Yeah, they definitely had the means to build it, but it would have been an additional powertrain to federalize, document and support on the warranty/parts side. It made sense to rationalize it out. Still, a shame.

Yep. It’s also the European cars (even the ones sold here in the US) that will have a speed-warning function, which chimes loudly at you if you reach a certain speed (whichever one you set).

While they’re at it, they need to re-do the center stacks on all of the products with the new UI. That the temperature controls aren’t illuminated at night is such a laughably inexcusable design defect, I shudder to think where else they cut corners.

The Maxima’s pricing was already uncomfortably close to luxury car pricing—especially for a not-quite-fullsize car—in the first place, and an AWD offering might have pushed it over the edge. The Maxima was also already out by the time Nissan realized it wanted to do an AWD sedan; adding AWD could have necessitated a…

But yet you’ve posted a picture of the 5 Series GT. The 3 Series GT was this one:

Hell, even the guys at Top Gear loved it (albeit it was the Holden Monaro there). Pontiac died so Buick could live on in China? What a disgrace.

I agree that there’s a lot to be said for plug-in hybrid vehicles (hell, I even daily drive one) in lieu of full EVs, but GM had to bet the farm on EVs in order to get its share price up and come up with a definitive forward direction, and so that meant the Volt had to go, politically.

Unfortunately, the full-size sedan segment died when midsize sedans started getting larger and nicer.

I’m not sure Chrysler could have continued selling a longitude-RWD SUV at sub-Grand Cherokee prices, so the current KL Cherokee is probably as good as it was ever gonna get.

Saturn never made a dollar (in fact, it lost several billion of them) and should have been a product under Chevrolet with a revamped sales process, as was the original brand. It was doomed from the start.

You bring up an interesting question, which is what happens when the car that defined a brand...no longer does.

It is baffling that, in all its existence, Chrysler has only ever had two SUVs. The other was the Aspen, a laughably bad effort that they couldn’t possibly do worse than, these days.

I agree that some savvy marketing could have perhaps saved Hummer from ever having died off in the first place. It’s one of those things where you just know GM could have cooked something up within a year or two—perhaps a more potent-form of their two-mode hybrid system, which did pay substantial dividends on the…

What really killed the Dart was the fact that Chrysler couldn’t sell it at prices that made it profitable. As gas prices sank back down and the small car market began to shrink again, remaining buyers gravitated toward the options with the best reputations: the Japanese cars on reliability, and the Korean cars on…

Unfortunately, the Elantra N and Kona N are why the Veloster N is getting discontinued.

It did sell well, but the question you need to ask is whether Ford made any money on it, especially in the US.

Here’s a fun tidbit, and maybe you already know it.

You’re right, but really, the Fiero project was doomed from the start. For multiple reasons (namely, the cost of developing a proper sports car, and the fear that such a car might undermine the institution that was the Corvette)...Pontiac marketing had to spin the Fiero as an ultra-efficient commuter car that happened…

How much do you think that would have cost? And why would GM have spent that effort on Pontiac when it could do so for Cadillac and enjoy higher transaction prices?

I mean, you say that, but even in its heyday, Pontiac’s bestsellers and the vehicles that were profitable were the ones that were basically Chevy products with some visual spice. The performance cars cast a halo over the brand, but did not necessarily make money or sell especially well themselves. When GM could no…