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Technology flops

Not all innovations are a great idea. We look back at some which didn’t quite work out…

By:Auto Express team
6 Jul 2012

The car industry is constantly trying to develop new ideas and technology that will catch on with the public.

More often than not the manufacturers get it right. But not always. The past few decades are littered with tales of technological ‘genius’ that quickly turned sour – whether they’re innovations that were ahead of their time or simply too outlandish from the outset. So here we salute some of motoring’s most notable epic fails…

  • The electric tricycle

    Arguably one of the most high-profile flops, the C5 was British boffin Sir Clive Sinclair’s solution for eco-friendly personal mobility way back in 1985. The battery-powered tricycle, which was steered by a handlebar under the ‘driv

  • The square steering wheel

    The Austin Allegro is not, it’s fair to say, a car that’s remembered fondly. Charged with saving British Leyland in the seventies, it was underpowered, ugly and miserably unreliable, so much so it was christened the “All Aggro”. Cle

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  • The talking dashboard

    Austin's successor to the Allegro was the Maestro, which was dubbed ‘Cowley’s computer car’ on account of being designed by machines and built by robots. But the tech that really hit the headlines was the space-age digital dashboard

  • The steering revolution

    Not all failures are bad ideas. The concept behind the 1988 Honda Prelude’s four-wheel steering was admirable – to improve the manouevrability of the car. In two-wheel-drive cars, the rear wheels are always directed forward, so do n

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  • The mutant crossover

    Creating a popular new market sector is a holy grail for manufacturers. And in hindsight, US brand Pontiac’s idea to fashion the crossover class in 2001 was a good one. A compact car with SUV looks, the Aztek targeted ‘younger drive

  • The nuclear powered-car

    This wasn’t a crackpot invention from a bedroom engineer in the back of beyond. The 1957 Nucleon had Ford’s might behind it. In an era where atomic power was enthusiastically investigated, the idea of a nuclear car with zero-em

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  • The EV experiment

    Can General Motors’ EV1 really be considered a failure? Or was it just too far ahead of its time? Produced and leased by GM from 1996 to 1999 in the US, it was the first purpose-built electric vehicle in the modern era from a major

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