Extinct cars.

"Rainbow" (rainbeaux) 05/19/2017 at 09:57 • Filed to: None

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I was reading the FP thing about the Mitsubishi Model A, and apparently none of the 22 Model As built are accounted for today. So that got me thinking... What other production cars are fully extinct? No, the EV-1 doesn’t count; a few still exist in museums and whatnot. I want to hear about cars that, as far as anyone knows, will never be seen again.

K-Roll-PorscheTamer > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:01

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That’s actually a good question that I’ve never heard answered.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:07

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I was thinking the first Toyota AA I saw in the museum is a replica they built. There might be parts of an original but I don’t think any survived the war effort and war itself.

Rainbow > 415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) 05/19/2017 at 10:09

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One was found in Russia in 2008. It’s all rusty and rotten, and grafted to a GAZ chassis and powertrain, but it does still sort of exist.

It’s kinda like a coelacanth. Everyone thought it was gone, but then someone just happened to find one.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:09

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I know of a bunch of cars where less than five remain, but without just trolling the defunct marques list in Wikipedia, that’s a tough one. I guess there was a streamliner Panhard couchbuilt special I ran across a while back - probably a dozen or so made, none left - a newspaper ad and a shitty photo of one are about the only evidence it even existed. The neat trick would be finding something made in the thousands with no survivors, anywhere.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:12

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Oh I remember that, they couldn’t believe it was in Russia.

Future next gen S2000 owner > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:12

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This will probably be limited to early, low production number cars from the turn of the last century.

A few that may or may not exist:

Caloric - manufacturer, not a model. No models actually listed. Produced one car apparently which required a torch to start.

Acme - Actually produced cars for 8 years and had a ten year guarantee on one of their models.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_automobile_manufacturers_of_the_United_States

This is quite the rabbit hole. I probably won’t get any work done today.

Rainbow > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/19/2017 at 10:13

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I feel like that has to be a thing, though, where a thousands-strong car was completely erased.

Were there any obscure cars made directly by the Nazis or something, which nobody would have wanted after the war and it would have taken too long for anyone to appreciate the historical significance? That’s the only situation I can think of where,this could happen; people would have to actively despise it and seek to forget about it.

PartyPooper2012 > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:14

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There are many cars I hear of I have never heard of before - rare old cars. I think to myself hmmm that’s cool, but I have never heard of that car till now.

How would I know a car existed if I have never heard of it.

I suppose one should know a car existed to know it went extinct.

If we didn’t have fossils, we wouldn’t know dinosaurs existed. How would a car leave fossils?

WilliamsSW > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:20

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Hmmm, there was a time 15-20 years ago when no one thought any ‘61 Impala SS 409 cars had survived (out of 142 built, I think), but a few have since been found, and of course it’s fairly easy to build a clone anyways.

BUT IT’S NOT FAIR TO ASK THIS QUESTION WHEN I HAVE WORK TO DO TODAY!! :) :)

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:24

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It would have to have a political sense to be despised *or*, a flaw so crippling that nobody would have the will to save it, or possibly the means. That means to me that it would most easily be a car before modern parts supply networking (so, pre-50s?), probably from a defunct maker, and something sold in a semi-affluent nation (to avoid the Cuba/baling wire paradigm) to somebody who didn’t have the funds to be “eccentric” and cobble it back together but did have the funds (and market) to get another car.

Ideally, that would make it an American car, but because we’re crazy bastards with a very varied car culture, even the turds will have been preserved, mostly. My money instead is on somewhere like England (MOT regulations that would nuke any rusted shit-hulks of an unwanted model *before* a nutbar fell in love with it), or somewhere like South Korea, where emissions requirements are very, very tight and any cars more than a decade old typically get dragged off to resale in South America. The tricky thing there is finding a model or sub-model that wasn’t sold elsewhere in Asia, and a model that wouldn’t have survived in South America if it was even shipped there.

Extinct in one country? Pretty easy. Extinct everywhere? Much, much harder.

WilliamsSW > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:24

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I think it would have to be something along the lines of Torch’s ‘meh car Mondays’ to be completely erased. Everyone hated the Yugo, even when it was new - but it quickly became a kitschy thing, so there are people who like them for that. A car that rusted to bits quickly and was just bland would be a good candidate.

Sweet Trav > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:25

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A bone stock 240 lololololololol

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:26

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As a parallel to your Nazi idea, there are a lot of war planes made in the hundreds or thousands which don’t have surviving examples, or at least have very few. Governments scrapping things like that en masse, though - a little different than the civvie market.

hike > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:27

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I feel like the more interesting question is what’s the newest car that’s fully extinct. I’m sure there are a good number of random cars from way back that nobody bothered keeping around, but I’m sure there’s got to be at least one piece of crap from the 80s that they all just fell apart.

WilliamsSW > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/19/2017 at 10:29

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There are lots of examples of that — and quite a few very famous airplanes, at that. The CAF and a few others have been finding hulks here and there and getting them airworthy again, though, sometimes reviving an extinct model. So extinction might not be permanent for them—

Rainbow > hike 05/19/2017 at 10:34

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Yeah, that’s a good point. I’m sure there’s gotta be SOME sort of small car company that just flopped immediately.

kanadanmajava1 > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 10:37

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A friend of a friend had a weird project car. It was a French car originating from 1910's but I don’t remember the brand. It was in pretty bad condition and not much was left. But he still decided to restore it.

But he had one problem. There wasn’t single photo existing of that obscure car. So he couldn’t make look like original car as no-one knew what it’s supposed to look.

He did eventually restore it and he built the body from scratch in a way that it might have looked. But in a way the car model was and is extinct.

duurtlang > WilliamsSW 05/19/2017 at 10:40

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61 Impala SS 409

When broadening the search from model (61 Impala) to certain special editions (61 SS 409 edition of the Impala) the chance that a certain version has totally gone extinct becomes much larger.

WilliamsSW > duurtlang 05/19/2017 at 11:04

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Very true - I only threw that one out there because some time ago, I read in several publications that it was thought (incorrectly) to be extinct. Plus, I doubt it ever had a stretch where it would have been undesirable and forgotten.

1967ers - lover of dead auto marques > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 11:06

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There were the cooper-cooled Chevrolets (mid-1920s) that were so awful that Chevy bought them all back. One for sure got away, though, because Henry Ford bought it to study.

WilliamsSW > 1967ers - lover of dead auto marques 05/19/2017 at 11:12

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That’s an interesting angle to take - a car that had such major issues that the manufacturer bought them back, or they mostly ended up getting modified to be more reliable.

This is why many of the early FI or turbocharged American cars of the late ‘50's or early ‘60's are so rare. But even then, I don’t think any of them are extinct. Closest might be the Olds Cutlass Jetfire - the turbo was highly unreliable, but there are still a few of those around even.

Die-Trying > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 12:00

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the helica roadster...... circa 1919. does being in a museum count? its not like it is run or driven. its basically dead on its wheels......

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 12:41

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I’ve never seen a Hyundai Pony.

Slant6 > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 13:04

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I know there are several locomotives that have been completly scrapped. Can’t think of any examples, but some mainline streamliners are completely gone.

It’s much harder to store a train in a shed for 50 years than it is a car.

1967ers - lover of dead auto marques > 1967ers - lover of dead auto marques 05/19/2017 at 13:16

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That was supposed to say “copper” instead of “cooper.”

1967ers - lover of dead auto marques > WilliamsSW 05/19/2017 at 13:18

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Another scenario might be an unpopular base model that frequently was cannibalized for parts to restore a more upscale model.

Michael_N > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent 05/19/2017 at 13:48

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Apparently zero Pony’s are left registered in the UK, according to an article on Hagerty. Although there is a picture of at least one in a museum somewhere.

https://www.hagertyinsurance.co.uk/articles-and-resources/all-articles/2012/11/11/threatened-endangered-and-extinct

There seem to be a few left elsewhere in the world. (Specifically, I’m talking about the first generation here, 1975-1982)

RT > Rainbow 05/19/2017 at 15:02

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The last surviving Subaru FF-1 AWD (which was the first ever AWD Subaru), sadly got destroyed in the 2011 Thoku tsunami.

http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/how-subaru-became-masters-of-awd/

pip bip - choose Corrour > Rainbow 05/20/2017 at 10:58

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the only one i can think of is the Australian made Millard Design Maleo in the mid ‘90s , 5 were made (possibly more, maybe not) , i’ve been contacting all car museums here in Australia but no one has one, i’m going to start trying car clubs next, then i’m going to try and find and contact Gary Millard the brains behind Millard design who built them

i doubt they exist now tbh.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > PartyPooper2012 05/25/2017 at 08:40

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Because cars are artifacts and not natural, and because they’re a consumer product, it follows that there would be some record of it somewhere in an archive. If no records exist, then the car is completely extinct.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > Michael_N 05/25/2017 at 08:41

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Zero Pony hatchbacks. Apparently some of the sedans are still running around.

PartyPooper2012 > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 05/25/2017 at 09:19

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right... so if a car existed, but now no record exist, does it mean car never existed?

Same with dinosaurs. If we never found any fossils, we would be saying there were never dinosaurs on earth... but only until we found a record/fossil

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > PartyPooper2012 05/25/2017 at 10:18

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I see what you’re saying but I don’t think the dinosaur metaphor is specific enough.

Let’s just say that a man named Horatio Abilene Farglesworth made cars called the “Farglesworth Flyer” but they were only sold in an oil town in Saskatchewan. The oil ran out, everyone left town, and the Farglesworth Flyers were left to rot. Then there was an earthquake that shook the remains to dust, destroyed his factory, and swallowed the town’s newspaper archives, which held the . Then the cars still existed, but only for the space and time where there was evidence of them.

We know other cars exist, but the Farglesworth Flyer is gone from collective memory. Until one is discovered, they don’t exist at all. Take, for example, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. We knew that dinosaurs in general, and theropods specifically, existed before 1902. But the tyrannosaur was an unknown unknown.