Avalon. Just look at the commercials.

Somehow, Chrysler managed to make the Malaise bumpers look less like railroad ties than GM or Ford did. Overall, these cars were like a blank canvas for customizing—good looking in a neutral kind of way, so if you tweaked it, you wouldn't feel like you were violating a Picasso.

The guy near me who's been blending two of these into one project car should see this. It would give him hope, or it would break his heart. I do need to get pics of it one of these days for a little DOTSBE collection.

That's nothing. My '89 Cavalier's ECM did this all by itself.

They can build it, just call it something else. They'll never recapture the magic of the original 6. Why keep trying?

@fhrblig: I had forgotten how eye-searing hideous these were.

There are different kinds of badge engineering. There's the normal course of business kind that Detroit has practiced for decades. There's the ludicrous—think Cimarron and Versailles—that you grudgingly admire, like a grifter who's none too bright but makes up for it in gumption. And then there's pointless, lazy,…

I believe the problem was the mandatory tetanus shot before anyone was allowed to bid on it.

I think the positioning of the this car in the U.S. market was aimed at the same people who would shop from the Sharper Image catalog. Failure, clearly. Too bad. Given that the market embraced the 1st-gen Taurus, they clearly underestimated the appetite for Euro-flavored machinery.

A lady I work with, sitting in a 3-hour traffic jam on I-78, was forced to take "the walk of shame" (her phrase) into the woods. She found more than relief. She found some of this. Not pretty.

Six? Only six? Our very first family car I can remember was a '59 Catalina. My five siblings fit across the back seat. I rode on my mother's lap. I could have sat between my parents, but that wouldn't have been safe.

I think this is what the Mantide guy was going for, before the accidental overdose.

I don't doubt its prowess in every respect, but sadly I must disagree about its looks. This is the ugly duckling of the CTS family, and it will grow up into an ugly duck. As someone else said, needs less C-pillar. That would have been a functional and aesthetic success.

@Jackie: Flapjackrabbit?

If they keep the fender bulges as distinct as this, they've got something. It's like they took '40s-style fenders and blended them into a modern 3-box design. Interesting.

@humongus: Something's amiss with the front suspension. Compare the position of the steering wheel with the position of the front wheels.

Now that was some skilled driving. To know the car's limits so precisely, and keep it on a short enough leash not to crash, all while making it look fast.

@///Mink: Nooooooo!!!!!!

This was pretty much the nadir of Ford design. The only way it could be worse is with that 'saddle' (orange) colored landau top over dark blue or green. My eyes bleed at the thought.

I assume the 2,700 pounds includes interior finish materials and ALL of the upholstery, so this must be REALLY fast.