Five of the most pointless cars ever made

Tuesday, 7 June 2016

Some cars are absolutely brilliant in their utter pointlessness - literally any supercar, for instance. But not these five cars. What were these makers thinking?

Plymouth Prowler

Range Rover Evoque convertible joins a long list of successful SUV drop-tops. Oh, hang on...

While the idea of a factory-produced 1930s-style hot rod is massively appealing, Chrysler managed to make the Plymouth Prowler completely pointless.

It certainly looked the part, with an incredibly sexy rear end and a front that worked once you got rid of the 'bumpers' that the factory legally had to fit. But where they royally screwed it up was under the bonnet.

Hummer H3 was great off-road. Except that the driver couldn't see a thing out of those tiny windows.

Rather than have a grumpy big V8, the Prowler was saddled with a wheezy old 3.5-litre V6 that produced an anaemic 160kW of power, hooked up to a four-speed automatic transmission.

Range Rover Evoque convertible

Suzuki X90 was pointless: this picture should explain why.

Whoever it was at Range Rover that thought 'Oh, a convertible SUV would be a good idea!' clearly hadn't been paying attention. After all, Nissan beat them to the idea by quite a number of years. Enough years, in fact, to see the Murano convertible make it into production, sell poorly, then wither and die. Maybe not such a good idea then?

At least the Range Rover name holds a bit more cachet than Nissan, and the Evoque drop-top certainly looks a lot better than the Murano. But here's the most pointless part - Range Rover actually spent some considerable time testing the Evoque convertible off-road. People who will buy this vehicle (if any) will probably not even know going off-road is a thing.

Mercedes-Benz R-class was a big mistake. But a better mistake when the really fast one came along.

Hummer H3

Sometime during its slow, drawn-out death at the hands of General Motors, the Hummer brand pumped out the seemingly silliest of things - a small Hummer. But small is a relative thing and the H3 was really only small when compared to the hulking monstrosities that were the H1 and H2.

Based on the same platform as the Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon and, yes, the Holden Rodeo, the H3 was outdated before it even began production. But the most pointless part? The H3 was extremely capable off road, but the tiny windows (for the sake of fashion) made it all but impossible to see out of the thing properly, especially if the going got muddy.

The truly awful ride made it pointless on the road as well. So the perfect vehicle for what was really a pointless brand.

Suzuki X-90

In the mid-1990s, Suzuki decided to build a two-seat, two-door SUV with a removable T-top roof, a 71kW engine and hardly any storage space. What about that design concept doesn't scream 'pointless'? The X-90 was launched in 1995 and by 1997 retail prices had dropped by 25 percent as sales slowed to a crawl. By which we mean 'slowed from a crawl to an even slower crawl'.

Considered one of the worst vehicles ever built, there was at least one use discovered for the X-90. Red Bull stuck huge cans on the back of a bunch of them to use as promotional cars - before deciding Minis were the way to go.

Mercedes-Benz R-class

The Mercedes-Benz R-class is a rare thing - a car that its manufacturer admitted was a mistake to make in the first place!

At the time, the company believed the R-class 'crossover' could attract a huge number buyers.

As it turned out, people were more attracted to seven-seat SUVs, and by utterly misjudging the people mover/crossover segment, Mercedes produced a massive rolling tribute to pointlessness that they managed to make even more pointless by turning into a mental R 63 model that had AMG's savage 375kW 6.2-litre V8 jammed under the bonnet.

Actually, the R 63 was pointless, but also quite awesome.