New 2013 Dodge Ram 1500 Crew Cab St Express 4x4 4wd 20 Wheels Save L@@k on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Zombie cars: Discontinued vehicles that aren't dead yet

Car models come and go, but as revealed by monthly sales data, once a car is discontinued, it doesn't just disappear instantly. And in the case of some models, vanishing into obscurity can be a slow, tedious process. That's the case with the 12 cars we have here. All of them have been discontinued, but car companies keep racking up "new" sales with them. There are actually more discontinued cars that are still registering new sales than what we decided to include here. We kept this list to the oldest or otherwise most interesting vehicles still being sold as new, including a supercar. We'll run the list in alphabetical order, starting with *drumroll* ... BMW 6 Series: 55 total sales BMW quietly removed the 6 Series from the U.S. market during the 2019 model year. It had been available in three configurations, a hardtop coupe, a convertible and a sleek four-door coupe-like shape.   BMW i8: 18 total sales We've always had a soft spot for the BMW i8, despite the fact that it never quite fit into a particular category. It was sporty, but nowhere near as fast as similarly-priced competitors. It looked very high-tech and boasted a unique carbon fiber chassis design and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but wasn't really designed for maximum efficiency or maximum performance. Still, the in-betweener was very cool to look at and drive, and 18 buyers took one home over the course of 2021.   Chevy Impala: 750 total sales The Impala represented classic American tastes at a time when American tastes were shifting away from soft-riding sedans with big interior room and trunk space and into higher-riding crossovers. A total of 750 sales were inked last year.   Chrysler 200: 15 total sales The Chrysler 200 was actually a pretty nice sedan, with good looks and decent driving dynamics let down by a lack of roominess, particularly in the back seat. Of course, as we said regarding the Chevy Impala, the number of Americans in the market for sedans is rapidly winding down, and other automakers are following Chrysler's footsteps in canceling their slow-selling four-doors. Even if Chrysler never really found its footing in the ultra-competitive midsize sedan segment, apparently dealerships have a few leftover 2017 200s floating around. And for some reason, 15 buyers decided to sign the dotted line to take one of these aging sedans home last year.

Dodge performance trio thrashed on Roadkill

Of all the shows that Motor Trend does, Roadkill is probably the last one we'd pick to evaluate the latest performance automobiles. That's not a slight against David Freiburger or Mike Finnegan, who host the show: they're certified gear-heads and the go-to guys when it comes to hot rods, rat rods and anything grungier than it is shiny. But as exemplary as they are of Detroit muscle, the Charger Hellcat, Challenger Hellcat and Viper are also shiny new pieces of metal. Still, since it will now be sponsoring the show, someone at Dodge apparently thought it would be a good idea to hand Freiburger and Finnegan the keys to the company's top performance models. So to ring the best out of them, they solicited help from some of their colleagues at MT, gained access to a closed-down air strip, devised as many ways as they could to destroy the tires, and proceeded to set about doing exactly that. Watch the grin-inducing mayhem unfold in the half-hour clip above. Related Video:

Junkyard Gem: This 1987 Dodge 600 SE Sedan is suspiciously Benz-ish

The K Platform, introduced for the 1981 model year, saved Chrysler from certain bankruptcy. By 1983, a stretched-out K chassis had been developed; the Chrysler version was the E-Class, while Dodge had the 600. These cars have become all but extinct now, so this '87 600 sedan in a Denver-area wrecking yard is a noteworthy Junkyard Gem. Ford explicitly compared the appearance of the late-1970s Granada to that of the Mercedes-Benz W123 in their advertising, and so the ground was broken for Chrysler to make the allusions to Stuttgart machinery even more obvious a few years later. The name of the Chrysler E-Class was about as subtle as a tire iron blow to the kidneys, and the badging on its Dodge 600 sibling left little to the imagination. 600s came from the factory with several variations of the Chrysler 2.2/2.5 engine, as well as the Mitsubishi "Hemi 2.6" four-cylinder. This car has the 2.5 Chrysler engine, rated at 97 horsepower. Base price was $10,553, about $23,500 in 2017 dollars (the cheapest new Mercedes-Benz E-Class cost $38,600 in 1987, so there wasn't much customer overlap between the two cars). The 600s weren't bad cars for the price, though the build quality wasn't quite up to Mercedes-Benz standards. You'll find this thumbtack treatment on most K-Car headliners that still drive today. The interior is all tan and brown, with plenty of tough industro-velour upholstery and not-so-convincing artificial wood. Aluminum-faced home audio equipment was all the rage during the 1980s, and the trend spread to automotive controls. No cassette in this car, but at least it had AM and FM radio (even plain old mono AM radios were still expensive options on many cars as late as 1987, so the standard AM/FM stereo rig in the 600 was an attractive deal). This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. You can't beat the 600!