- Hollywood is endlessly churning out
horrible remakes of our favorite movies ever year.
Is the car industry any different?
Car enthusiasts are some of the most
nostalgic people out there.
But when manufacturers started rolling out
modern retro-inspired cars in the late 90s and early 2000s,
they got some mixed reviews.
Some were actually decent and maintained
the essence of the original design.
And sometimes it didn't work out.
Actually, a lot of the time it didn't work out
this whole mess started out with one ratted-out,
corporate baby boomer, nightmare of a hot rod.
The Plymouth Prowler.
On paper, this car is legit.
It was designed by Chip Foose as a senior design thesis
while he was attending design college.
It was a unique car at a time when American cars
were boring clones of each other.
Hot rods historically had a V8, the flathead V8.
And Prowlers would have a V8 too,
if they hadn't run into budget issues.
Prowlers built after 1997 had an updated aluminum V6,
making 253 horsepower, and 250 and torques.
That's not crazy, but when you consider
that the car weighs only 2,800 pounds,
that's what I like to call not bad.
They were able to keep the weight down
by using an all aluminum construction,
which might of actually contributed
to it's demise in the long run.
Making a car out of aluminum is very expensive,
especially back in the early 2000s.
And after all was said and done,
Chrysler didn't have much money left over
for things like the engine, transmission, and interior.
So they went to their parts bin.
They used the engine and four-speed automatic transmission
from the 300M, gear lever from a Dodge Intrepid,
the radio from a Durango,
and interior parts from a Dodge Caravan.
The Prowler went from being a completely unique roadster
to being a vanilla Frankenstein.
And they didn't stop there.
Chrysler was like "Hey,
"what if we keep doing this weird hot rod (bleep),
"but we carry it over to a passenger vehicle?"
And that's the genesis
for one of the most hated cars of this era.
You already know what I'm talking about.
The Chrysler PT, or Personal Transit Cruiser
borrowed the radical arch grille from the Prowler.
The cabin's design was meant to evoke
a 1930s wagon sort of vibe, and it didn't.
PT Cruisers were often seen with vinyl flames on the side,
chrome accents, and wood paneling.
Not even a turbo-charged version with 230 horsepower
could make you forget how goofy this car looked
(engine revving)
These new hot rods were the exact opposite
of the cars they were paying homage to.
They were watered down, underpowered, and corporate.
That's not to say things didn't get better though.
In 2005, Ford successfully pulled off
a retro-futuristic reboot of the Mustang,
and saved us from the somewhat boring SN95.
The new design called back
to the fastback Mustangs of the 60s,
and Ford's updated engines
definitely had some more 'Stang in them.
There were so many special edition Mustangs
of this generation.
There was the GT350, the Super Snake, the Boss 302.
But those aren't my favorite.
That honor has to go to the Shelby GT500.
I mean, how could you not fall in love with it?
It had a top speed of 202 miles per,
and Carroll Shelby himself had a hand in designing it.
Actually he gave final approval on that last one.
And technically, that one isn't in the 2005 version.
It still had a solid rear end,
so that makes it a real Mustang.
Am I right?
You know what I'm talking about.
At the time that it came out,
I was the most powerful production Mustang ever.
The supercharged and inter-cooled V8
made 662 pretty evil horses.
This thing is a monster, and if I'm being honest,
sometimes I pretend I'm driving this car
instead of my Mustang.
I guess there's something to be said
about redesigning a classic car,
versus trying to make a brand new one
look like it's a classic.
Which is what happened with the Prowler.
But sometimes a company can screw it up,
even if they're redesigning one of their classic cars.
Which is exactly what happened
with one of Ford's other cars, the Thunderbird.
(upbeat jazz music)
Ford debuted the 11th gen Thunderbird in 2002
after a five year absence.
The retro-futurist T-bird was highly anticipated.
But the car took way too long to be released
and it didn't really live up to the hype.
Personally, that thing looks all right.
Ford wanted to market the T-bird to older customers,
surprised from the get-go, so speed wasn't their concern.
Comfort was.
Suspension was soft, and it only came with
a five-seed automatic transmission.
As was the case with the Prowler,
the engine in the Thunderbird wasn't that bad.
This was when Ford owned Jaguar.
So it has 3.8 liter Jaguar V8 pushing 280 ponies.
It road on the Ford DEW platform,
shared with the Lincoln LS and Jaguar S-Type.
Seems like it could scoot, right?
Well, unfortunately, Ford tuned the Thunderbird
for Lazy Sunday cruising and not for scooting.
Although there was a rumored supercharged version
being developed before production shut down.
RIP.
Another boomer design nightmare is the Chevy SSR.
Short for Super Sport Roadster, is a hardtop convertible
hot rod truck styled after
the advanced design trucks of the 1940s.
You know, you want the utility of a hot rod
with the performance of a small truck.
Great idea.
SSRs were in production from 2003 to 2006.
One reason they've become a popular collector car lately
is because for the 2006 production year,
Chevy started putting LS2s
and Tremec six-speed manual transmissions into the SSR,
which is pretty sick to be honest.
(engine revving)
So I'm gonna move on to a modern redesign
that wasn't a failure at all.
The new Beetle.
(funky jazz music)
The People's Car has been bought
over 21 million times worldwide
since they started making them in 1938.
Between then and 1979, a span of 41 years,
not much changed in the design of the Beetle.
So when VW debuted the Concept One
at the 1994 Detroit Auto Show, people's minds were blown.
The design was futuristic and timeless.
They started selling it in the US in 1998.
It had a freaking flower holder on the dash,
and I think there was an option to have flower wheels.
But VW also offered some cool trim levels,
like the ultra rare Beetle RSI
that had all-wheel drive, race-tuned suspension,
and a freaking VR6 making 220 horsepower.
That would be freaking dope, dude.
(engine revving)
one of our editors at Donut here, Bridget,
has a sick Beetle R that has a performance upgrade.
Huge Beetle fan, and her favorite is the GSR,
a 210 horsepower version
modeled after a racing Beetle from 1973.
Freaking sick, I mean look at those wheels.
Look at the little angry eyebrow things.
That's cool.
(upbeat pop music)
A few other models worth mentioning
are the 2008 Dodge Challenger reboot,
which we all know and most of us love,
despite it's enormous size.
My personal favorite being the SRT Hellcat Redeye Widebody,
just the name alone.
It also has 797 horsepower.
And I'd also like to mention Chrysler's Crossfire SRT-6.
It's all right.
There were a lot of fails that happened
in the early 2000s, but overall,
I would consider the retro-futurist movement
to be a pretty cool thing that happened in car history.
Thanks for watching Wheel House.
Let me know in the comments
what your favorite retro design car is.
I want to know.
Follow me on Instagram @nolanjsykes.
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Be nice, see you next time.
I got to go work on a car.