When you hear about the stats of a car in many cases you might be amazed and approach the vehicle with a wide-eyed amount of wonderment. So many times the name, the exclusivity and the build of a car seem like it should actually be an awesome driving car or one that has all the power you could ask for but then when you get behind the wheel it’s just the opposite. Here we see some cars that were supposed to be a lot better than they were and ended up hitting the chopping block because of the lackluster performance and a large quantity of promises that weren’t kept these cars weren’t around for long.
DeLorean DMC-12 – The only real performance this car ever delivered on is its role in the Back to the Future movies. For the most part this car was underpowered and handled horribly, but for a car in 1982 that offered the gullwing doors that are enticing to see and own many people tried to make an argument for the DeLorean. The simple reality is the lethargic acceleration of this car allowed it to reach sixty mph in a slow and sluggish 10.5 seconds.
Bricklin SV-1 – This was the predecessor to the DeLorean and was intended to be a car that was a sports car and one that was also safe. It seems more thought needed to go into this process of making this car since safety features add weight which directly robs a car of its performance. In adding this weight the company needed to cut other items somewhere, but it’s hard to do on a small model such as the SV-1. Not only was it too heavy, but this car had a habit of overheating which robs confidence in performance.
Ferrari Mondial – You expect every Ferrari to be ultrafast and have the build and design you want to see in order to give you a car that is powered just right and can pass everyone on the track. This is what Ferrari has been built on for years right? If Enzo himself had seen this awful car he would have nixed it to begin with but unfortunately this car was made and although the design was attractive the overall power and performance lagged way behind making it the worst Ferrari ever made.
Hyundai Tiburon – As a gorgeous sports coup the Tiburon had a great platform to jump off and become a great car but with only 138 horsepower this car was significantly underpowered. Now, in many cars of this ilk if they have low power the handling is awesome, not so here. The Tiburon was quite a bad promise that would have been much better had Hyundai simply added a much better powertrain or a massive amount of handling that could make the car right.
Hyundai Veloster – The Veloster was supposed to be a sports car that offers a cool look and an interesting feature of the third door. In reality this is a small hatchback with some sporty styling to be appreciated by anyone who wants to drive a great car but doesn’t look this way for a power or racing edition. The problem was the Veloster offered a Turbo and Rally Edition that wasn’t bad overall, but still not quite as sporty as what was originally promised.
Mercedes-Benz CLA 250 – At the base model this car is not quite up to the Mercedes- Benz level of performance and power especially with the price that is under $30,000. The CLA in the AMG trim is much better than this base model and actually lets you be a great car to enjoy, but the base model certainly allows you to have a car that will disappoint you on every single drive. If this is your choice to drive, spring for the AMG in order to get the right power and performance for this car.
Mercury Cougar – At first this was a great car which started to give it a wonderful reputation, but as the car continued to be built and moved toward the design and build of 1999 the car diminished in character, power, performance and anything else that made the car one that was awesome at first. Part of the problem is the Cougar changed to a front-wheel drive platform which became a great car to drive that competed on a level with the Hyundai Tiburon in order to both be fodder for the garbage can.
Mitsubishi Eclipse – The Eclipse has a build to be a great tuner car and offers one of the only sporty bodies in the class, but when you get underneath on a 2000 or later model you might as well replace it all and start over. The fun and attraction that made the Eclipse great in the 1990s was gone by the turn of the century and showed us a car that was still sporty but certainly did not have the performance to back up the look and feel of the once great car.
Pontiac Sunfire – This car should have been amazing, it should have been the successor to the Firebird; it ended up being the Chevrolet Cavalier in a sportier look which made it an awful car. This was the fault of many of the bean counters at GM which could have had a Sunfire that was fun and high powered but instead was boring and built off tooling that was already in place at GM which did not last long. This choice may have been another reason for the demise of Pontiac only a few years later.
Scion tC – Sporty and aggressive in its styling the tC is a good starter car but it ends up being promised to be more than that. In this case Toyota needs to stick to what exactly what this car should continue to be which is a car that is fun to drive but is not going to compete or win any races anytime soon. Driving this car the tC becomes a great driving machine with only two doors to give the looks and feel a young driver can enjoy, but isn’t quite on par for a more experienced driver.
Whether it was the fault of the company to overcommit or the car was incorrectly advertised these ten cars could have and should have been so much more than they were. What you would get with these ten is simply a car that was more of a disappointment than anything else on the market. You can do better and have a great car from just about any other car on the market but avoid these and avoid some disappointment.
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