Five Things: Most embarrassing performance car family secrets

Monday, 25 January 2021

Sunday Five: Most embarrassing family secrets

Every carmaker has a few misses on its record but some are worse than others. However, it is particularly bad when they manage to screw up a performance car. Or at least slap a performance badge on where it doesn’t belong…

Here are five that really shouldn’t have happened at all.

Believe it or not, this was the Dodge Challenger of 1978. It’s really a Mitsubishi Galant and it performs like one.

Dodge Challenger (1978)

The Dodge Challenger is a proper muscle car today, as it was in its first generation back in the first half of the 1970s. But you might not know that the Hellcat-infused models of 2021 are actually the third generation of Challenger. As Yoda once said, there is another.

The second generation of Challenger, starting in 1978, isn't nearly as popular as the first- or third-gens, mostly because they were rebadged Mitsubishi Galants. The Galant of the time wasn’t a bad car but it certainly wasn’t a muscle car. In fact, the largest engine you could buy with your 1978 Challenger was a measly 2.6-litre inline four making 78kW.

A four-cylinder HSV? It happened, though HSV didn't seem all that happy with it.

Come on, Nismo. A March? You’re better than this.

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Minivans barely get a pass as cheap, economical people movers. They don’t deserve anything more, especially not an AMG V8.

HSV SV1800 Astra

Covering the X4 M with dust doesn’t make it any better looking.

HSV is usually known for tuning the bejeezus out of V8 Commodores but in 1988, for some reason it decided to have a go at working on a four-cylinder car. The Astra of the time was really a Nissan Pulsar, rebadged as a Holden as part of the Australian government's Button Car Plan.

HSV was clearly a bit miffed at being given the economy car and only gave it cosmetic and suspension changes, with both 'Stage 1' and 'Stage 2' suspension setups offered. Needless to say, the SV1800 Astra wasn't a big seller.

Nissan March Nismo

Nismo was once the last word in Japanese performance tuning, with its name adorning the fastest Skylines and Silvias of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the later 350Z, 370Z and GT-R. Then, in 2013, some bright spark at Nissan decided to tell Nismo it needed to branch out a bit and gave the engineers the March, Juke and the Note.

The worst of these was the March (Micra), which was given new exterior features but retained the 1.2-litre engine making not even 60kW. If you plumped for the Nismo S, you got a 1.5-litre engine making 85kW.

Mercedes-Benz R63 AMG

AMG has built some awesome cars over the years but man, it should have stayed away from the R-Class. I mean, who asked for a 6.2-litre, 500-plus horsepower people mover? Okay, probably a few but it’s still abhorrent.

It was essentially an ML 63 SUV, complete with seven-speed automatic and all-wheel drive, with the R-Class minivan body shell on top. It looks awful and, surprise, it handled like an overloaded barge. Extremely low sales figures caused it to be a single model year vehicle. Maybe it’s a future classic?

BMW X4 M

I’m sure there’s some executive order that says M must build a version of every BMW model and, to its credit, M tried hard to make the X4 M a decent thing. And, certainly to drive, it is – the latest versions have the engine destined for the new M3 and M4, effort has gone into the suspension and there's heaps of tech on-board.

Unfortunately, that design is one not even its mother could love. Most people buy vehicles with their eyes first, meaning if they like the looks, there’s a good chance they’ll buy it, even if it has performance deficiencies. Probably explains why BMW NZ only sold three X4 Ms in 2020.