Pre-Recession American Cars

The 2000s were an awful time for American cars. Bland SUVs dominated dealerships, and even blander cars very clearly meant for rental fleets were put next to the SUVs to make the SUVs look more appealing. And next to those were unspeakably ugly, objectively terrible pieces of automotive diarrhea like the Chevrolet HHR and the Chrysler PT Cruiser.

And yet, throughout the 2000s, there were loads of weird yet good cars from American brands that were dismissed as half-baked ideas because of terrible styling, high MSRP (made worse by dealers increasing the sticker price even more) and complete misreading of the market (which, in the mid-2000s, was trending towards more economical cars because of rising gas prices).

Take the Chevrolet SSR (the car in the pic) for example. God, what a fucking ugly car. One of the worst abomination designs of the 'retro-modern' trend that dominated the decade. It was built off a Trailblazer platform, it was a hardtop convertible truck that really couldn't haul shit, and at $42,000, it had a really limited market when it launched in 2003. And yet, they stuck a 300hp V8 in this thing, and it could fly. In its final model year of 2006, they stuck a 400hp LS2 V8 from a Corvette in it, mated with a 6-speed manual transmission.

And there are plenty of examples of weird but unique American performance cars that have stories similar to the Chevrolet SSR. Virtually all of DaimlerChrysler's SRT cars from the decade (including the Chrysler Crossfire SRT-6, the only good Crossfire), and then weird GM cars like the Cobalt SS and the Kappa cars (Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky).

Do you have any other examples of weird but awesome American cars of the 2000s, or any general thoughts about them?

People can say what they want about them, but I love the looks of the last generation of Ford Thunderbirds.

captcha: pachuca Ford

The frontend looks great. The rear, not so much.

They went cheap as shit on the interior. Which sucks because I really believe that car could have saved the American coupe if they hadn't cheaped out on it.

You don't save something going forwards by looking backwards. The American coupe is a thing of the past, it has no place in the world anymore. It's like steam engines, a niché collectible.

I don't know what it is, but I NEVER saw these on the road when they were new. In fact, I didn't even remember they existed until i saw one on the road a year or so ago, and thought, "oh yeah, that's a thing"

So I get the feeling the interior isn't the flaw here, as all cars of it's generation have shitty interiors. Car interiors in general have been shit since the 80's at best, and hit rock bottom in the 90's and 00's

No, I get the feeling marketing is to blame.

I always saw ads for the newest Ford SUV, or Ram pickup truck, but I don;t think I remember a single commercial for this thing.

also this to an extent. Nothing signals that something has truly died, like returning to a retro design based off the original. Not only does it confuse people because it breaks continuity, but it screams of desperate pandering.

Just like the 00's Mustang and Camaro.

All it needs is a modest wing and it's a beauty front to back

Unfortunately, there are no good drivetrains available in these cars ergo there isn't one worth owning as a driver's car

The SSR is already a garage queen investment car especially the LS4 one.

The PT Cruiser I feel will come back into fashion. It's set up weird but GT Cruisers have the same drivetrains as SRT4s which are well known as beasts and come flogged and boiracer taxed as a result but GT Cruisers will survive and are available right now in good condition cheap. It's a good car to overboost, break then either fix or throw away your choice.

Really what OP wants is anything with an SRT emblem

>The American coupe is a thing of the past, it has no place in the world anymore.
This hurts me. I know I'll never see another Toronado or Cougar because those brands are FUCKING DEAD but I'd still like to see a Mark IX as a two-door, low-slung, RWD personal luxury car.

In what way did the fourth gen Camaro base itself off the original?

Why isn't this thing the official vehicle of Veeky Forums? Veeky Forums seems to have a boner for Miata's and small trucks and this thing is retarded love child of the two.

The 2000s were an awful time for America in general. Cheap identical-looking paperboard houses springing up everywhere. Post-movie SpongeBob flooding the TV's. Combination space heaters and computers thanks to the Pentium 4. Music like Avenged Sevenfold and My Chemical Romance that made you want to blow your brains out. Video games like Sonic '06. And of course, big gas-guzzling SUV's with McDonald's tier interiors and 1980s-spec 4-speed slushboxes. Their exterior styling was still better than anything made in the 2010s though.

Hold on a second there partner, music was pretty good until 2008, totally nonredeemable after 2010. I never liked A7x much, but they weren't that bad. I can't say much about MCR as a whole, but I won't take anyone shitting on the Welcome to the Black Parade album.

There's no such thing as an LS4 SSR.

It didn't, he's fucking retarded.

Probably no better example than the Prowler. Man, I would kill for US manufacturers to put out stuff like this nowadays.

>music was pretty good until 2008
How to spot a retard.

2000s WERE awful.

Sports cars were making death rattle sounds.

350z and RX-8 sales were already dying.

Performance cars were becoming economy cars with turbos, I guess.

SSR got made. Thunderbird got made. PT cruiser. HHR. Light SUVs solidified as the default car for sloppy people.

This decade is better because it's going out with a bang before autonomy ends it all.

What music are you into and why do you feel that it 2000s music sucked? I'm not going to argue that it was better than any previous decade's music, but it was still pretty good. At the very least it still had variety before the 2010s hit and country became pop, rock died and all that remains is metal, and not the good kind, and rap died after lil wayne got popular and the genre collectively forgot what a downbeat was.

I meant the 10's camaro. 5th gen not 4th. my bad

t. 18 year old

Rap was never good.

it was ok and sort of creative in the 90s at least

Another could-have-been-good-but-wasn't car from the 2000s. Why on earth did they put a Northstar in this thing? I still think it looks cool, but unfortunately it's destined to be a car for the housewife who can't handle a Corvette.

The new metal, specifically metalcore is good. Its just not the mainsteam shit and you have to look for it. Its a whole different scene than when bullet for my valentine and all that remains and bring me the horizon were big. Its more like killswitch engage sort of gave the foundation that this new heavier wave emerged from. With more instrumental technicality and more hardcore elements. August burns red, oceans ate alaska, silent planet, between the buried and me, architects, wage war. A lot of good stuff being put out right now. After the emo and scene shit caught on a lot of shit music was coming out but the past few years and right now there is a resurgence in good stuff.

What car

Cadillac XLR

Cadillac XLR. Uses the same platform as the corvette but with a Northstar instead of LS engine. Auto only and some were supercharged. Northstar engines were absolute garbage and the interior was mid 2000s era Cadillac quality.
So overall a pretty shit car which is why they didn't make many of them.
I think their MSRP was more than a Corvette as well, which made 0 sense in relation to what you got.

I just don't understand what GM's reason is for creating this car. It's a C5 Corvette with Cadillac skin plastered on it, and its only real competition on the market was the C6 Corvette, which was the same fucking car for $40,000 less.

At least the XLR-V came out of this, and weirdly the XLR is something of a collector's car now.

y'all are all wrong and need to lurk more. music from every generation is good. what got popular may not be but even in the harshest critics eyes, there is something good from every genre of music from every era. if you don't think so, you're romanticizing the music you grew up with and that's no one's fault but your own.