Check out this rare 1991 Toyota Sera from Japan
The Sarasota, Fla., driver was in a 1991 Toyota Sera with butterfly doors. He says only 16,000, including his, were built in Japan.
Fox – 13 News
How many cars are 80% of the way to greatness, only to fall short of expectations? And why are certain cars and trucks never able to reach the heights that their specifications and design briefs seem to promise?
There are no easy answers. The success or failure of an automobile can depend on a variety of factors, including cost concerns, changing customer preferences, and changes in corporate strategy that can challenge even the most ambitious initiatives.
Here are seven cars that had all the right ingredients to be great, but whose rise to the top of their respective classes was interrupted by various circumstances. These models weren’t necessarily failures, but they never became truly memorable for American drivers.
1987–1996 Chevrolet Beretta
The Chevrolet Beretta was a great concept for General Motors, a way to leverage their investment in the N-body midsize platform to produce a slightly smaller and more stylish L-body coupe. Aimed at the sport compact segment that was becoming a major force in the market, the Beretta had a chance to sit on the ground floor alongside models such as the Honda Civic Si, Prelude Si, and of course the Mitsubishi Eclipse/Plymouth Laser/Dodge Daytona in terms of in-house imports.
If only Chevrolet had kept Beretta’s promise. Yes, you could also get an early GTU model with a 3.1-liter V6 making 145 horsepower. Later, you could also get the 2.3-liter four-cylinder quad-fours (each with a five-speed manual transmission) that were offered in the GTZ from 1990 to 1993 with 180 horses. GM also nicely tuned the Beretta suspension on these Hi-Po models to give them reliable handling chops. But the rest of the car was a bit of a nightmare. Rattles, low-quality plastics, and whatever General Motors cost cutting the accountants of the time were able to cram into the model (especially the cabin).
Gradually, the Beretta lineup thinned out, the quad-four was discontinued, the V6 became automatic only (negating the slight increase in horsepower), and then Chevrolet abandoned the model altogether. By the mid-90s, Beretta came out without being able to reach the heights of its rivals in the hearts of domestic customers.
1989–1998 Nissan 240SX
Before you throw stones in the comments section, please hear us out. We make a clear distinction between the Japanese-market Silvia (S13/S14 generation) and the rebadged model sold in North America as the Nissan 240SX.
In fact, the gulf between JDM and export models is at the heart of the entire discussion of why the 240SX was barely great. Upon returning to Japan, the S13 and S14 were each equipped with a number of turbocharged four-cylinder engines, including the famous SR20DET. The latter was tuned directly from the factory to 200 to 220 horsepower and became popular among tuners as the engine for the drift machines that were beginning to become mainstream in Japan at the time, quickly creating a legend for rear-wheel drive coupes and hatchbacks.
Unfortunately, only the body shape and drivetrain layout were transferred to American showrooms. Under the hood, Nissan first replaced the four-cylinder KA24E, then the KA24DE, the same engine family found under the hood of vehicles such as the Frontier pickup and the Xterra SUV that followed the 240SX. This was a poor choice for a sports car, never exceeding 155 horsepower, dooming the 240SX to be overshadowed by the more powerful Silvia.
1991–1996 Ford Escort GT
Ford wasn’t completely hands-off when it came to compact performance cars in the early 1990s, but the story of the Escort GT is another example of what could have been. After offering a popular entry-level hatchback in GT trim for much of the 1980s (and briefly offering a turbocharged 120-horsepower four-cylinder drivetrain), the brand’s fan-coveted complete redo was about to take place for the 1991 model year.
What’s the reason for the excitement? This generation of the Ford Escort moved from an in-house platform to a Mazda 323-based platform. For the most part, this pint-sized model was marketed as a value-leading commuter, but the BP engine it brought with it had great potential. In fact, the 323 GT and GTX had already offered Americans a turbocharged 132 horsepower version of the mill a decade earlier, and its motor (producing more than 200 horsepower in the Japanese market) Very receptive to suitable mods.
Sadly, turbocharged glory was not in the Escort GT’s future. The vehicle delivered a significant increase of nearly 40 horsepower over the base model, but the Mazda BP flavor reached 127 horsepower in naturally aspirated form. It was only slightly better than the most powerful GT from 1985, and while it was fun to drive, serious tuners looked elsewhere when ordering an affordable performance car. Escorts had completely disappeared from view by the mid-aughts.
2000–2006 Lincoln LS
In the early 2000s, Lincoln was in trouble. Sales of the Navigator SUV remained strong and the Town Car dominated livery in major cities, but there was little else in showrooms to draw new blood to the brand.
The Lincoln LS is a sports luxury sedan with European heritage, offering not only handsome styling but also a well-tuned suspension setup, rear-wheel drive, and a no-nonsense manual gearbox (Lincoln’s first since 1951).
Based on the DEW98 platform that also underpinned the retro Ford Thunderbird and Jaguar S-Type of the same period, buyers could choose between a 210-horsepower V6 (later boosted to 232 horsepower) or a 252-horsepower V8 (later boosted to 280 horsepower). Critics praised the Lincoln’s balance and styling, and while it beat comparable models on the dyno, it undercut BMW, Lexus, and Audi on price.
Unfortunately for the LS, there was little momentum from the Lincoln company to push the car from good to great. Early red flags included limiting the manual gearbox to V6 models and eliminating it completely by 2003. Early cars were also unreliable, tarnishing their reputation among a small group of adventurous Lincoln customers willing to bet on the brand outside of the context of funeral parades. The S-Type Jaguar was equipped with a full-throttle version of the AJ V8 (4.0 liters versus the LS’s 3.9 liters) and a supercharged version, but the LS needed incremental power increases and no tire-shredding option to compete with Cadillac’s new V-Series, which was also emerging with the new CTS sedan.
If a lot of that sounds like growing pains, you’d be right. Ultimately, Lincoln decided against developing a second-generation LS and replaced the expensive DEW98 platform with the cheaper, more pedestrian-friendly D3, shared with a wide range of Ford products, when the next sedan was introduced. The LS was scrapped and Lincoln wandered the badged wasteland for another decade of mediocre design.
2008–2013 GMC Full-Size Hybrid Truck
In a fleeting bright moment during GM’s global financial crisis bankruptcy era, the company made the shockingly strange but surprisingly effective decision to build hybrid versions of nearly every full-size truck and SUV it offers on the GMT900 platform. This means that the Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon, Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Silverado, and GMC Sierra have all been given battery-assisted editions that promise to improve the absolutely awful fuel economy inherent in these big eight-cylinder haulers.
And you know what? Mission accomplished. Paired with a 6.0-liter V8, the dual-mode hybrid design improves efficiency by about 25 percent in the city, combining a pair of electric motors and a gas-burning mill to deliver 332 horsepower and 367 pound-feet of torque. Most models are rated at 21/22 mpg city/highway, which is better than modern versions of these trucks in most configurations except for the optional turbodiesel drivetrain.
The GMT900 Hybrid was a good starting point that could lead us anywhere. The buyer held off on the purchase because the additional cost of saving 25% at the pump did not seem like a financially advantageous proposition, assuming he commuted a lot in the city. Any other automaker would have refined the setup further and sought better results with the second generation, but that wasn’t the case. The GMTK2XX platform it replaces turns to diesel as a fuel-saving measure, marking GM’s abandonment of hybrid trucks in today’s market where battery assist is commonplace.
2015–2025 Lexus RC
When Lexus introduced the RC nearly a decade ago, the sporty coupe seemed like a victory for the company. This model promised to refine the styling of the popular IS entry-level sedan while offering the performance potential of the F Sport Edition that its mothership was increasingly pushing into showrooms.
While the RC’s looks were impossible to ignore (some might say divisive) and a variety of interesting drivetrains were on the order form, there was a fatal flaw in the vehicle’s design origins when compared to similar two-door cars from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Cadillac that doomed it to permanent roadworthiness.
Initially, the RC was also intended to offer a drop-top body style. This required a platform that could remain rigid even without a roof. The IS platform was available in a convertible IS-C model, but it wasn’t stiff enough to meet the performance demands that an RC would face with the brand’s 5.0-liter V8 engine under the hood. This is where the fateful decision was made to combine the IS-C and the larger GS sedan platform into one one-off product overbuilt for RC.
As it turned out, the RC convertible never materialized, but its ghost lingered in the form of the coupe’s nearly 4,000-pound curb weight. That might not seem like a big deal in this day and age of Gigantosaurus performance machines, but back in 2015, it was a significant weight that Lexus engineers couldn’t erase from the Frankenstein RC’s driving dynamics. More of a muscle car than a sleek luxury car, the RC moved forward without any updates to correct its unnecessary bulk. Fun in a V8 in a straight line but surprisingly docile in other specs, the Lexus RC is never more than the sum of its parts.
2017–2020 Lincoln Continental
What if we bring back a retro nameplate but ignore the important aspects of its heritage that keep it alive in the hearts of American car buyers?When Lincoln introduced its refreshed Continental sedan in 2017, it realized that the car was ostensibly competitive in all but one respect: design.
The Continental was powered by an enhanced all-wheel-drive platform shared with vehicles like the Fusion and MKZ, and delivered as much as 400 horsepower from a twin-turbo V6 in higher trims. That was a good number for a brand that needed to relaunch a vehicle that was last seen in a relatively obscure front puller package almost 20 years ago.
Unfortunately, Lincoln ignored the one element that could have made this car a big hit: the suicide doors. These rear-hinged entry points were common on modern Rolls-Royce sedans, but more importantly, they represented a return to the Continental’s 1960s glory days. These were shown to great effect on the Continental concept in the early 2000s, but they were nowhere to be found when the latest version of the vehicle arrived for the 2017 model year, despite some on the design team insisting on their inclusion. Sales were slow, and Lincoln stylists quickly scrambled to correct the mistake. The “coach door” version of the car was rushed to market for the 2019 model year at an eye-popping price of $100,000, and one of every 80 units sold almost immediately. Ford ignored that hint and offered the Coachdoor Edition again in limited quantities (150 units) in 2020, and once again we instantly loved it.
By not making these traditional doors standard from the start, Lincoln lacked the drama needed to find its footing after years away from the game. The car was canceled after the 2020 model year, and the brand moved entirely to SUVs, leaving behind the potential that the Continental Coach showed.
Photo courtesy of MotorTrend Archive, Bring Your Trailer
