Keep With What Works.

I have been noticing a trend in the automotive industry lately. That trend is that once a company seems to have a working formula for a car that appeals to a certain group which generates steady (in some case great) sales figures, they screw with said formula and mess something perfect up.

The most recent blunder comes in the form of the yet to be released MazdaSpeed 3. Now before I continue let me backtrack and discuss what that car is and why it is a such a great car (which I have seriously considered purchasing on numerous occasions).

http://autoshow.roadfly.com/2010-mazdaspeed3.html

This car is something that up until recently NO other manufacturer in North America offered - a front wheel drive muscle car. That is because of the wicked fire breathing engine it has under the hood, a 263 horsepower and 280 lb ft of torque 2.3 litre turbo four cylinder monster that sends everything it has through the front wheel. For that reason almost alone this car has cornered a market, if you want an insanely powerful front wheel drive car then you have no where else to look in North America at least until the Ford Focus ST came along. Okay, let's face some facts here it doesn't exactly look all that much like a muscle car, it is kind of smiling at you. But that is not the point I am making here. What I am trying to say is Mazda stumbled upon something great here, then (from what I have read at least) they basically said screw it I don't like making money anymore.

You must be wondering where this is going. Well according to AutoExpress the next generation Mazda Speed 3 will loose the fire breathing 263 hp turbo 2.3 litre and replace it with, wait for it, a 200 hp 2.0 litre.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/mazda/3/65032/new-mazda-3-mps-its-way#main-content-area

WHY! to put this in perspective the upcoming Golf Gti has 220 hp with a performance option upgrade this can be raised to 230, The Ford Focus ST has 252 hp and the Suburu WRX STI has 305. So Mazda has decided to drop the turbo and use the engine from the base Mazda 3. Of course this will mean better gas mileage and the car will be sharp and by cutting weight it will probably be an absolute blast to drive and with Mazda's new Kodo Design Language (which basically means the design of the car and the way the car drives mimic an animal in motion, it can be seen on the current Mazda CX-5 and Mazda6) it will look great.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/mazda/3/65032/new-mazda-3-mps-its-way#main-content-area

That is the base 2014 Mazda 3, anything based off that will look awesome. I am not saying the new Speed 3 will be a bad car, I am saying they had a great thing going and in my opinion they screwed it up. Looking at the competition I think they may get left behind, when you go into a car dealership you base you're decision of what dealership you walk into by reading the statistics sheet on the car, correct? I for one see some downfall for Mazda in this area.

Now aside from Mazda there have been some colossal screw ups over the ages that have caught my attention (This is not an exhaustive list by any means, if you are looking for a worst cars list move on but if you have read this far I hope you stay, and tell you're friends) some of these screw ups have been rectified, some however have not. First and foremost one of the biggest screw ups in automotive history has to be The Mustang 2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Mustang_%28second_generation%29

Produced from 1974 to 1978 this car was actually named car of the by Motor Trend in 1974, However do a Google search on this car and you will soon find out it has also been named one of the ugliest and worst cars in automotive history. I mean what were they thinking in that board room to come up with this,"hmmmm let me see, we have one of the best selling cars in the world and we need to update it, well we have a the ford pinto platform that isn't being used very much. Yes, that will work". Yes this piece of crap was actually based on a bigger piece of crap, the Ford Pinto which if all I have read throughout my years of existence is true the Pinto had a slight tendency to BURST INTO FLAME! Thankfully this stain on the automotive world was fixed with the fox body mustang and generations thereafter.

When talking about automotive screw ups one cannot forget the Dodge Charger. The new Charger I have actually grown somewhat fond of. I like the fact that it has an 8 speed automatic and a pretty good touch screen and that the SRT version is still pretty bad ass. The car however is a shadow of the legend it used to be, which is why I classify it as a failure (not to say I wouldn't own one). When this car debuted in 1966 as the outgoing model It was a pretty potent package with the legendary 426 Hemi

http://www.chargerforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141599

This thing would eat just about anything on a drag strip and the car continued like this for a while. Eventually this wicked car went out of production (After being castrated in the 80's along with every other cool car).

Then in 2006 some genius at Dodge got the bright idea to take one of the most sought after badass names in automotive history and turn it into a sedan......with a V6!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Charger_%28LX%29

The reason behind this was apparently that the original people who bought the dodge charger (baby boomers) in the late sixties and seventies are now older with children and houses and responsibilities so they wanted to make the car they remember as kids into a more family friendly accessible car. I for one see a missed opportunity here, why would you make a car to cater to that generation rather than keep the car what is was (updated of course to modern standards) and capitalize on a completely new generation of car lovers. Instead they turned it into a rental car and in my opinion completely tarnished what the charger name stood for.

There are many other cars that could be on this list for example the 2004 Pontiac GTO (That car always should have been what the Pontiac G8 was) The upcoming Chevy SS (supposed to be the return of the G8 but is only offered in the top GXP G8 format and will cost roughly five grand less than a new Stingray). All of the models that used to be good and continued into the 80's. Oh and the "New Beetle" (there is so much that is wrong with that car, I'm not sure why they ever built it). I do not have the time to go into all of these vehicles in detail.

I don't know why when an automotive manufacturer has some thing good they have to mess it up. I suppose it's human nature. We always want to strive for improvement. It just brakes my heart when a good car goes bad.