QOTD: Failure to Launch?
On Friday, our fancy-pants Associate Ed asked what you’d like to see out of a FCA-PSA shotgun nuptial. The answers were varied as they were predictable: 208 GTI, Panda, and the like.
Alert readers with long memories will certainly be quick, and correct, to point out this is hardly the first time Chrysler has gotten into bed with someone from France. Today, we ask you: what product couldah been a contendah the last time Franco-American relations were undertaken?
Your author will select a brace of sedans for this exercise: one developed under the AMC banner and a rebadged Renault. The Eagle Premier used some French underpinnings that were Americanized for consumption on this side of the pond and, while it looked boxy, it was apparently more aerodynamic than a same-year Ford Taurus. Front-drive but longitudinally engined, the Premier lasted only a handful of model years despite bearing a pleasant interior and acres of space. A badge-engineered Dodge Monaco had a shorter lifespan yet again.
Loitering for even a smaller amount of time in showrooms was the Renault Medallion. Yanked from the French marketplace for duty here, it was on sale a short time — as both a Renault and Eagle. With a phalanx of sedans already in the showrooms competing for customer eyes and salesman attention, the Medallion was abandoned (and, yes, where was a wagon version).
What other models can you think of that didn’t get a fair shake? Doesn’t have to be a Chrysler-related product. Sound off below.
[Image: Fiat Chrysler, Renault, Murilee Martin/TTAC]
Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.
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I had a Monaco as a rental car when my girlfriend totaled my Jetta in college. It was a great rental car. The ride was serene and the dashboard had a neat gimmick where all the secondary controls were on panels mounted off the steering column, so they adjusted with the wheel. Maybe the instruments too, but it has been a while and I've been in a bunch of 928s more recently. It's funny how blocky the car looks in the photo above. In a parking lot full of 1992 GM rental cars, it looked rather refined and sleek. It did seem very derivative of the Audi 5000S.
The Premiere/Monaco deserved to succeed. Perhaps with a better V6 they would have.