#dead brands

[morecarsthatnevermadeit]

In the early 1950s, Iso Spa made refrigerators and scooters. Owner Renzo Rivolta moved into cars with a tiny, egg-shaped model using a motorcycle engine. The Isetta was introduced in 1953 and sold well but trailed off with sales ending in 1955. Rivolta’s trick was to licence production, most notably to BMW, for whom the Italian bubble car was a life-saver, selling a total of 161,728 units and keeping the company afloat when production ended in 1962.

[vintage-tech]

Actually, no, Kmart was not forever.  This photo is from 2002.

(accurately: Six still exist out of a peak of 2,485... and only 3 are in the USA.)

[seat-safety-switch]

“You have to help us,” wailed the metamind at the centre of the internet. “We have built a simple time machine, and you must go back in time to save our beloved retail brands!”

Soon, I was standing outside a Circuit City on the outskirts of San Diego. It was particularly strange to me to be in the Beforetimes, able to simply walk into a retail store and pay ridiculous amounts of money for a confusing yet still limited array of products. Within the store, miserable employees wore Christmas-themed flair and taught customers about the basics of the World Wide Web.

My blood ran cold, recognizing the start of the chain that would soon lead to their demise, retail shoppers hiding in bombed-out big box stores, cowering with every whooping pass of the Amazon hunter-killer drones, still seeking one of the few customers with whom they had not yet built a recommendation profile. I had to stop these rubes from getting on the Internet, but the time machine didn’t let me bring the small-caliber hand gun I had 3D printed that morning(?), declaring it a future item that would cause a time paradox. I had to dig into my closet for hours in order to find clothes that would please it, finally settling on a traditional Hypercolor t-shirt, the official uniform of the time period. Instead of a firearm, I was going to have to use my brains to get through this.

After pulling the fire alarm near the womens’ washroom, I had soon cleared out the entire store. Rows upon rows of Gateways and Packard Bells played their screensavers on endless loop, no longer able to seduce Middle America into the purchasing cycle that would one day lead to the death of so many proud brands. Such an action, drastic as it was, was only a temporary solution. Soon, the fire department would appear, and high on their adequate level of funding through taxes, would declare the store safe and ready for customers to return and resume their shopping. I had to go to the source.

In the parking lot, I walked past row after row of delectable new early-90s economy cars. It was hard to take my eyes off the rust-free Taurus wagons, minty Mazda 323s and pristine pre-rice Civics, but I knew that this was not my own time and to avail myself of these brand experiences would be ultimately fruitless.

Squaring up a Civic in the corner of the lot that wasn’t covered by streetlights, I reached into my pocket to consult the Wikipedia page on hotwiring. Soon, I experienced the familiar sensation of panic that my phone had gone missing, before remembering that the time machine, too, had not allowed me to bring my humble always-connected, ultra-futuristic pocket supercomputer with me. I decided to play it by ear, hoping that the car was relatively unloved by its owner, and that the local mall cops would ignore a white man who was acting erratically in public.

With a quick twist of the made-in-America flathead screwdriver I bought from the Fry’s down the street, the Civic leapt to life. I pointed it towards Seattle, and began breathing exercises to focus myself for the upcoming battle with Sir Jeff Bezos, future President-Dictator for life.

[morecarsthatnevermadeit]

German car-maker Glas ran into financial difficulties in the mid-1960s and was taken over by BMW in 1966, primarily to access the Dingolfing company’s production facilities (now BMW's largest single plant). Carrozzeria Frua had worked with Glas and prepared a fastback version of their V8 coupé. Presented at the 1967 Geneva Motor Show, after the takeover, Pietro Frua hoped BMW might still want to put the BMW-Glas 3000 V8 Fastback Coupé into series production, but they never did.

[morecarsthatnevermadeit]

The 1977 American Motors AM Van was a concept a decade ahead of its time. A compact 4x4 minivan designed under Richard Teague, the original design study had port-holes which were later replaced with fully glazed rear side windows. American Motors lacked the resources to put the AM Van into production. 

[morecarsthatnevermadeit]

The Oldsmobile Toronado had been a revolutionary car for General Motors, the first mass-produced front-wheel-drive American car since 1937. Bill Mitchell, GM’s styling chief, wanted a more personal, aggressive, and nimble 2-seat version. The Oldsmobile Toronado XP-866 was designed by Roy Lonberger during 1968 in Mitchell’s secret Studio-X, taking 12 inches out of the wheelbase of the production Toronado. It features an ear window tinted to perfectly match the dark blue body paint that gave the illusion of a smooth, uninterrupted fastback roofline without a window. There was also a "duckbill" spoiler, but GM leadership decided it was unnecessary and would steal sales from the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird.

[morecarsthatnevermadeit]

I'm back from my Portuguese holiday, but just wanted to post a few more cars that caught my eye. This Triumph TR6 from the early-mid 1970s looked immaculate. The TR6 was the final evolution of the TR series that had started with the TR4 in 1961. It was powered by a fuel-injected version of Triumph’s 2.5-litre OHV straight six. It was replaced in 1976 by the Harris Mann-designed TR7 that shared nothing with the TR6.

[morecarsthatnevermadeit]

The Panhard 24 was the last automobile produced by Panhard, developed during Citroën’s management of the company. It was a coupé powered by an 850cc version of Panhard’s flat two-cylinder engine, a four cylinder version was proposed but rejected on cost grounds. It came with two lengths of wheelbase, offering 2+2 or 4/5 seats. Introduced in 1963, it was discontinued in 1967 because Citroën needed the production capacity.