5 Car Concepts That The Recession Probably Killed

It’s official: the world car market is about to hit the fan. If you thought the American auto industry was the only one about to fall apart like Yung Berg’s ego, you’re wrong. After pulling out of Formula 1, Honda, Japan’s second biggest car maker, announced today that they curtailing their spending and slowing down production in preparation for the pending financial apocalypse. This means everything they had in the works is now getting scrapped. Like the upcoming Acura NSX successor, the Advanced Sports Car.

The Advanced Sports Car concept Acura introduced had car nuts, including us, losing their mind and patiently waiting for Acura’s next gen Ferrari fighter. After getting over the reality of the situation, we began to think about a couple other cars we were promised that never came to be. Check out our list below..

ACURA ADVANCED SPORTS CAR

• What? As soon as Honda killed off their premier sports car, the NSX, in 2005, people started asking when its replacement would hit dealerships. Their questions were answered in January of ‘07 when Honda announced they were developing a V10 powered successor to their Ferrari fighter.
• What Happened?: Thanks to the current global financial crisis, Honda announced their first unsuccessful quarter in 11 years after posting a $1.5 Billion loss forcing them to cut funding for certain projects.

CADILLAC SIXTEEN

• What? Remember the days when Caddy’s were lavish rolling luxury yachts that made parallel parking harder than finding a rapper under 18 who hasn’t been robbed? Yeah, GM does too, believe it or not, and in an attempt to reclaim its days of glory, they came up with this V16 (yes, 16) powered barge of an auto to compete with the Mercedes S-Class and BMW 7-Series.
• What Happened?: Fell just short of production approval. It was rumored Cadillac didn’t want to spend the bread to get this baby up and running, they even thought to swap out the V16 with a V12 or V10. Or, it may of been the Cadillac logo carved out of solid crystal on the steering wheel and the Bulgari sourced clock on the dashboard.

MERCEDES BENZ F400

• What?: A design study Mercedes conducted to find a better cornering system for their sports cars. The system allows the wheels to lean in the direction of the corner at a maximum of 20 degrees. The tires used in this system are made up of two types of rubber. One is a soft compound that holds grip and the other is a harder rubber like the type found in motorcycle tires.
• What happened?: While we didn’t expect this “design study” to actually make it to the production line, MB did say that this technology has a good chance of making it into their sports cars. It would have been dope on the SLR. Maybe now that McLaren and MB have parted ways and MB is working on their own supercar, they’ll implement it. But after dropping Chrystler to save dough, it doesn’t seem like Mercedes will be investing in this any time soon.

CHRYSLER FIREPOWER

• What? Chrysler’s bid to build a super luxurious grand tourer. The concept which first hit the scene in 2005 looked like an Aston Martin mangled with a 300C. Underneath was the Viper chassis, but instead of the Vipers potent V10, they swapped in the 300C’s 6.1L Hemi.
• What happened? It’s still up in the air whether or not the Firepower will make it to production. It was rumored to be coming in ‘07 as an ‘08 model, but now that Chrysler is the one US auto company no one seems to see making it out of this current crisis, it’s fair to say we won’t see anything like this coming from Chrysler anytime soon which sucks since, except for a fuel sipping small car, this is exactly the kind of car everyone wishes they would make.

BMW CS

• What?: BMW’s attempt to raise the upscale luxury car bar. The CS was a four door, big bodied sedan that was supposed to compete with Mercedes hot selling four door coupe, the CLS. Only, instead of coming in above the 5 series, the CS was being positioned as BMW’s flagship model, to be placed about the 7-series.
• What happened?: We all thought BMW was doing pretty well for themselves, but apparently they’re scared like everyone else. After receiving crazy buzz at the ‘07 Shanghai Auto Show, BMW announced that the CS was going to hit showrooms under the Gran Turismo name. A year later BMW announced that going forward, they will sharply focus on profitability and as a result they have reconsidered product decisions. They cited the CS’s inability to meet their required rates of return.