Pop 500 Automatic, Alloy Wheels, Pwr Windows & Locks One Owner Financing Avlbl on 2040-cars

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Zombie cars roundup: Dodge has sold 3 new Vipers this year

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.

Fiat's Ecobasic concept shows what the city car of the future looked like in 1999

In the late 1990s, Fiat set out to prove cheap and eco-friendly weren't mutually exclusive. It argued a car could be both with an innovative, opinion-cleaving concept named Ecobasic built to preview the econobox of the future. Fiat quietly presented the Ecobasic at the 1999 edition of the Bologna auto show, which was still a big deal 21 years ago, and it displayed it again at the following year's Geneva show. Its high-top Converse-shaped silhouette turned heads everywhere it went, and that was only the beginning. Looking closer revealed its front end received a transparent panel that let users add oil, coolant, wiper fluid, or give the battery a jump. Audi adopted a similar solution for its A2. It had one door on the driver's side, two on the passenger's side, and a transparent hatch underlined by a pair of horizontal lights. It stretched 137.7 inches long, 67.3 inches wide, and 57.8 inches tall, dimensions that made it about two inches taller, three inches wider, and an inch lower than a modern-day 500. Keeping manufacturing costs in check was a priority, so Fiat used plastic body panels dyed with color during the production process and mounted them to a steel structure, a configuration not unlike the Smart ForTwo's. They were designed to be recycled at the end of the car's life cycle. Inside, the passengers were treated to a marvelous exercise in simple, back-to-the-basics design. The driver sat in front of a four-spoke steering wheel, while a speedometer and a fuel gauge were integrated into a pod that sprouted from the center of the dashboard. The automatic transmission's gear selector, a handful of buttons, and the HVAC controls were aligned below it. The domed, bolted-down hood covered a 1.2-liter four-cylinder turbodiesel developed specifically for the Ecobasic. It showcased Fiat's Multijet common-rail technology, which promised improve fuel economy without compromising power. On paper, that's exactly what it achieved. The four developed 61 horsepower at 3,500 rpm and 118 pound-feet of torque at 1,800 rpm, which were reasonably respectable figures for an Italian city car made in the late 1990s, and it returned nearly 80 miles per gallon. Fiat quoted a 13-second 0-62-mph time. The company apparently did not blush when it hinted it could build 200,000 units of the Ecobasic annually and sell each one for approximately 5,000 euros, a price which would have made it one of the cheapest new cars sold in Europe.

Just 45% of Fiat dealers are profitable, and they're angry about it

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On average, Fiat dealers have only been selling about 17 cars a month.
We've been wondering for some time how Fiat dealers in North America have been getting along with just one model range in their showrooms up until recently. Franchisees spent millions building, stocking and manning sleek new 'studio' showrooms, only to have but a single model to sell, the cherubic 500. And even with its many derivatives, the Cinquecento is still an inexpensive model with its attendant lower margins. Perhaps it should come as no surprise then, that just 45 percent of US Fiat dealers are said to be profitable.