Forgotten Concept Cars

Would love to see a modern-day take on that with properly sized rims. Would probably fit right in today…

Chris, totally agree, the surfacing is quite contemporary.

Car design doesn’t need to be complex, shows the Brubaker box - it has a simplicity that would make it work for today as well if done right.
Plus easy to build from Lego bricks.

That thing is awesome! I want one.

With all the fun over the McLaren Speedtail that debuted this week, I thought I’d post a similar shape from 1987 that is maybe a bit more simple and elegant… and from Oldsmobile…








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Peugeot Griffe 4 Coupè (Pininfarina), 1985 … some say this eventually lead to the Subaru XT





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Subaru B9 Scrambler:
This concept car was first shown in 2003 at the Tokyo Motor Show. It was designed with influence from Subaru’s aircraft heritage, with the front end appearing to look like the cross section of an airliner, with a central jet intake and wings.[1] This theme was originally developed for the Subaru B11S which had been exhibited in Spring 2003




1991 Dodge Neon. The concept was really pretty cool.


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The neon has a nice smile :stuck_out_tongue:

I remember reading that the production Neon was going to have ugly square lights to save money, but the reaction to the Neon concept was so positive, the team was immediately told to put the round lights on. What a cool concept car though. I wish the sliding doors had made it through to production.

I never heard that story about the square lights. That would have been terrible. I guess they would have done a bezel and then a square lamp like an old Geo Metro or Camaro from the 90’s. The first gen Neons didn’t seem to survive so it is easy to forget that the first Neon was a huge seller.

The K-car, the Le Baron and the minivan saved Chrysler, the Neon made it relevant again. Under-30s probably can’t understand just how out of step the big 3 were in the '80s. The Neon ('93) and the Taurus ('86) were the anamolies that almost responded the rise of the imports. They were both climbing a steep hill.

Ford 1986: no one is buying our sedans anymore, let’s make something innovative, iconic, and industry leading to recapture the market

Ford 2018: no one is buying our sedans anymore again, let’s just stop making them… ?

I’m sure they have built a financial model that shows that SUV sales will take up the slack… until another gas crisis. I think this is what can happen when quarterly thinking dominates corporate culture. The future success is sacrificed for quarterly results.

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As an aside, if everyone stops making cars, I hope I can get autonomous cross over, because why should I bother driving a bloated piece of ___ like that.

Neon: What an iconic ad. Man, Chrysler was hitting it out of the park with design and marketing!

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Is there anyone else who remembers the Pontiac Sunfire Concept from 1990. GM not only wasted an awesome looking concept on an ugly coupe, but they also wasted an awesome name too.




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oh yeah, I totally remember that one. I loved how tail lamps visually interacted with the tail pipes… side note. My first car out of college was a used black Pontiac Sunfire hand-me-down (manual of course)… what a piece of crap that thing was. One time I pushed the window button and it punched right out of the door panel and fell down into the door. A day of disassembly and some epoxy later and I had it fixed enough. I had it for a couple of years and then got a Toyota MR2 :slight_smile:

While on the topic of Pontiac, I was going through my garage this morning, and ended up finding my old stash of Hot Wheels cars from my childhood, and one of them happened to be the Pontiac Rageous from 1997. I totally forgot this car existed, and I’m guessing the 04’ Grand Prix was the the end product from this. Such an underrated concept.




I remember seeing this at the auto show and thinking it seemed outdated even then. On show stands at the time we’re the TT, the New Beetle, and the Mercury MC4 (a good topic for another forgot concept car)


The Pontiac Rageous was like a hair metal band in the era of grunge rock. Nobody wanted the spandex and hair spray anymore :smiley:

This kind of post apocalyptic baroque surfacing does seem to be on the image boards of many car companies these days though!

It’s funny how much the front fenders looks like a '07-'12 Mazda 6.