The Forgotten Cars Thread

[Turbo]

^ I still don't understand why Honda didn't bring this to the US, it basically had the same size as the 1st & 2nd gen RAV4!

The design language is too foreign for most Americans.

 

[Populuxe]

The design language is too foreign for most Americans.

I'm not so sure about that. Americans embraced some pretty weird looking cars from Japan over the years. I think it was more a case of the HR-V being in a niche Honda felt wasn't very profitable in the US. Once others proved that tall wagons and CUVs were a thing, Honda jumped in.

 

[MedigoFlame]

Not sure if this belongs in the Forgotten thread or the special editions. But...I forgot about the Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Edition. I kind of liked them when they came out. Used to see a few on the road, but now I never do. (Though, I didn't realize how uncommon they were) There is one that shows up to the local autocross events.

 

[dylpro]

Not sure if this has already been said, I saw some 80s/90s Chryslers in the beginning but didn't see this gem

Dodge Spirit R/T. Lotus designed DOHC, turbo charged, 224hp! 0-60 in 5.8 seconds?! That's STILL fast! And look at it! You can't help but love the performance econoboxes, right?

 

[dylpro]

The 1st generation Taurus SHO is pretty forgotten...

This is what reminded me of the Spirit I posted above after seeing on Wikipedia that it beat out the SHO for Motor Trends Domestic Sports Sedan award in '91 and '92. The SHO was way more common than the Spirit, just read there were only 1,399 built! I wonder how many are still alive. Good condition ones will command big prices in the future I'm sure.

I owned a '94 SHO and loved it. I'll own another some day and I'd prefer a first gen next time. If you want a rare SHO, try finding a '91 Plus. Just cosmetic upgrades, but still rarer than other gen 1s. Want the rarest SHO? Find one without any rust

 

[TexRex]

Dodge Spirit R/T. Lotus designed DOHC, turbo charged, 224hp!

Yeah...people in the GTP Automotive forums are too familiar with the Spirit R/T.

 

[dylpro]

Haven't been around much lately ever since my PS3 bit the dust and waiting for GTS to drop. Hoping GTS is entertaining enough to keep me up to date with the forum discussions though!

Love this thread though, never spent much time outside of the GT forums when I was posting more often. I've always had an affinity to the obscure cars of the world. Another 80s oddity that pops into my mind are the Ford/Mercury EXP/LN7, more particularly the later years with the updated fascia. Much more attractive than those frog eyes, even if it's pretty much just an Escort. Though I was a fan of the bubble window.

 

[Turbo]

The Cloud Car Trio: Plymouth Breeze, Dodge Stratus, Chrysler Cirrus



Saw one of these for the first time in many months, nestled in the church parking lot. I've always thought this design was pleasing to the eye; curvaceous and sleek, but nothing controversial or over-the-top. The cab-forward styling, makes them look like mini-Intrepids. Unfortunately, they were pretty underpowered: 134 horsepower came out of the standard four-cylinder and the V6 made 170.
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[dylpro]

One of my high school friends had a Breeze and drove the thing into the ground. Last time I've seen one since, at least that I can think of. He replaced it with a PT Loser.

Reminded me about this:

I think that's at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum before it closed (something I just found out now when I looked it up and I'm heartbroken). Lamborghini Portofino. It wasn't there when I went to the museum a few years ago, but I remembered the pictures of it at one of the exhibits. I believe this was the styling that influenced the first gen Intrepids.

 

[LM7325]

The GTO supposedly started the Muscle Car era proper, but the 1961-63 Tempest seems much cooler to me. These cars are mostly forgotten about sadly.

 

[MedigoFlame]

Not sure if it's relevant in the actual market these are sold in. But I feel like I never hear much about the Peugeot RCZ. Always kind of liked the design. Of course, I was reminded of it through Gran Turismo.

 

[ToyGTone]

Saw one the other day.

I still see these, although mostly the 5 door model.

Not sure if it's relevant in the actual market these are sold in. But I feel like I never hear much about the Peugeot RCZ. Always kind of liked the design. Of course, I was reminded of it through Gran Turismo.

Surprisingly, I still sometimes spot one of these despite French cars being unpopular among traffic cars.

 

[Populuxe]

The GTO supposedly started the Muscle Car era proper, but the 1961-63 Tempest seems much cooler to me. These cars are mostly forgotten about sadly.

Technically speaking, the first GTO was a Tempest, the 1964 Pontiac Tempest LeMans GTO. But yeah, the 61-63 Tempest was a pretty hot little compact with some very nice engineering.

 

[dylpro]

M100 Elan anyone? You can find these pretty cheap nowadays and few people on the road would know what they're looking at. Plus you get to have an English nameplate without all the headaches of English mechanics.

I'll admit though, didn't know this was a thing^

 

[Castrol96]

M100 Elan anyone? You can find these pretty cheap nowadays and few people on the road would know what they're looking at. Plus you get to have an English nameplate without all the headaches of English mechanics.

I'll admit though, didn't know this was a thing^

Kia?

 

[dylpro]

Kia?

Right?
From Wikipedia:
"After the final production run of the Elan in 1995, Kia Motors bought all the rights to the Elan from Lotus in order for Kia to manufacture its own version. Outwardly, the Kia version looks almost identical to the original. The most obvious difference is the different taillights, designed by Kia, in place of the Renault Alpine rear lights of the original Lotus version.

From 1996 to 1999, Kia Motech (Kia Motor-technology) produced the car (in Ansan, South Korea) as the Kia Elan for the Korean market, using a 151 hp (113 kW) 1.8 L T8D engine instead of the Isuzu 1.6 turbo-charged unit. In the Japanese market, the car was sold as the Vigato"

 

[homeforsummer]

Remembered this one the other day:

The WiLL VS, made by Toyota. WiLL was one of dozens of forays by the Japanese industry into dedicated brands for different purposes - in this case not just the car industry, but everything from cars and electronics to beer.

The VS was Corolla-based and used the two engines from the seventh-gen Celica. Was also in one of the GT games if I remember correctly. Some weird design details but it's quite a funky thing and hasn't even aged too badly considering it was launched in 2001.

 

[TheEvstar93]

While we're on the subject of Will, I'd like to bring up a car that I saw here in the UK once. The Will VI. As you can see, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

Especially when you look at the back.

 

[-Fred-]

That is one ugly car.

Speaking of ugly and forgotten, I saw one of these earlier today. If my source is correct they've sold 8 of them in the US last year.

 

[SPhilli911]

I always forget about the Subaru Impreza P1. It's like a 22B but cheaper and probably better. It may be better remembered in other parts of the world, especially the UK, but here in the US it's overshadowed by the 22B.

 

[ScottPuss20]

The Saleen S7 replacement that never was - the S5 Raptor

I was legit hyped for this thing and read stuff about it YEARS ago. I have no idea how I came across it, but the Saleen name sounded familiar to me, as I had driven the Saleen S7 in TDU. The car is almost 10 years old... Forgot all about until I saw it pop up on my own thread, Car Association. I was like, oh, it's that Saleen concept designed to replace the S7...

Edit: I remember watching a video about this car years ago, I actually think my dad found it...

 

[ToyGTone]

I always forget about the Subaru Impreza P1. It's like a 22B but cheaper and probably better. It may be better remembered in other parts of the world, especially the UK, but here in the US it's overshadowed by the 22B.

I remember this car from GT6 along with the 22B.

I heard it was made as an official version for the European market, is this true?

 

[SPhilli911]

I remember this car from GT6 along with the 22B.

I heard it was made as an official version for the European market, is this true?

Subaru UK commissioned Prodrive to make the P1 (meaning Prodrive One) specifically for the UK market I believe, but I dunno if it was sold elsewhere or not in Europe. Prodrive also tuned 16 of the UK 22Bs, making those particular ones special.

 

[MedigoFlame]

The North American Nissan Quest was definitely lost in the competition, honestly didn't realized that it was gone for a while.

 

[INEEDNAWZZZ]

I heard it was made as an official version for the European market, is this true?

The P1, along with a bunch of of other UK-only special editions by Prodrive, were mainly designed to stop people from importing used STi models from Japan for less than the cost of a brand new, less powerful UK spec WRX (called the Turbo 2000). It didn't work, but the Prodrive special editions are still held in high regard as they actually did have a good amount of improvements.

 

[TexRex]

I've seen maybe three of these in the nearly eight years since it was released.

 

[Dolph Drago]

I've seen maybe three of these in the nearly eight years since it was released.

I've seen them here and there since its release. Thankfully it's not that many though, because it's ugly as sin.

 

[05XR8]

Mustang Bullit
Can't remember the specs too well. It had an exhaust that upped power to 315? Plus, choice of final drives.

 

[Silver Arrows]

I've seen them here and there since its release. Thankfully it's not that many though, because it's ugly as sin.

You mean you don't remember the MKT in its most famous role?!

 

[Populuxe]

I've seen maybe three of these in the nearly eight years since it was released.

I've seen plenty of them since they've replaced the Town Car as the airport limo of choice, but I can't say I've seen any outside the airport.