by Bert Meinders

Created on: February 29, 2008

Making cars is a risky business, which is why so many cars are not only stupefyingly dull to drive, but also frustratingly difficult to identify in a crowded carpark. Even with the greatest of care, most long-established carmakers get it wrong once in a while.

There are many cars of which few were made, but not all cars were intended to be sold in large numbers. For example, Bristol cars, the Ferrari 250 GTO and the Holden Torana XU1 were never planned as mass sellers. Let's have a look at my list of cars, which were meant to sell in quantity and didn't.

One: DeLorean. This car caused a sensation at its announcement. Its sleek, allegedly maintenance-free stainless steel body, four seats and sporting looks engaged the attention of motor noters everywhere, and much was expected of it. Then someone took one home for the weekend, and drove it a bit, and the illusion was spoiled. The car was trouble on wheels. The first problem was financial; the company simply didn't have enough capital. The British government effectively gave deLorean eighty million pounds when that was still reckoned a lot of money, but insisted on the factory being built in a part of Belfast high in unemployment but low in skill. The second problem, exacerbating the first, was that the car's design and engineering had not gone much beyond the concept car stage, and everyone involved underestimated the cost of making the car saleable, including deLorean himself although he'd previously been a vice-president at General Motors. The third problem was personal. Delorean hired Colin Chapman as a consultant and treated him like an apprentice, which irritated Chapman because he was a successful carmaker in his own right. The fourth problem was the car itself. It was never going to be able to do what was expected of it, because it was basically a Lotus Esprit with the engine rear-mounted instead of mid-mounted to provide space for back seats, with a stainless steel skin fitted over the composite body and electric gullwing doors.
What really killed it, apart from the unreliability associated with hastily designed, perfunctorily engineered cars from undercapitalised manufacturers, was the nonexistence of the projected market. The Lotus Esprite catered for the performance-oriented part of the market, and those who wanted four seats could buy the excellent Renault Alpine A610, which had the same engine and transmission, was lighter, faster, handled better and was reliable.

Two: Austin Freeway. This was an Australianised

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