That
Didn’t
54 PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL SIMARI ~ APRIL 2020 ~ CAR AND DRIVER
Occasionally, technolog y emerges that
promises to change the way things are
done, then fails. When the paradigm
doesn’t shift, conspiracy theorists
whisper, “Here’s what really happened,
man.” But a novel idea isn’t usually killed
because some corporation decided to
quash it. What really happens is far less
treacherous. Here are three ideas that
sounded like the next big thing but ulti-
mately weren’t. —To n y Qu i r o g a
Two-Strokes
In the early 1990s, advancements in fuel injection promised
to make the power-dense two-stroke engine once again
viable for passenger-car use. In 1991, we wrote, “You might
expect to see a... two-stroke in limited production by 1996.”
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implies, perform all the tasks of a four-stroke engine—intake,
compression, power, exhaust—in two strokes, but rushing
those steps leads to NOx-emission headaches. Chrysler and
the Australian company Orbital developed engines into the
mid-’90s but could not solve the emissions hurdles, relegat-
ing the two-stroke to Saab history. Also, Saab died.The Wankel Engine
In the ’60s, Felix Wankel’s triangle-in-a-beer-keg engine had engi-
neers at GM, Mercedes-Benz, NSU, and, of course, Mazda scrambling
to get the design into production. Known colloquially as the rotary,
it was supposed to have replaced the comparatively complex recip-
rocating-piston engine by now, but only Mazda persisted with the
design. The oblong combustion chamber of a Wankel hamstrings fuel
economy and emissions so badly that it rendered this elegantly sim-
ple, compact, smooth, and high-revving engine design a dead end.Saturn
After spending the 1970s watching
Japan’s cars erode his company’s market
share, GM CEO Roger Smith decided to
spend $5 billion to take on the import
competition by creating a brand called
Saturn. Founded in 1985, Saturn was
more than just a small-car maker; it
was supposed to change the way GM
did things and improve worker relations, productivity,
vehicle quality, and the dealership experience. Saturn
launched with a plastic-bodied coupe and sedan for the
1991 model year and gained an early cult following, but
sales were slower than expected. While GM initially
intended Saturn to have unique models, the brand inev-
itably added reworked corporate products to its lineup
and replaced the original designs with the regrettable
Ion. In 2007, Saturn stopped building cars at its plant
in Spring Hill, Tennessee, where devoted owners had
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applause when they bought a car, death came in 2010. IL
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