There are plenty of models on the market today that make absolutely no sense. Take the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, for example, or those weird coupe-SUVs like the Mercedes GLS-Coupe or the BMW X6. They are oddballs that still somehow found their way onto the market. It’s always been this way, but back in the 1990s, it was a little different. It wasn’t automakers coming up with weirdly shaped cars or creating small little niches that only they fill. Instead, it was badge engineering, market crowding (much like the SUV market today) and the transition of cars from old-school platforms to new, modernized setups. Some cars lost all clout when transitioning from rear-wheel drive to front-wheel drive. Other cars were just a little ahead of their time or cannibalized by another model in the same lineup. Some were just badge-engineered cars with mildly updated looks.

All automakers were responsible for this but GM was plump with companies under its belt and it had enough senseless cars that you need both hands and feet to count (assuming you have 10 fingers and 10 toes, that is.) Today we’re going to look at 20 of them from the 90s and talk a little more about them. You’ll find a lot of models that you recognize like the Geo Metro, Buick Regal, and Pontiac Sunfire but there are also some you’ve probably never heard of. It was a busy world in the 1990s, and this is the story of 18 cars that simply didn’t belong.

18 Chevy Monte Carlo

via Wikipedia

The Monte Carlo name had a lot of clout, running four consecutive generations from 1970 to 1988. It wasn’t exactly a muscle car, but it had some strong selling points, including the mid-80s models with the introduction of the SS model and its bullet-proof 305 V-8. The Monte Carlo ended before the 1990s as GM struggled to compete with the demand for fuel economy and the recession.

Then, 1995 came along, and GM decided to reintroduce the Monte Carlo name, but it did so on a front-wheel-drive car that was nothing more than a two-door Chevy Lumina.

That’s right; Chevy threw a somewhat iconic name on a two-door version of what had become a throwaway car by the mid-1990s, ditching rear-wheel drive for front-wheel drive in the process. It made absolutely no sense as the Lumina, even as a two-door, wasn’t very popular anyway. The Monte Carlo name did survive until the mid-2000s, though, so maybe it made a little more sense than we actually think.

17 Chevy Lumina

Chevrolet Lumina Sedan
via Chevy

The Lumina was GM’s main competitor for the Ford Taurus and, from a business perspective, the Lumina made sense. What didn’t make sense about the Lumina, as pointed out by Curbside Classic, is the fact that it arrived on the market in 1990, four years after the Ford Taurus. On top of that, it was a bit inferior to the Taurus due to the design actually being seven years old at the time of launch. In the end, it offered up fairly reliable transportation, had a sound platform, and decent styling for the time, but GM missed their mark by a few years, and it ultimately condemned the Lumina from the start.

16 Fourth-Gen Pontiac Grand Am

via wikimedia commons

The Pontiac Grand Am wasn’t necessarily a bad car, but it shared a platform and general chassis with models from Buick and Oldsmobile. As a compact car, the Grand Am made sense, but the fourth-gen design (1992-1998 model years) was plagued by several problems, as pointed out by Consumer Auto Guide, including engine noise and road noise during normal driving. Even worse, however, was how the rearward-sitting cabin and short trunk that made entry and exit from the rear taxing and downright difficult. That was the fourth generaton’s biggest flaw and why this specific design made absolutely no sense.

15 Geo Metro

via bestcarmag

The Geo Metro is what happens when you take the phrase “if you can’t beat them, join them” to heart. It was derived from a partnership between GM and Suzuki and was really nothing more than a rebadged Suzuki Cultus.

The Metro name actually ran from 1989 to 2001, but from 1998 to 2001, it was sold as a Chevy Metro instead. In short, there was absolutely nothing special about the car aside from its anybody-can-afford price range.

As pointed out by Aaron Gold over at Autotrader, the Geo was a lackluster as they come, with super thin plastic trim, almost no go (we’re talking somewhere around 55 horsepower) and super thin wheels and tires. Accord to Gold, it was the “most miserable new car” he had ever driven, and that’s why it’s on this list. Despite GM needing a cheap, entry-level model, it just didn’t have the ability to get out of its own way let alone compete with anything else on the market.

14 GM EV-1

via GM

The GM EV-1 was, literally, the first electric vehicle to be mass-produced by a major automaker, and it came to be way back in 1996. It was a futuristic little car with a strange but attractive digital interior and a weird exterior look. There were two generations with the first-gen model offering up between 70 and 100 miles of range and the second-gen model offering between 80 and 100 miles of range. That car itself was limited to certain areas in the United States and could only be leased at that.

It was so loved by those that drove it, according to smithsonianmag, that there was actually a funeral and “last drive” before GM took possession of the cars when the EV-1 program ended. The EV-1 wasn’t a car that didn’t make sense – what didn’t make sense was GM’s desire to kill what could have led the EV evolution.

13 Chevy Lumina APV

via Wikipedia

The Lumina APV was a rebadged version of the Pontiac Transport – a model that set a new low for concept cars turned production. The concept model of the Lumina/Transport minivans was awesome but the GM production version, as pointed out by Jalopnik, was a complete failure.

Originally designed to compete against the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager, the Lumina APV - along with the Olds Silhouette and Pontiac Transport - eventually became known as dustbuster vans.

They were known for interior rattles, ball joints, and oil leaks, among other things. In the end, GM didn’t try very hard with these vans, despite their desire to compete with Chrysler, and that’s why the Lumina APV (and its cousins from Olds and Pontiac) died off in 1996.

12 Chevy Beretta

via Chevy

The Chevy Beretta was actually a decent car, but GM went a little too far with it. Over the years of production, there were numerous versions produced, with some special editions including a high-performance GTZ model and an Indy convertible model. But, these models were expensive to make and, as pointed out by Streetdirectory.com, only three Indy convertible models were produced. Between the cost to build the car in limited qualities, the lack of models that Chevy fanboys wanted, and a legal battle over the Beretta name with a gun manufacturer, the Beretta was done by the mid-1990s. The car itself made sense, but GM's approach to its name and building it, on the other hand, did not.

11 Saturn S-Series

via wheelsage

According to Saturn.com (via webarchive,) Saturn was a company that operated relatively independent of GM and the rest of GM companies. And, that explains why the Saturn S-Series cars were so different. If there’s one thing the S-Series had going for it, it was that it wasn’t a rebadged model of something else from GM. It was designed to compete against the Japanese automakers, but what didn’t make sense was its architecture. Its design incorporated a spaceframe, which allowed Saturn to include lots of plastic exterior pieces, ultimately giving it the impression of being cheaply made. They weren’t bad cars, really, but it’s not uncommon to come across one on the road with a big hole in the plastic door.

10 Buick Regal

via wikimedia commons

The first generation of the Buick Regal may have been sold as a sedan, but the second-gen model that ran from 78 to 87 made its mark in history as a modern muscle car, especially when you think about the Grand National Turbo, T-Type, and GNX.

These were amazing cars, but GM ultimately went way wrong when it came to the third generation model that was produced from 1988 to 1996.

GM essentially threw out a gorgeous, rear-wheel-drive coupe and turned the Regal into a car that was similar to other GM FWD cars, including the lackluster design and front-wheel-drive architecture. None of it made sense, and the Regal is, as of 2018, finally starting to regain its identity and offer a more stylish look.

9 Buick Roadmaster

via ewallpapers

GM decided to reboot the Roadmaster name in the 90s, bringing it back as a station wagon and a sedan. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing (definitely nowhere as bad as what automakers are doing nowadays...ahem…Chevy Blazer) but GM was a little late to the party with its full-size, body-on-frame, wagon.

Had the Roadmaster name come back to the market a decade sooner, it would have made complete sense but, as pointed out by Curbside Classic, the demand for wagons had diminished. They were seen as uncool, much like Minivans are today. In the end, bringing back the Roadmaster name was a good idea, but GM’s decision to do it in the early 1990s made absolutely no sense.

8 GMC Syclone

via GMC

The GMC Syclone was actually an amazing truck and one that was very rewarding to drive. In fact, according to cheatsheet.com, it could hit 60 mph in 4.6 seconds – not bad for a truck the size of an S-10. It also beat out a Ferrari 348s, according to Car & Driver. Clearly, the problem wasn’t with the truck, so why didn’t it make sense? It was really just a Frankenstein model that started life at a Buick plant when a bunch of bored engineers went crazy.

Chevy already had the 454 SS sports truck, and a smaller model would have just cannibalized it, so it ended up with a boosted 4.3-liter engine and a GMC badge.

With one GM sports truck on the market, less than 3,000 Syclones were sold. It was an amazing concept and a blast to drive, it just came to market at the wrong time.

7 GMC Typhoon

gmc-typhoon
Via GMC

The GMC Typhoon is another one of those cars that came to life at the wrong time, just like the Syclone. Based on the same principle, and derived from the same Buick experiment, the GMC Typhoon was fast.

It was essentially a Jimmy that featured GM’s 4.3-liter and a Mitsubishi turbocharger. Today, lowered and powerful SUVs sell like hotcakes but back in the 1990s? Not so much.

Road & Track has an image of the original flyer that listed the Typhoon as having a 5.6-second sprint to 60 mph and a quarter-mile time of 14.3 seconds. It had the power, it even had the looks, but it too came at the wrong time and was short-lived, spending just a couple of years on the market.

6 1991-92 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser

via wheelsage

The Custom Cruiser is the sheer definition of what happens when an automaker is too slow to react to changing markets. According to Consumerguide.com, 1991 was the first time the Custom Cruiser saw a restyling since it was downsized in 1977. By the 1990s, the wagon market had pretty much collapsed, but GM decided to revamp the B-body models anyway. After what had to be loads of money spent on turning the Custom Cruiser into a modern, bubbly wagon, the nameplate was discontinued just two years after the revised model hit the market. Why GM decided to revamp the Custom Cruiser while wagon sales were slumping is beyond us, but it certainly didn’t make sense from a financial standpoint. On the plus side, it’s now a rare model and might be worth something to someone who’s into wagons.

5 Oldsmobile Achieva

via strongauto

The Oldsmobile Achieva was only offered from 1992 to 1997 and was a replacement for the Cutlass Calais. Its biggest downside, aside from lackluster trim and a lack of features, was the fact that it shared everything under the body with both the Buick Skylark and the Pontiac Grand Am. Because of this, it was outgunned by its own siblings on the market. According to Consumerguide, it was significantly cheaper than the Japanese compacts on the market at the time, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Achieva alive beyond the 1997 model year. While it didn’t exactly make sense based on its sibling models, it was offered with a manual transmission and looked pretty cool in coupe form, so it at least had that going for it.

4 Pontiac Sunfire

via wheelsage

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that Pontiac was in trouble during the 1990s. The Pontiac Sunfire, a replacement for the Pontiac Sunbird, is a testament to that. It was a badge-engineered model that shared its styling and just about everything else with the Chevy Cavalier, but it never saw any major updates in the 11 years it was on the market – new tech came after 2000, of course, but it was still, essentially, the same car. Pontiac could have had a real winner on its hands if it had done it right, but, as Edmunds points out, the seats were far from comfortable, the manual shifter was imprecise, and the materials inside were lackluster at best. It was a budget car, though, which was part of the problem. Had Pontiac used better materials inside and fixed issues with the manual transmission, the car would have been much better off.

3 Pontiac Sunrunner

via Flickr

Badge engineering in the 90s ran rampant, and the Pontiac Sunrunner is a prime example of that. As reported by Autoweek, it was a Canadian-market vehicle that started life under the Asuna brand name. GM Canada dropped that name quickly and decided to just throw a Pontiac badge on the one model it had made in the short period of time the Asuna brand existed.

In the end, it’s really just a Geo Tracker with a Pontiac badge and a short, almost completely forgotten history. I bet you haven’t even heard of it, have you?

Don’t worry, you’d have to be Canadian to know what it was, and even most of them don’t know about it. The funny thing is that GM cared so little about this Canadian car that it didn’t even provide any modifications to handle the rough Canadian winters. You could have a block heater if you paid for it, but that’s about the extent of things.

2 Pontiac Grand Prix

via Wheelsage

In the late 1980s, Pontiac morphed the rear-wheel-drive Grand Prix into a front-driven sports coupe of sorts. That model ran until 1996 when the next-gen model was introduced. The biggest problem with the 90s Grand Prix is that it strayed so far from its roots. The 91-96 Coupe, especially it GTP form, was a rather sporty car and it handled well too, but – as reported by Consumer Guide – the rear seats were far from comfortable (unless you had the GTP with a 2+2 layout) the engine was noisy, and the ride quality was far from awesome.

What made things worse is that it was heavily based on the Chevy Lumina, Buick Regal, and Cutlass Supreme of the times, and it put a real damper on the Grand Prix name. The 96 and newer models were even worse with more of a family car look – a far cry from the muscle-like look of the cars that came before.

1 Chevy Tracker

via zombiedrive

The Chevy Tracker – GM Badge Engineering at its finest. It was essentially a rebadged version of the Suzuki Vitara and was destined to compete with the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV 4.

The problem with the Chevy Tracker was that it was downscale in comparison it’s identical twin with a different badge.

And, as Truck Trend points out, it was beat hands down by its main competitors. On that note, it did do quite well in off-road settings despite its small size, so it did have something going for it, but it wasn’t enough to take on the Japanese rivals it was intended to best.

Sources: Edmunds, Truck Trend, Consumer Guide, Car & Driver