side of the planet?
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At the dawn of a new millennium car buyers were spoilt for choice when it came to really clever and innovative cars. There was the Renault Scénic, the original MPV that showed you can pack a large family into not a lot of car. Then there was the Mercedes A class, a masterclass in space management, with a cleverly packaged engine that allowed for the maximum interior space. And don’t forget the hideous but highly innovative Fiat Multipla that offered three wide seating that could be removed to turn a family car into something that could best a Volvo estate. Audi entered the fray with another highly innovative car, the A2. It followed on the heels of the TT, another car that took Audi to new engineering heights. The A2 was Audi’s new mass car, a vehicle they hoped would appear on every middle class family’s driveway. Yet, the car was a colossal failure, only selling 176,000 cars before its production run was unceremoniously cut short. Just why was that, and how was it so innovative?
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When Europe produced hot hatches in the 80s it was cars like the Renault 5 Turbo and the Ford Fiesta XR2 – great cars that took the regular hatchback and added more power and better brakes. Over in Japan Honda took a different tack. They crafted a new, very low drag shape for the existing Civic. They also removed a lot of weight. Together with a range of powerful yet efficient range of engines they created a car with great handling, acceleration, and fuel economy that had more in common with the MG Midget than the MG Metro. Some car journalists heralded it as the future of compact sports cars. So, was the Honda CR-X God’s gift to small hatchbacks or did it have its flaws, and what the heck happened with the third generation car?
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What’s going on with Alpine? They’ve had one car on sale since 2018, the A110, with only a second model appearing a couple of months ago, and that’s a rebadged Renault 5. In 6 years they’ve only sold 19,000 cars. And it’s not they’re selling $1M exotic Bugatti’s, The A110 is sold as a relatively affordable sports car. Alpine’s parent Renault have poured a LOT of cash into the brand, and even more into sponsoring a Formula 1 team, and many other motorsports championships, and all with little to show for it. On the face of it, it seems nonsensical, money thrown down the drain, and that was my opinion until I looked a little into Alpine’s strategy. So, just what’s going on, what’s are its chance of success and with the brand haemorrhaging money, and will Renault wind it up before the strategy has a chance to play out?
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Ford’s styling department in the 1980s and 1990s could be relied upon to produce hit after hit. We liked the third generation Fiesta, we loved the Mondeo and the Ka, and we positively adored the Ford Focus. But in that period there was one car that stuck out like a sore thumb, the 1994 Ford Scorpio.
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There’s a lot of focus on the rivalry between the German big three – Volkswagen, BMW & Mercedes, but in Sweden of course there was a rivalry between the “big two” – Volvo and Saab. So, as Volvo’s cars got larger and went upmarket in the 1970s, Saab must have surely taken note and decided that they had to respond. The result was the Saab 9000, produced even though Saab didn’t have the money to develop it. Just how did they find the cash, and was it a hit or was it a miss?
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A few months ago I made a video about EVs that touched on robotaxis, and with Tesla’s recent Robotaxi event I thought I’d make a quick follow-up video talking about what was announced.
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Early version of this audio with lots of echo. It needs to be re-recorded, but throwing it out now as it's all that I can do right now.
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Citroën in many ways were like the Tesla of the 1950’s and 60’s. Where other car manufacturers were making normal, everyday cars, Citroën were ripping up the rulebooks and reinventing just what a car could be in their own mad, Gallic way. Their approach to almost every aspect of the car was unique, new, and, well, Citroën-esque. And it’s not like different meant “wrong”. The Citroën SM introduced innovative features such as self-centering steering and rain-sensing wipers years before they became mainstream. So, with a pedigree like this, why aren’t we all driving around in Citroën’s today? Why did the SM only sell 13,000 cars before taking Citroën into bankruptcy?
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Mercedes is the purveyor of high-class limousines, so it might be odd to think of them selling a go-anywhere pickup that’s more used to lugging a few bags of cement back from the DIY shop. But it’s not that strange an idea, after all, they’ve been producing vans, trucks and buses for almost a century. But the Mercedes X-Class wasn’t going to be sold alongside their commercial vehicles, this was for the type of customer who bought their luxury cars. Just why did Mercedes decide to make a pickup, and why did it last less than three years before being axed?
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The Maestro was the car that killed Austin Rover. Poised on a knife-edge in the early 80’s between survival and disaster, this car, and its booted Montego sister, caused its death. Not right away – plenty of Government subsidies and deals with Honda and BMW gave the company another 20 years, but this was the critical moment when it all went wrong. When the company lost its ability to chart its own destiny. So why were these cars such poor-sellers, and why did a company that made the critically successful Metro, get it all wrong with its follow-up?
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You probably know Vauxhall and their German cousin Opel as the makers of reasonably prices cars that maybe aren’t that exciting. But in the 60s and 70s Vauxhall produced several amazing sports car and supercar concepts that rivalled the best Lamborghini had to offer. And Vauxhall didn’t just make concepts, there was the VX220 – a car that was a lot of fun with great handling. But why didn’t these 60s cars or the last concept ever make it to production?
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This is a video charting the history of the Ford Capri. It includes the Mercury Capri (both 1970s, 1980s and 1990s).
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Renault is rebooting the classic 5 and it’s available for pre-order right now if you’re in France with deliveries starting later this year! So, what’s it like, what’s good, what’s bad, and what do I think about it?
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The Rover 200 more than ever encapsulates British Leyland as it went from Government ownership, through its Honda collaboration, to the disastrous BMW marriage, and finally its last gasp for survival as an independent company. And it was one of Rover’s few big successes, having an amazing 29-year lifespan over its many and varied history. The Rover 200 had many guises, from the blue-rinse Triumph Acclaim to the hot hatch MG ZR, and it’s a beloved British car. So why was it such a hit, and why did it all go wrong in the late 90’s?
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Otto von Bismarck, the man who oversaw the unification of Germany in the late 19th century called politics “the art of the possible”. He’s saying that you might have grand lofty dreams, but you have to go with what’s actually possible to achieve. I’d argue that applies to many things in life, including car design. There’s always a compromise with a limited budget and limited time. That was never more true than with the Citroën Visa. Borne out of Citroën’s bankruptcy in the mid-1970s it was a modern car that was still clearly a Citroën, with all its innovative features. But just how did they produce such a competent car in such a short time?
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The Triumph Stag has looks and sophisticated style. Those Italian lines of this easy Grand Tourer looked epic when it was released in 1970, and the lucrative North American market beckoned. With a throaty 3.0L V8 engine, it had the power to take on its 6-cylinder rival, the Mercedes SL. Yet in just seven years production ended and it was all over. So, what happened? Why did this beautiful car falter and die?
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