While driving yesterday I saw a Nissan Murano convertible drive by. I had seen photos of this contraption in magazines and online and yes, I had seen a scant few over the years but it had been a good long time since I had seen one in person. The good new is that it looked even more weird and awkward in person than it did in the buff books and on my lap top screen. I then went home and did some digging to find that the Murano convertible had been an abject sales disaster for Nissan. They sold about 5,000 of them over the course of a couple years. When one considers the amount of engineering dollars, time, and testing resources that went into making this truly weird car come to life, it had to have been a substantial loss for Nissan.
Back when I went to an office to work every day, I had a sign on the wall that read: MEETINGS – None of us is as dumb as all of us! Clearly, that is the story behind the Murano and other ill-fated creations that engineers and companies fall in love with that answer questions that no one asked. How about we remember GMC’s Envoy XUV that resurrected the sliding rear roof used on early 1960s Studebaker Wagonaire models. That was a multi-thousand dollar gadget option and the model was discontinued after less than one year on the market. The examples go on and on from the always referenced Aztek that pooped a tent out of it’s lift gate and rolling mysteries like the Lincoln Blackwood truck that failed not once, but in two different iterations. The original Blackwood sold about 3,000 units in about a year and a half. Shockingly no one was interested in a $53,000 F-150 with a bed that had been carpeted.
Those are a few samples of downright dumb automotive concepts that have made it to market and there are lots more! Tell us what the dumbest automotive idea of the last 25 years has been!
The electric car….
Government subsidies for the electric car…
Fixed it for ya.
Suzuki X90. Dangerous and fell apart as soon as it left the showroom.
I don’t know the answer to the question posed, but I will say the Aztec pictured could have been on to something if they offered it as a factory option, and made it work in the opposite direction. Maybe a functional Burka for those things would have helped them sell…
It was offered as a factory option.
i’d have to place the chevy hhr in there somewhere—ill proportioned,just ungainly looking—a kind of halfassed answer to the pt cruiser…
That’s weird – I saw a Murano convertible yesterday too. We must have run across all two of them that made it out of showrooms, at the same time. I think these may have learned the wrong lesson from the PT Cruiser convertible.
The Envoy XUV wasn’t a particularly stupid idea. Their sales estimate was.
My own nomination is going to be Toyota’s Project Genesis. They wanted to get a bigger share of the younger buyers’ market, but all of the cars managed to strike out. Each of the cars was inappropriate for that market in its own way:
– The Celica might have worked out, but was too cramped for American drivers. The only logical seating position for me put my forehead out the sunroof.
– The Echo would have been your basic penalty box that nobody gets excited about, except it was twice as ugly.
– The MR2 Spyder was saddled with 40 less horsepower than its engine family was capable of, and had no cargo room whatsoever. Might have been fun as a second car if they’d given it the 2ZZ-GE motor, but younger buyers don’t buy brand new cars as toys.
– The Matrix was probably closest to the mark as a half-scale minivan with styling straight out of Neon Genesis Evangellion. But with practicality and a high seating position as its main selling point, it somehow managed to appeal mostly to retirees. Oops.
Now that I think about it, the book of Genesis starts off with humans ruining a nearly perfect world, and ends up setting the stage for the Chosen People being enslaved in Egypt, with a lot of disasters in between. Guess Toyota picked the name a bit too well.
Dishonerable mention from the advertising department: Nissan’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” ad. Clearly whoever signed off on that production was unaware of how the song ended. Plus, it featured a set of LeMans Prototype efforts whose only effect was to get Nissan into a nasty court battle with Panoz.
PT Cruizer conv’t. Why didn’t they just make a Neon conv’t?
The end of the “spare tire”
Just thought of an even worse one: Biodegradable wiring insulation. Somebody should have explained to the tree huggers who thought this up that car fires contribute to air pollution.
Requirements for designing the front of vehicles to be safer for pedestrians… that’s high on the list of dumb ideas.
I’m referring to the pedestrian safety regulations for those that didn’t know such things exist. It’s one of several reasons vehicles look bloated today.
the new clown shoe Mustangs are a shame
eliminating the availability of crank up windows and manual transmissions
Discontinuing Pontiac was pretty dumb.
Self driving cars
Driverless cars.
Honda’s Choke-n-Stroke seat belts. The ones that would put themselves on once you close the door (and choke you in the process).
Pontiac Aztec = Engineers Short Bus
wires made with “earth friendly renewable sources” AKA Soy bean products that attracted rodents and they came and ate the wires leaving the owners of brand new cars/trucks with a $3,000 – 4,000 repair bill coming out of their own pockets
No economical/cheap small or medium cars with rear wheel drive and manual transmission….
CAFE standards – I wont go there. You can google it.
SMOG for Diesels in Commiefornia. I wont go there either, but will mention its was a #@$&ing violation of our liberties to make the retro active on older diesels.
Self driving cars. Just wait until the ambulance chaser attorneys get the first fatality b/c of one. If they go after the owner, no one will ever buy another. If they go after the manufacturer, there won’t be another built.
Calling the Chevy SS Sedan just the “SS” and not “Chevelle”. If we had all the Engine options that Australia had, we could put a V6 in it to appeal to a mass market who don’t want a Ford of comparible size. Then put a small V8 and then have a 2 Door SS with Engines varying from the 6.2 to the 7.0 to the LT4. And if we got the Maloo…… El Camino
Daimler-Chrysler, Chevy SSR
Coupe crossovers, and by extension crossovers like the Murano in general. Crossovers/SUVs are supposed to be practicle, how can something with a trunk the size of a tissue box be practicle?
SUVs with no rough/off road capability, don’t want to leave the pavement? Buy a wagon.
Death of decent station wagons and vans. Some people need the ability to haul people and big stuff but don’t want an SUV.