12 Of The Strangest Cars Ever Built By General Motors

General Motors was founded in 1908 and quickly merged several auto brands into a huge corporation. Over the years, GM has owned or controlled up to 43 brands of automobiles with manufacturing facilities in nations all over the globe. This Detroit-based behemoth has produced hundreds of models, many of them becoming beloved classics. Some have even become American icons and symbols of prosperity. However, nobody can do everything right every time, and some GM products leave buyers scratching their heads.

Classifying a strange car is subjective. Sometimes seeing a model not sold in your home market can appear strange even though it's an ordinary car in every other way. Other cars are considered strange because of unorthodox styling, with the arrangement of seating, wheels, or trunks executed in an unusual manner. Additional cars may look like typical family cars or even cool and attractive sports cars but are deemed strange for novel engineering choices in the drivetrain or suspension. This is all to say that, for all the excellent Corvettes, Rivieras, and Tran Ams born from GM factories, some models that have made it to dealer showrooms are genuinely strange.

The Pontiac Aztek was introduced at the 2000 Detroit Auto Show to an audience including journalists, with automotive critic Dan Neil later telling Time how he would never forget the gasp that came from the crowd in attendance after seeing the car. Cars can elicit a range of emotions from the public, but shrieking and running for the hills is rarely the reaction. It is certainly not the reaction that auto executives wanted.

The Aztek isn't as strange as it is ugly. The styling and proportions, combined with the overwrought and gaudy body paneling, do it no favors, nor do the odd snarling grill inlets and weird dual headlight lenses up front. It was meant to appeal to younger buyers and included a center console that doubled as a cooler, and a specially fitted tent that fits over the rear hatch to turn the whole car into overnight quarters was available. The young and adventure-loving buyers should have flocked to it, but the looks scared them away.

The underpinnings and drivetrain of the car were standard GM offerings, and the Aztek was mostly normal once you stepped inside. But the looks of the Aztek have made it the butt of jokes for years now. It shall forever be one of GM's worst design failures.

GM has taken some risks. In the '50s, the VW Beetle's market share grew year over year. GM borrowed the air-cooled rear-engined idea for the Corvair, launched in 1960. In many ways, the Corvair was conventional, but the drivetrain was a strange choice for a GM division. Powering the back wheels through a transaxle was a 6-cylinder air-cooled flat-6 engine. It was a revolutionary new car, available in coupe, sedan, wagon, van, and the Greenbrier truck with the strangest tailgate ever made. Loading was done from the side of the bed because the engine took up space in the rear. Furthermore, the Monza model came with Chevrolet's first turbocharged engine, good for up to 150 horsepower, 70 more than the base model.

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The Corvair would not last through the '70s. New EPA regulations meant that air-cooled engines had difficulty meeting new emissions rules. Furthermore, consumer safety advocate Ralph Nader's book "Unsafe At Any Speed" featured the Corvair prominently in its criticism of the auto industry, although many claims had already been corrected by engineers when it was published. Perhaps most of all, it was too expensive to build.

The SUV exploded in popularity throughout the '90s to become the de facto family car of the new millennium. To keep an edge over the competition, automakers pushed the boundaries of what the SUV could or should be. Sometimes they pushed too far. The GMC Envoy was a popular model in the medium size range that could be had with room for up to seven passengers and powered comfortably by a large V8 engine. However, not content with mediocrity, GMC stretched the Envoy to offer an XL model.

For the XUV, engineers removed the completely useful third-row passenger seat and replaced it with a washable, flat floor similar to that in a truck bed. The rear door could open down like a tailgate but was also hinged at the side to open like a door, much like station wagons of the '80s. To make it as strange as possible, the roof of the cargo area could retract, leaving an open canopy over what was essentially a truck bed with side walls. This made the XUV less practical for passengers and only marginally useful as a truck, and it only lasted for two years.

Chevrolet's first attempt at a compact segment in the '70s was called Vega, an attractive and sporty car for something marketed toward the economy segment. However, some of the production decisions along the way were suspect indeed. The engines suffered from myriad problems due to questionable engineering choices, but what makes the Vega strange is the methods devised to ship it to dealers.

GM developed train cars that could pack 30 Vegas for transport by rail, increasing the usual 18-car capacity by a dozen vehicles. This was accomplished by shipping the cars with their nose facing the ground in specially built compartments. The cars also had to be ready to drive when arriving at dealers, so the Vega was designed to be tipped on its end without losing any fluids. Carburetors and fuel fillers were positioned so no fuel leaked out, and the engine oil pan had baffles installed to keep oil from running up into and out of the top end. The windshield washer was installed at a 45-degree angle, and the batteries had caps positioned at the edge on the rear of the case. Fuel from the carburetor would drain into the vapor canister, returning to the fuel bowl when returned to a horizontal position.

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While these train cars, called Vert-a-Pac, were clever and innovative, the Vega would be the first and last car to use them. When Vega production ended, the rail cars were stripped and returned to conventional service.

Throughout its history, new technologies created by one division of GM would eventually be adopted by others. Entire cars were developed with modest changes and sold among the many brands. Often, a lower-priced Chevrolet would be developed, and Cadillac would make improvements and add luxury features. This led to varying levels of success, with the Cimarron being an example of a dismal failure. Another example of this technology sharing met with middling success was the ELR based on the Chevrolet Volt.

The first Volt on which the ELR is based arrived in 2011, and the Cadillac followed two years later. The ELR adopted the highly stylized design of Cadillac at the time, featuring sharp creases and angular body panels throughout. While you received no difference in powertrain, the Cadillac gave you more accessories and fine leather and then charged you $75,000, an extra $35,000 over the Volt. It also had two fewer doors. While the Volt had 149 horsepower, the ELR increased this to 207, but the car weighed 4,000 pounds, making it horribly underpowered while being equally overpriced. Furthermore, the EV-only range was just 39 miles before the 1.4-liter gasoline engine kicked in with its 83 horsepower.

The ELR was a strange attempt to adapt a Chevrolet hybrid, and it didn't work. Sales only averaged 93 units per month over the life of the car, and it slipped into obscurity.

While GM holds many brands under its corporate umbrella, its electric EV1 was the first car to be branded as a GM model. This car was developed in the 1990s, and it was to usher in a new era of cars using an all-electric drivetrain. Except it ultimately failed, and the EV revolution wouldn't come for over a decade. Today, electric cars are commonplace, but in 1997, this represented the future. The EV1 was powered by a 137-horsepower induction AC motor with lead-acid batteries. The 60-mile range was limited to a top speed of 80 mph. With a 0-60 mph time of 8.4 seconds, the EV1's acceleration was good, especially for its day. It went a long way in proving electric power could be accomplished for an automobile. But to provide an acceptable range using the battery technology available then meant it had to be built with very good aerodynamic properties. As a result, it ended up with a strange teardrop shape that offered a great drag coefficient of just 0.19.

The EV1 played a significant role in the electrification of automobiles. However, they were only offered for lease, and GM took possession of and destroyed all but a few that were left in museums or school facilities with the drivetrains rendered inoperable. While many lament this outcome for the car, it performed poorly compared to what is offered now, and thankfully, modern electric cars no longer have to take on such a strange appearance.