ITT: We make a case for the most innovative production vehicles

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What about innovative cars that were hated right out of the gate?

Tucker Torpedo, I'll spare you the wall of text, look it up on askjeeves

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>>14076297
I was going the 48

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Feel free to post the Tucker in relation to the topic, and the Tucker -could- have been a significantly more groundbreaking car, but with the long list of features they abandoned in the production version because of costs and complexity it ended up doing mostly the same things as the Tatra, only much later, apart from a few new safety features with weren't even concern yet in the '30s.

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>>14076308
or maybe a ds

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>>14076322
Oh yes, that one definitely. The innovations are literally 2much2list, starting with the self leveling hydropneumatic suspension, safety design, aerodynamics and four wheel disc brakes, I just thought it to be too obvious to use for the first post.

Now that the DS is already mentioned I can safely add that Citroen's innovations started much earlier when they introduced the world's first mass production unibody front wheel drive car in 1934, the Traction Avant, also with independent suspension in the front.

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Also the Cord 810 and 812, which in 1936 was America's and one of the world's first front wheel drive cars with independent front suspension, visually featured a streamlined, incredibly low tubbed body (like the Traction Avant) with the world's first (hand cranked) hidden headlights and the world's first fuel filler door, but also came with some interesting technical features in the form of an internally developed pre-select semi-automatic transmission, standard radio which wouldn't become a thing on other cars for another 20 years, and variable speed powered windshield wipers at a time when most cars still had hand cranked wipers, if at all.

The Cord wasn't very successful or numerously built, but was licensed by Graham-Paige in 1940 as the Graham Hollywood and turned into a rear wheel drive car with a tall transmission tunnel, a visually different shorter front end with fixed headlights and fewer features overall.

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Matra Djet, first launched as the rene bonnet Djet, was the first post war mid engined road going car (since pionner cars tried every position imaginable).

It's notable because much like lotus, it heralded a new era of specialist sport cars that were essentially conceived with their own specifications and configuration but managed to use plenty of OEM components.

It was also a pioneer of the use of glassfiber as not only the body but also as a partial chassis, and it featured fully independent suspension by unequal A Arms.

>>14076517
Nice, would drive. The low weight at those dimensions is astonishing, usually cars have to be at least two feet shorter to become this lightweight.

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>that meme loving fuck

No, the interior space concept was actually really innovative for its class back when this car got released.

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>>14076322
is the ds really more so than the SM?

>>14076588
Was there even anything new on the SM that you couldn't already find on the DS apart from a more powerful V6 and a new type of response-free self-centering power steering? I mean, it was still an innovative vehicle for its time, probably even deserving of a mention in this context, but it merely built upon the DS which was a far bigger breakthrough.

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Prove. Me. Wrong.

>>14076625
Not sure if affordability and innovative production methods make something an innovative product. Purely as a car it didn't succeed competitors in any major regards, in fact it wasn't a great car to begin with, it was merely much cheaper than the rest.

Volkswagen Rabbit. No contest one of the most pivotal cars ever created. Spawned a huge segment in the market that still exists today and is stronger than ever.

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>>14076284
>country that's never really been on anyone's automotive radar.


who do you take me for, a pleb?

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>>14079532
...Except it actually didn't? You'r confusing being sucessful in the usa with actually introducing the innovation. For that you'd have to pick either the mini, which introduced the transverse engine layout, and the space saving FF configuration, or the fiat 127 which has essentially defined the configuration of cars today, with the transmission inline with the engine rather than below it.

You can't even credit the rabbit with the gti concept since again, it wasn't the one that introduced it either.

>>14076647
Well, its the car that really kicked off car ownership amongst the commoners, and it was designed and marketed as being multifunctional, with some models being converted into flatbed trucks, and others used as tractors, machinery, and even wierd stuff like mobile churches.

As for innovation, the only thing you could say is that it was cheap, and was built purposely that way. The car cost about $2,500-3,000 in today's money, so not much more than a Tata Nano over in India. Ford's later models, such as the Model A and V8 Coupe were more innovative.

>>14076322

I'm in Sellwood, OR and there's a dude with a Citroen DS i'm so jealous a few blocks away from me.

>>14080109
*jealous of

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The Amphicar

this shit crosses rivers

and still can get 70 on the highway

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>google for innovative cars
>1916 Cadillac Type 53 credited with introducing the modern cockpit layout of pedals, gear lever and so on
>looks exactly like any other pre-30s car
>tfw pre-30s cars will forever all look the same to you even though it was probably the most quickly advancing era in automotive history

The only correct answers are:
>Alfa 6C 1500 Sport
>Citroen Traction Avant
>Citroen 2CV
>Citroen DS
>Chevrolet Corvair
>Mercedes S Class
>Alfa Romeo Spider (innovation developed by Fiat)
>Alfa Romeo 156

>>14081073
You are aware that by the time the Corvair was released, various RR cars had been in production for the past 25 years, right?

>>14076284
>The 87 even managed 160kph / 100 mph four years later, which not only made it by far the fastest and most economical executive sedan at the time, but one of the fastest production cars, period.

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of occupying German officers loved this car for its speed but it was later banned because so many of them died from accidents caused throttle-off oversteer.

They used to joke that it killed more Germans than the Czechs themselves.

>>14081143
For what I know that's correct, also Hitler himself had quite a few dinners with the Tatra's designer and was quoted saying that this was the Autobahn car he was envisioning. Ledwinka and Ferdinand Porsche also had frequent contact and the Tatra and Beetle have more or less been developed side by side in an exchange of ideas, though of course the Tatra in a considerably more luxurious vehicle class than the common man's Beetle.

No nsu ro80? I think it should be mentioned among the most innovative cars.

>>14076297
>The oil pressure fed to each valve was "timed" by intake and exhaust eccentrics and measured by spring-loaded plungers.[17] Built of aluminum and magnesium castings with steel-plated cylinder linings, the huge pistons required up to 60 volts to turn over the starter, nearly triple the power of a normal starter.[17] This unique engine was designed to idle at 100 rpm and cruise at 250-1200 rpm through the use of direct-drive torque converters on each driving wheel instead of a transmission. It was designed to produce almost 200 hp (150 kW; 200 PS)1 and 450 lb·ft (610 N·m) of torque at only 1800 RPM. When cruising at 60 mph (97 km/h), it would only turn at approximately 1000 rpm.[17] These features would have been auto industry firsts in 1948, but as engine development proceeded, problems appeared. Six prototypes of the 589 engine were built, but it was installed only in the test chassis and the first prototype

Holy Shit! Sounds like the stats of a marine diesel. Makes me sad that it never came to fruition.

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>>14081173
I was actually thinking of that prior to making the thread, but then I forgot all about it while typing up the other cars. This was one of the few cars ever that was so ahead of the curve that you could count it in decades, not years.

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>>14076572

Man, if you're going to go on about pioneers of efficient use of space, you may as well post the original from which all others are imitators.

The Twingo pushed the transverse FF layout to its limits but it was invented by Sir Alec Issigonis.

>>14080071
>or the fiat 127 which has essentially defined the configuration of cars today, with the transmission inline with the engine rather than below it.

It was the 128

>>14076647
>Purely as a car it didn't succeed competitors in any major regards

Oh but it did, at least when it was new.
It was the first mainstream car to have what we now think of as a modern engine block, with the cylinders and crankcase cast together as one monolithic piece. at the time pretty much all cars had one piece for the rotating assembly, and then jugs that would bolt on to the crankcase to house the cylinders. Before the T-engine, the biggest "monobloc" engines were 2-cylinder - an monolithic inline-4 block was a big fucking deal back in 1908 - almost as big a deal as a mass-production monobloc V8 in 1932.

Of course, then Henry built the same car virtually unchanged for 19 years straight until it was completely and totally obsolete. Even in 1927, you still couldn't get a T with front brakes or automatic spark advance.

>>14076293
pic unrelated?

did you ever read into what caused that abortion? its not a half bad car its just that it started as an ambitious project but GM as usual pulled the plug and had it be produced as an odd looking crossover

>>14081322
Okay, I didn't know that.

>>14081346
I have.

It was pitched to management as "C/K Blazer meets Firebird" but then the project was crippled by being deresourced and stuck on the U-body minivan platform.

Even so, I think it would have been successful if it had been introduced 5-10 years later, when the crossover craze was in full swing. The style & concept were outlandish and ridiculous back in 2000, but would have been totally mainstream in 2010, when minivan-based SUV's with angry angular lines started to become a license to print money.

>>14081126
first production turbo charged car, matey

>>14081374
Okay, so it's a car that could've been good but wasn't and the one mentionworthy feature is that you can stick a tent onto it?

>>14081382
Oh, I wasn't the guy who first posted it.

I think it's only mentionworthy in that it was a crossover before anyone knew what a crossover was.

But even in that respect, it got beat by the Forester.

>>14076361
>in 1934, the Traction Avant
A favourite of the GESTAPO

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>>14081583
It would've been my favorite too if I had been in charge of a secret squad for deportations and killings. That low slung body is totally badass.

>>14081706
not to mention the speed.
It was the hothatch before the hatch.

>>14081381

actually that would be the 1962 Cutlass Jetfire

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>>14082130