- Just because a car is cool and good
doesn't mean that anyone is going to buy it.
Sometimes great cars are just downright unsuccessful.
Today, we're going to look at
a whole bunch of truly great cars
that were ultimately unsuccessful.
We're going to look at why they're great, why they failed
and if failure is always a bad thing,
I'm James and this is The D-List.
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You are mythical.
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If you were somehow unaware,
the LFA was Lexus's 2012 Halo Supercar.
It's a bit of a modern day legend.
It's a front engine
rear wheel drive V10 spaceship,
pushes out 553 HRSPRS and it sounds like this
(car engines growl)
So, why didn't anyone buy it if it's so good?
Well, boils down to two pretty important reasons.
Time and money and time is money so really,
it's just one reason, if you think about it.
The LFA was originally supposed to launch in 2006
with frequent restarts
and redesigns delayed production for several years
and because of those delays and redesigns,
the LFA was set at $375,000,
for a Toyota and Lexus didn't even make any money on it
at that price.
By the time it finally hit the market,
it was already outdated by cars like the Audi V10 R8
and the Nissan R35 GTR which were both
significantly cheaper with similar
if not better performance.
This all meant that a bunch of LFAs
sat and dealership showrooms for years
ultimately the style and a bunch of
the technology from the car trickled down
into other Lexus vehicles I mean, look at the LC 500.
So the LFA was a financial failure but,
ultimately it wasn't a total loss.
We did an old version of bumper to bumper on one of these,
I'm going to put the link in the description below
check it out after this video and click it.
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You've seen the SS badge
on a lot of Chevy's performance cars throughout the years.
Things like the Camaro, the trailblazer, the Impala
they even made an SS model of the HHR
or I like to call the SS HHR,
but Chevy also made a standalone SS model and guess what?
It was bone chilling ripper,
it was essentially a re-badged Holden Commodore.
It had four doors, rear wheel drive, a 415 horsepower V8
and a six speed manual transmission.
I mean, that sounds like
a pretty nice bag peanut simmer, right?
So why the flop? Why the flop? Why the flop?
Well, it really wasn't marketed very well
and by that, I mean that it wasn't marketed at all.
Chevy released the SS at a small event
in an airplane hanger right next to the Daytona 500,
Chevy was heavily leaning on the
win on Sunday sell on money idea, but there was a problem
because that doesn't really work anymore because
NASCAR's aren't based on consumer cars anymore
and beyond that,
Chevy really didn't advertise the car at all.
There's no Superbowl ad,
there was no social media campaigns nothing then,
there was the name.
SS is normally a trim level for Chevy cars.
So, while the intent was to conjure up thoughts of
high performance and speed,
the car was just a little confusing.
So based on the name
and the general lack of effort to promote it,
new customers really didn't even know that it was a thing.
The SS was only for sale for a couple years
and Chevy didn't make a ton of them so,
if you can get your hands on one, good for you
'cause I think they sick.
(dramatic music)
This is bit of a weird one,
but we liked the weird ones around here.
Ever talked to Jeremiah?
Ford had a mid sized economy Sedan called The Contour
that sold from 1995 to 2000 but, in 1998,
Ford decided to inject
a little bit of a spicy sauce into it,
gave us The Contour SVT.
SVT of course was Ford's high performance trim level
and it stands for Special Vehicles Team,
it sounds like a bunch of Navy seals with jets.
They gave it a 2.5 liter V6 suspension upgrades
like MacPherson struts, and better control arms and coils
and a very nineties body kit to really
show off the contours, many contours.
The car had two main nicknames among enthusiasts,
the first it was the American M3 it's a very cool nickname
off to a very good start.
The other nickname for this car was the Hot Potato because
no body wanted to work on it.
Because the larger than normal engine
in the smaller than most engine bay,
the contour SVT is notoriously difficult to work on.
The contour SVT was also more expensive
than any other American Subcompact Sedan
and almost 23 grand in 1999.
You know how many Limp Bizkit CDs you can buy
for that much money?
A freaking nice binder full, a binder with a zipper,
you can buy the binder too.
FORD only sold 11,500 which isn't great,
but that's not why the car was killed.
SUV sales are on the rise
and Ford wanted to use The Contour factory
to make their new small SUV, The Escape.
So, the contour got the ax and now it lives in the hell.
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The 9-7X AERO was a Swedish American muscle SUV
with a 390 HRSPRS too, all wheel drive
and some stiff suspension,
it was a luxury version of GM's Trailblazer SS,
which is already sick.
So, what else do you need huh?
To understand this car, we got to back it up
and talk about why it even exists in case you didn't know,
GM, used to own SAAB and in 2006, there was a massive recall
of general motors SUV's and the result
was a recall of over 250,000 cars.
It's a bad look.
So to make people happy again,
GM decided to make a couple of performance cars
and one of those was The Trailblazer SS
and another one was the SAAB 9-7X Aero
basically the same car, different badge.
But unfortunately, the damage from the recall was done.
And the 9-7X, despite being a very nice bag of peanuts,
couldn't pull the kind of sales numbers
that they needed and that it deserved
and SAAB closed its doors two years later.
(dramatic music)
Y'all knew this one was coming so did I,
because (laughs) I helped make this list.
This one really frustrates me, because The Focus RS
is one of the coolest cars to come out in my lifetime.
It was an all wheel drive, turbo hatchback
that had a six spoiler, came in dope colors,
I just want to sit in those Ricardo's and do a James Conner.
So why didn't this thing sell like a hot bag of peanuts
on the cold city streets?
The Focus RS was a performance car with a lot of hype
and Ford dealerships took that,
a little too seriously.
Most dealers wouldn't even let people test drive the car,
who in their right mind, would buy a car,
without driving it?
And on top of that dealerships added
massive markups to the RS
and gave little to no consideration for younger buyers.
(car revs loudly) Who do you think
is going to buy a bright blue turbo charged hatchback
with a spoiler and a drift button?
So, most of the people who actually knew what the car was
couldn't afford it and they weren't allowed to drive it.
And the people that could afford it,
didn't want it because it's a stiff loud,
very bright kind of race car
also, it had had guests issues and so Ford killed it
and now, it's in hell.
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I know what you're saying,
"James, this car is almost 100 years old."
But it's a super important car,
and also one of the biggest flops
on this entire list of flops.
The Airflow is in development at Chrysler
for over six years,
before it was finally shown to the world,
they even brought it to the Wright brothers,
to make the first ever automotive wind tunnel
when developing this car, those are the planes Guys,
airplanes, have you ever heard of it?
This thing has unheard of technology for the time,
curved front windshield, overdrive in seat suspension,
mini body construction, a reserve gas tank,
all these things were all either extremely rare or
world's first in 1934 and they came standard on the airflow.
But you know what else was going on in 1934?
The Great Depression.
Chrysler said that they wanted this car to offer
a little glimmer of hope to the people
but the only people that could afford it, were super rich.
And you know who didn't like rich people,
during The Great Depression? Everybody.
So unsurprisingly, this thing was a massive flop
on the bright side,
the airflow introduced the non-military world at
aerodynamic design, which influences pretty much
every modern car today.
(dramatic music)
(hamming)
Baja was Subaru's attempt at a 21st century version
of their much loved and super rugged little B.R.A.T.
Well, the B.R.A.T had rugged dependability and simplicity,
The Baja, incorporated a little bit of a modern touch.
Now the Baja was based on the Outback, which is already
a very good car,
and Subaru wanted more utilitarian version of the Outback
and wanted a larger market share in the US so they did,
what any American would do, turn it into a truck,
turn it into a truck, turn it into a truck.
The concept called the STX which stood for
Subaru Truck Experimental because
you know it's not experimental if you use an E.
But, the problem with doing two things at once
is that neither of them get fully done very well,
it's like taking a bath, while cooking a steak.
I mean, the idea seems like a good one,
you make an Outback with more rugged cargo space cool,
Subaru even made the Baja with a supercharger and later
with an optional turbo again, super cool.
But the people who wanted to pick up
laughed at the $25,000 price,
they said, ha ha, ha ha, ha ha,
that's more than twice the price of a Ford Ranger,
which is a real truck and on the flip side
the people that wanted a cooler Outback
realized that they were basically looking
at a less practical version of the Outback
that they wanted in the first place.
So, despite being a super capable all wheel drived
turbo charged supercharged Japanese rally truck you,
the car struggled with its identity and now it's in hell.
(dramatic music)
The Studebaker Avanti was weird looking little funny
with glass coop produced right here in the US of America.
It's kind of like the Corvette,
this is got squint your brains, look at it a different way.
The Avanti launched in 1963 and was at the time
the fastest production car, in the world
with a top speed of 178 miles per hour,
thanks to its 240 horsepower V8.
We made a video about the fastest car of every year,
I'll pop the link in the description below
this one's on it.
Just before Studebaker was going to launch
this car to the public and well after,
they had been accepting deposits for it
there were some discoveries regarding quality control,
so they pushed back production for a little while
and these delays were a bit too much
for the majority of the people that wanted the Avanti
and most of the deposits ended up being canceled.
Studebaker was expecting to sell around 20,000 cars,
but after the delays only 1200 (coughs)
were sold in the first year and only 4,600 total.
But, in the year 2000, a company called
Avanti Motors Corporation, no relation (laughs)
de budded a kit car version combining vintage styling
with 2000 styling and this is the result.
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You have reached the end of the road (hamming)
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The 5th Gen of the Viper
is well documented as one of the best
American sports cars ever! Especially the Viper ACR.
The 5th Gen Viper came out in 2013
and instead of calling it the Dodge Viper
like they had for years, they decided,
to call it the SRT Viper.
The only problem is, there were already several options
that gave similar power and driving experience
for way less uncle Dinero's talking about,
the Corvette and even Dodge's own challenger,
this is mind blowing, okay?
Sales were so bad, the FCA cut production numbers
in the first year and even stopped producing them
all together for two months.
Then, they rebranded it back to the Dodge Viper
to try and regain some brand recognition which, didn't work.
And then, they dropped the price of the car by $15,000
but still, nobody bought it.
In 2017, the Viper got the mongoose
and now, just like all the in this list,
the Viper is in hell.
(dramatic music)
If you want to learn more about hell read the Bible,
if you want to learn more about the Viper ACR,
check out this episode of bumper to bumper
and if you want to check out the fastest car of every year,
check out this episode of the D-List.
I am James.
Bye.
I love you.
(James laughing)