Awesome Autos that Never Were

This is the 2001 Fuji Heavy Industries Omega, a Kei-sized bank truck built by Fuji Heavy Industries. The underpinnings are based off of the Subaru Forester, and it's been beefed up to include armor panels, extra mirrors, and all the other fixings and equipment for armored bank vehicles.

The annual "Wheels N' Reels" Film Festival is a yearly gathering of film buffs and car geeks from around the world, as they tour America and Europe celebrating the beauty of both cinema AND the automobiles that star in such films. For the 2000 festival, AMC commissioned Croc and Allie, two independent coachbuilders, to create this special bespoke mobile cinema for use at the festival. They gutted the interior of a small motorhome and hybridized it with a Chevrolet G-30 van to create this charming theater on wheels. It has since toured every year, showing short films from a variety of genres.

We are also still doing requests!

Sometime in the very late 90's, startup company R-Trek wanted to break into the snow transport market. Their first product was this: The R-Trek Bobble, an adorable 1-seater enclosed snowmobile with a four-track arrangement. It was designed with snow resort personnel and cargo transport in mind, since the four-track arrangement gave it more torque and grip. Despite the goofy design, it actually sold well in the Canadian and American market, managing to move over 30,000 units between 1997 and 2004.

To commemorate the 140th anniversary of Carl Benz' automobile, artist Klaus Gülrich created a rather odd sculpture dubbed "Pferd Und Wagen" featuring a heavily stylized rendition of a car with a small horse inside. It was meant to symbolize the progress made across the past 140 years, stemming from the humble horse carriage all the way to the modern automobile. Other interpretations include a commentary on how we measure engine output with a metric called "horsepower," or perhaps it could be a commentary on putting the "Horse" back in "Horseless Carriage." It is currently on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Alongside the 2025 Ami, Citroen also released another vehicle into their lineup: a UTE dubbed the "OuiGo." Featuring an economical single-motor drivetrain, lane-assist technology, self-parking, and optional jump seats in the back, the OuiGo was praised for its sleek design and low price, but the lack of dual-motor drivetrain option somewhat hurt sales.

In 2025, Citroen decided to completely overhaul their very strange "Ami" pod car after receiving much feedback related to its rather...strange design. They went back to the drawing board and eventually settled on a sleek, modern design that was fresh and appealing (not to mention more aerodynamic!). It sold much better than the original Ami, thanks to the redesigned exterior, added cargo space in the rear, and improved powertrain.

In 2010, Citroen decided it would bring back the H Van name with a revolutionary new all-electric powertrain, as well as some funky-fresh 2000's styling. The result? Something they called the "Citroen H-E series." It featured some stylings from the original, like the...uh...van shape? As well as the strakes and corrugations on the rear paneling. Aside from that, the van seemed pretty different from its namesake. It was received lukewarmly by the market, and was quietly discontinued in 2012, selling only 9,000 units.

The 2023 Lamborghini Equus was a Gas-Turbine EV Hybrid sold with only 600 models produced. It was designed to be the worlds fastest production EV, with a top speed of 270 mph. It was made to celebrate the history of Lamborghini, and show a push towards new technologies, like the Gas Turbines that Chrysler had been pioneering for the past 50 years, combined with electric motors. The car has a 0-60 time of 0.87 seconds in "Assurdo" Mode, translating to "Absurd" in English.

The 1966 Chrysler-Ghia Turbina, shown on display in the MotorWorld-Heritage museum, in Geneva, Switzerland, is an one-off concept car built after the success of the Chrysler Turbine Car in 1963. It was built to be as exotic as possible, showing off to Europe the future of automobile power. Using the same A-831 Gas Turbine as the Turbine Car, it would be driven and tested at a few race tracks, given a new, Chrysler-Built 4 speed automatic transmission, rather than the Torqueflite of it's predecessor. Two cars were planned, but the second car, body complete, without engine or suspension, was lost in transit from Turin to Detroit in a dockyard fire. T-1 was first paraded at the 1965 Motorworld Show in Bonn, West Germany to critical applause and intrigue, showing off the power of Chrysler's advanced turbine engine, beginning Chrysler's evolution from a traditional manufacturer, to one who produced more advanced, more expensive products in the mid-to-late 20th century, shifting their dynamic to produce things like a production Turbine car in 1971.

The 1999 Buick Wildcat Hybrid was a concept car built for the 1999 MotorWorld show. It was a functioning prototype 2 seater concept, inspired by the Art Deco resurgence of the late 1990's in America, powered by a pair of jet-turbine engines to charge the quad motor electric engines which allowed the car to have a range of 600+ miles on just 10 gallons of Gasoline, Alchohol, or any other combustible fluid. A total of 3 prototypes were built, with one on display in GM's Heritage center, being the one shown at Motorworld, another on display in the Smithsonian as the only fully functional prototype, and the third being owned by Jay Leno, as an initially unpowered prototype, eventually given an LS3 engine by Jay Leno's mechanics, allowing the prototype to be driven around to car shows.

This is a 1981 Kenneth Motor Home Conversions Company (KMHCC, for short) Minihome, based off of the VW Bus Westfalia. It’s a complete conversion of the German van, turning it into a home on four wheels, with a completely new body, an extendable side deck (not shown), and a (semi) private bathroom, all in one. It cost 4 times the MSRP of a Westfalia, without the purchase cost of the van for conversion included. Between 3000 and 3500 were produced, with about 800 still known to exist. Produced from 1980-1991, with the discontinuation of the Westfalia (in North America) in 1991. The tooling was sold to a Brazilian company, and the cars were built in Brazil from 1993-2013 when the Westfalia was finally discontinued in Brazil, with Brazilian production totaling to over 8900 models built. One incredible thing to note is that this was the type of van used by NASA to transport astronauts to the shuttle, which is what the color scheme and background allude to. NASA had owned and operated three of these vans until 2019, where they were replaced with all-new Kenneth Ultravans, made by the same company. NASA still keeps one original on reserve at the KSC, while the other two reside in the Petersen Auto Museum and at Houston's Johnson Space Center respectively.

The 1969 Citroen Voler was a concept flying car designed to bring the power of affordable personal flight to the masses. The photo you see here is a test flight conducted at the Paris-Orly airport, where it was discovered that the car's flat front design functioned as an airfoil, of all things. Unfortunately, this caused the car to be uncontrollable both in the air, and on the ground at high speeds. Because of these design flaws, the car was scrapped and the idea put back onto the shelf indefinitely.

We've also got some lovely pickup truck-like vehicles here, based off of the Citroen DS and 2CV respectively. Normally, we would provide the backstory behind these vehicles. However, since the Wave-O-Matic is still being...ahem...recalibrated, we don't have that information for you at this time.

"Wait a minute...what's going on here? Why is the Wave-O-Matic set to record from our...JERRY!!! DID YOU TOUCH THE WAVE-O-MATIC??? I swear to fucking God, Jerry if you tampered with the...no, I know it was you, I have CCTV footage right here that shows you were in the lab at that...no, it wasn't "your evil twin Gary," you and I know that's a fucking load of bullshit. Jerry, I don't know what we're going to do with you. At this rate we might as well just fire you, though I'm not sure we can do that because we're kind of understaffed at the moment." Sigh...

Today, the Caterham 7 is still in production and remains one of the most iconic sports cars on the market. Despite its minimalist design, the car continues to impress drivers with its exceptional handling and exhilarating performance.

Today, the Chevy Astro Van remains a beloved classic among car enthusiasts and collectors. Its unique blend of truck-like durability and family-friendly features make it a nostalgic symbol of a bygone era in American automotive history.