FIVE HITS AND MISSES FOR RESURRECTED CAR MODELS

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The birth of a legend can occur in the automotive field.

Some cars and trucks are born to become legends and will be immortalized forever long after their last model leaves the assembly line.

Occasionally, the retro ride’s parent company will honor the vehicle’s legacy with an updated version many years after the last original model was sold as a brand-new model.

Jim Sutherland

Sometimes they get it right, and many times they get it wrong when it comes to a factory-built tribute model.

We at MyStarCollectorCar have noticed the hits and misses, so we decided to compile a list of five examples that lean toward both categories and share them with our readers.

The first retro ride that got our attention was the Classic Mini built by British Motor Corporation (later British Leyland) in 1959 because the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis choked off fuel supplies for Great Britain and drove up the pump price. It was a situation eerily familiar to the current Strait of Hormuz issue in terms of supply and demand for fuel, and begat the original Mini because it provided excellent MPG.

The current Mini builder is BMW, and they decided to build a bigger version of the original version in 2001. The result was a bloated Mini that lost its cuteness when it went to a plus-size. The chunkier new Mini is likely a better car, but its size increase is more than a little off-putting for purists. 

The second car to honor the past with the present is the Dodge Challenger. In 2008, the Mopar boys created a 21st century tribute to the original Challenger built from 1970 until 1974. One would assume they ignored the 1978-83 Challengers because they were crappy rebadged imports with only a nameplate to share with the original Challeys.

The 2008 Challenger was true to the old school look and honored the legacy of the original Challenger very effectively in our opinion here at MyStarCollectorCar.     

The same conclusion could be attached to our third tribute car, namely the 2005 Ford Mustang; a pony car that dialed in the look of a 1967 to 1970 Mustang.

We believe the Blue Oval boys did an excellent job with their 21st century recreation of their 1960s pony car. As a result, we will give a thumbs-up to Ford for their decision to go retro with their 2005 Mustang design. It almost makes us forget their electric soccer mom Mustang SUV abomination sold over the past few years. But not quite. 

The fourth tribute ride on our list is the Chevy SSR pickup truck built between 2003 and 2006. The 21st century pickup was built to honor the legacy of Chevy’s famous Advance Design pickups built from 1947 until about halfway through 1955.

The SSR celebrated the basic Advance Design style from a bygone era but with a modern interpretation of the earlier trucks. New age features included a retractable hardtop roof that made customers lean toward the tribute truck’s retro custom style that paid homage to the Advance Design trucks from yesteryear.

The net result was a very cool custom version of the original truck that did not require the wizardry of a talented fabricator to build it. We like the SSR designers’ creativity and applaud them for their efforts.

The fifth and final addition to our list is the Volkswagen ID.Buzz, an electric version of the original VW microbus/van made famous by wandering hippies in the 1960s.

The new VW van resembles the original version and can easily outrun the earlier flower power van right up to the point when the new electric model runs out of juice and strands them 50 miles from the nearest commune.

The electric VW van gets a very enthusiastic thumbs-down from us here at MyStarCollectorCar and is not high on our list of cool tribute vehicles.

But possibly higher than an electric soccer mom Mustang SUV.    

Jim Sutherland

BY: Jim Sutherland

Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section. 

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