Famously disastrous cars that were in fact successful

Slide of Motoring history is littered with tales of cars which were problematic in one way or another. They might have been poorly designed, badly built, inadequately marketed, or simply wrong for their time. There’s no shortage of possibilities. Most of them sold very badly, but several – often reviled nowadays – actually performed remarkably well on the market. Since we think the latter are rather interesting, here’s a representative dozen of them, presented in alphabetical order. Slide of AMC Gremlin The Gremlin often appears on lists of bad cars because of its name, its styling or frequently both. This is a little unfair. There are folks who speak highly of the car in retrospect because of its combination of power and economy (depending on which of many engines ranging from 2.0 to 5.0 litres was fitted), the remarkable stiffness of its body structure and the fact that it looked very radical for a car introduced in 1970. Slide of AMC Gremlin (continued) Naysayers can’t avoid the fact that nearly 700,000 Gremlins were sold until the car was replaced by the very similar AMC Spirit in 1979. This counts as a decent success. The Gremlin was handsomely outsold by the rival Ford Pinto, but it was produced by a far smaller company than any of the Big Three, all of which had much greater resources. Slide of Austin Allegro The British Leyland conglomerate was, and remains, an easy target for jokes about poor design, reliability and industrial relations. The Allegro, launched in 1973 and discontinued nine years later after two major updates, has had more than its fair share of them. It looked far more dumpy than designer Harris Mann (born 1938) intended, its engines were old-fashioned, and the quality of its gearchange was questionable. Then there was the famous quartic steering wheel, which many people seem to believe was the car’s defining feature, even though it was dropped from the range at an early stage. Slide of Austin Allegro (continued) Now that’s all very well, but the Allegro wasn’t quite as much of a failure as it’s often believed to be. It’s true that it didn’t make enough money to drag BL out of its troubles – But on the other hand, it sold nearly 670,000 examples in under a decade, which wasn’t bad going, all things considered. Slide of Chevrolet Citation Of all the cars Chevrolet has produced in over a century, few have been as reviled as the Citation. This reputation would have come as a big surprise to the many people who were captivated by it in the early days. This was Chevy’s first new model of the 1980s, and the first ever with front-wheel drive. Early press reports were very favourable. What could possibly go wrong? Slide of Chevrolet Citation (continued) The Citation can be counted as a huge success if you look at the sales figures for 1980 alone. In that year, more than 800,000 were sold. But then came the downfall. Only around the same number found buyers in the remaining five years of production put together. There are several reports that the cars given to journalists for review were much better than the ones sold to customers, largely because rampant torque steer had been dialled out of them. The Citation also developed a reputation for locking its rear wheels under braking, often with calamitous results. To sell 1.6 million examples of a single model can be counted as a success, but it happened only because first-year customers didn’t realise what they were buying. Slide of Chevrolet Corvair The first-generation Corvair famously had a rear-mounted engine and swing-axle rear suspension. This was a difficult combination for drivers who weren’t already used to it, namely those who hadn’t previously owned a Volkswagen Beetle – a key target for this new compact model. In his best-selling book Unsafe At Any Speed, Ralph Nader (born 1934) strongly criticised the layout. This avalanche of bad publicity might have been expected to kill the Corvair’s chances in the marketplace, but it wasn’t as simple as that. Slide of Chevrolet Corvair (continued) In fact, Chevrolet sold more than 1.8 million Corvairs during the 1960s. Its ‘interesting’ handling didn’t appear to have put people off buying it. Furthermore, Nader’s book was published in late 1965, when a revised Corvair with more conventional suspension had already been available for more than year. Sales fell in 1966 and did not recover, but this wasn’t necessarily because of Nader. Other factors include reduced marketing by GM, the fact that the Corvair was looking increasingly old-fashioned and the soaring popularity of the more modern Ford Mustang. Slide of Chrysler PT Cruiser The PT Cruiser, introduced in 2000, was based on the Chrysler Neon but had more interior space and 1930s-style retro styling devised by Bryan Nesbitt (born 1969). It was well received at first, and won several awards. When production