QOTD: What Dead Car Brand Would You Resurrect Today?

Lately, I’ve taken you back in time when it’s my turn to offer up a Question of the Day. Today is no exception, as we’re going to discuss the past and the future at the same time. Now, while your head is spinning and you reach for a VHS copy of Back to the Future, allow me to explain.

We’re going to discuss the car brand you’d like to resurrect, and the models it would offer today. Sound like fun?

Automakers come and go through the years, and there’s usually a glaring reason for their demise. Right now you’re thinking of the list of brands taken by the Recession of 2008, aka the General Motors fire sale and Ford Clearance Event. Saab, Hummer, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Saturn, Mercury, Plymouth, [s]Mitsubishi[/s] and I’ll stop there.

We here at the Internet Car Enthusiast Club of Antiquities and Good Ideas usually have suggestions for these deceased manufacturers. The ideas would, if taken seriously and at the appropriate time, have saved the company and prevented its demise. Now is your chance to bring one of them back, virtually.

Since this whole exercise could go awry as easily as a startup electric car firm, there are boundaries to your selections today.

1. You may pick one and only one car brand to bring back from the dead.
2. The brand you pick is granted a decent reputation, sufficient dealer coverage, and some enthusiasm from the American public in 2017, regardless of which brand you choose.
3. Say why you’d bring the brand back to life in today’s world, and which things it would sell. Statements like “Because I liked the Mercury Montego from 1977” are not valid here.

Those rules in place, I can submit to you my choice, and it’s not what you’re expecting. The brand I’d bring to life in 2017 is…

American Motors, or AMC if we’re being casual. In 2017, the perfect storm has readied North America for Kenosha, Wisconsin-built AMCs.

The company had the same quirky nature Subaru now sells by the gallon, and their 4×4 crossover vehicle ideals were around all the way back in 1979. So far ahead of the game, and yet so unappreciated in their time. Eagle is their 2017 crossover line, with model variations and trim names as secondary badging. The Eagle Wakefield, Wabigon, and Wabikon are all crossovers of increasing size (see what I did there?), and there are other sedan and wagon models filling out a full lineup. There’s also an all-wheel-drive minivan, the AMC Camelot, to bring competition to former spouse Chrysler. Sales success and massive profits? I think so.

Which automaker would you resurrect in 2017?

[Image: CZ marlin/ Wikimedia Commons ( CC BY-SA 4.0)]