#LuxuryCars

The P6 was an important leap forward in style and modernity for the small and independent Rover Motors. And today’s Rare Ride subject is particularly important because of its prototype status. It’s an early example of the most powerful P6 which became Rover’s flagship.

In the late Eighties, American auto manufacturers still sold large, traditional luxury sedans in decent numbers. Their aging sedan consumer base fondly remembered the vinyl and chrome of yesteryear and still relished brougham-style accoutrements.

Up for consideration today are three comfortable, luxury-oriented sedans from 1988. It’s hard to lose here.

Vanden Plas. It rolls off the tongue the same way as other luxury words, like Ferrero Rocher. And right now you’re thinking of chocolate, a Jaguar, and walnut tray tables.

But today’s Rare Ride has only one of those characteristics. Presenting the 1966 Vanden Plas Princess 4 Litre R.

Rare Rides has featured a couple of Studebaker offerings in the past, both of which were family-hauling wagons. Today’s Studebaker is a more luxurious and less capacious hardtop coupe. Let’s have a look at a rare 1958 Golden Hawk.

Today is the second portion of the Vector story, which we began in our most recent Rare Rides post. Troubled from the start, the company underwent a hostile takeover by a firm called MegaTech, and fired its founder almost immediately.

The first MegaTech-developed product is our subject vehicle ⁠— the long and low M12. With an NAIAS debut in 1996, it seemed like Vector had a promising immediate future. Or did it?

Which elite-class supercar features the marker lights from a Miata, rear lamps from a Cavalier, and the steering wheel of a Mustang? There’s only one answer: The Vector M12.

The Rare Rides series has touched on Jaguars multiple times previously. But perhaps those beautiful and powerful sporting vehicles lacked something the true car enthusiast always requires: cargo capacity.

Presenting the very rare Jaguar X-Type Sportwagon.

Morgan is a carmaker for traditionalists who wear tweeds, enjoy wooden car frames, and shun modern technology. Its customers’ tobacco pipes are firmly pointed toward the past.

Seems like today’s Rare Ride is not for them. Presenting the 2007 Aero 8.

Our most recently featured Citroën was a BX five-door hatchback, which made its way to Maine on a plane from Spain. But perhaps, as some readers indicated in the comments, it wasn’t Citroën enough given its development on a platform also used for Peugeot vehicles.

Maybe this more pure French beauty will satisfy: An ID19 Le Dandy coupe, from 1962.

Subaru started its first full decade in North America in the Seventies, where it sold the microscopic rear-engined 360. By the Eighties the company had found its niche among crunchy granola types and professors with four-wheel drive wagons like the GL. But Subaru wanted more; specifically customers with more money. Enter the XT.

The demand for executive limousines in North America was once satisfied by OEM-lengthened versions of domestic sedans. The Detroit Three built them in-house, or sent regular cars to a domestic coach builder. The lengthened cars were then sold via the regular dealership network. The desired buyer was a wealthy customer who’d have a driver for their daily conveyance. By the Eighties, the limousine market shifted in favor of coming with length: Stretch limousines were in demand. Independent companies built super-extended wheelbase cars for livery-type needs. The factory limousine car market faded away as business magnates chose standard sedans, or long-wheelbase offerings that were not limousines.

But there were one or two holdouts in the factory limousine marketplace, and today’s Rare Ride is one such car. It’s the Chrysler Executive from 1983.

Sometimes, motorcars of high specification end up off-limits to some markets due to issues relatively outside the manufacturer’s control: funding, distribution, or perhaps regulation. Aston Marton took a different approach with the Lagonda Taraf, and intentionally limited their super sedan to just one market.

Maybe that was for the best.

Car manufacturers don’t always strike a chord with consumers, and even studious brand Lexus is not immune from model flops. Back in 2012, the company offered three compact vehicles nobody wanted.

Today you’ll select one to take home for keeps, whether you like it or not.

The end of the Seventies was a time of quiet reflection. A time where Americans pondered things like fuel prices, polyester suits, and what a large sedan should be. As the reality of automotive downsizing moved ever closer to realization, one or two of the large sedan dinosaurs had a last hurrah. Today’s Rare Ride is one such example.

It’s a 1979 Lincoln Town car; more specifically the extra-luxurious Williamsburg Edition.

We, like everyone else, bemoaned Cadillac’s new V-Series models for seeming underpowered. And yet the company now suggests that putting a lid on power was part of the plan all along. Apparently, GM claims, shoppers were being scared off by the CTS-V’s big numbers.

“There was, frankly, some people who were intimidated by the cars,” GM President Mark Reuss elaborated last week, according to Automotive News. “When we did a [V-Series], they were hammers … There’s some intimidation there.”

While undoubtedly true of some customers, is Cadillac certain that’s the message they want to impart? No matter how you slice this cadaver, the fact remains that the brand is still delivering two V-Series entrants that fail to impress on paper the way their predecessors did. We’ll happily admit that horsepower isn’t everything, but you cannot lead with how the CT4-V’s improved efficiency and lighter curb weight will make it a better car than the ATS-V its replaces when all anyone can notice is a glaring horsepower disparity.