Yahoo Autos 10 Concepts That Went from Show Car to Showroom
Concept cars are generally evanescent dreams, futuristic visions of what an automaker could do if its dreaming designers were unfettered by irksome details such as occupant safety, on-road functionality, or production costs. But, every so often, these designers hit upon something resonant, and the bean-counting managers take a handful of edibles, and some marketing person discovers a emergent psycho-graphic niche of buyers that they believe is willing to pay a premium for something distinctive, and these fantasy vehicles are turned into something consumers can buy and drive on public roads. Huzzah!
Typically, this process ends in disaster, resulting in a vehicle that is expensive, unloved, and difficult to live with, and the automaker comes to its rational senses and axes the model. Sometimes, though, it results in glory in the way of unexpected cachet, fantastic sales, or some other positive halo. Our list here has a little something from each of these categories, but is defined mainly by the visual continuity between show car and production car. Also, the fact that there’s only one vehicle on this list I wouldn’t personally want to own. What about you?
Concept cars are generally evanescent dreams, futuristic visions of what an automaker could do if its dreaming designers were unfettered by irksome details such as occupant safety, on-road functionality, or production costs. But, every so often, these designers hit upon something resonant, and the bean-counting managers take a handful of edibles, and some marketing person discovers a emergent psychographic niche of buyers that they believe would be willing to pay a premium for something distinctive, and these fantasy vehicles are turned into something consumers can buy and drive on public roads. Huzzah!
Sometimes this process ends in disaster, resulting in a vehicle that is expensive, unloved, and difficult to live with, and the automaker comes to its rational senses and axes the model. Occasionally, though, it results in glory in the way of unexpected cachet, fantastic sales, or some other positive halo.
Our list here has a little something from each of these categories, but it is defined mainly by the visual continuity between show car and production car. Also, the fact that there’s only one vehicle on this list I wouldn't personally want to own. What about you?
2000 Chevrolet SSR Concept
GM had dominated, and then flailed, in the 20th century, so it wanted to start off the 21st with a splash. To this end, at the January 2000 Detroit auto show, it unveiled 12 (!) design-intensive concepts. One of these, the “Super Sport Roadster,” combined retro '50s Chevy truck styling with a chopped chassis and a Corvette V-8.
2003 Chevrolet SSR
Three years later, the Trailblazer-based SSR rolled into showrooms. Low-volume production and a complex folding hard top meant SSR prices crested $42,000 (the equivalent of $72,000 today), and initial models struggled to crack eight seconds to 60 mph. So, while the SSR’s design translated seamlessly from concept to road car, it sold only 24,000 units.
2003 Audi Le Mans Quattro
Built in 2003 to celebrate Audi's three consecutive Le Mans wins, the Le Mans Quattro Concept portended a new design era at the brand. Its production cars soon aped the concept's big grilles, LED headlights, and mesomorphic rear-drive proportions. In 2007, the production R8 arrived looking startlingly similar to the Quattro Concept and constructed atop the underpinnings of VW Group sibling Lamborghini's Gallardo.
2008 Audi R8
Now heralded as one of the new century's great designs–like Audi's TT was in the late 20th century–the R8 was built with minimal updates until 2024, illustrating the enduring allure of slinky Audi design draped over a mid-engine Lamborghini chassis.
2012 Acura NSX Concept
Honda and Acura are known for near-production concept cars that are more prototype than dreamscape. The NSX Concept is no exception. Though mid-engine proportions, a full-LED light bar, and huge (for 2012) wheels looked showy when unveiled at the 2012 Detroit show, when the production car appeared a lengthy five years later, it surprisingly wore the same racy shape.
2017 Acura NSX
Acura ultimately sold fewer than 3000, but the design of the NSX–like the original of the 1980s and '90s–was widely applauded and resonated as Honda/Acura's rational answer to the European exotics.
2007 Land Rover LRX
The 2007 Land Rover LRX Concept reconfigured classic Land Rover elements like a floating roof, fender vents, and a clamshell hood into a lower-slung, chopped coupe that would dictate the design direction of most future Land Rovers (Defender aside).
2012 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque
The production Evoque underwhelmed a bit with an EcoBoost engine pulled from the ashes of Ford's ownership of LR (and its rough Escape crossover). The entry-level Landie charmed consumers, even as the wondrously recherché convertible model confounded them. Today, the Range Rover Evoque soldiers on as one of Land Rover's prettiest models, a testament to the brilliance of the original LRX shape.
2012 BMW i8 Concept
An evolution of BMW's wild Vision EfficientDynamics concept of 2009 (!), the 2012 i8 Concept still looked impossible to produce, with dihedral doors, flying buttresses, glass panels, and wheels the diameter and width of a Cannondale's. Yet, in 2016, the hybrid production car emerged with all those features intact.
2016 BMW i8
The performance of the BMW i8 couldn't match that of the contemporary Porsche 911 Turbo, with which it shared a roughly $150,000 price tag. Nevertheless, the i8 is a high point in BMW's i sub-brand design, looking futuristic and expensive a decade after its debut.
2013 Volvo Concept Coupe
The Volvo Concept Coupe debuted as a slick homage to Volvo's swoopy P1800 of the 1960s. Penned by star designers Thomas Ingenlath and Robin Page, the concept was a hit, signaling a new language and direction for Volvo. Then the Swedish automaker spun off Polestar into a separate, upscale electric performance sub-brand and appointed Ingenlath as CEO.
2020 Polestar 1
Desperate for product, the new marque appropriated the coupe as its first car, the Polestar 1, providing it, contrary to brand mission, with a plug-in-hybrid powertrain, a carbon-fiber body, and a six-figure price. Though the looks were lauded, the high cost, complex powertrain, unknown brand, and plain Volvo interior stood in the way of its success.
2015 Bentley EXP 10 SPEED 6 Concept
With a muscular sinuousness more typically aligned with Jaguar or Aston Martin, the EXP 10 Speed 6 Concept, launched at the 2015 Geneva auto show, ended up signaling a new direction for the Continental GT.
2018 Bentley Continental GT
The production version of the third-generation Continental GT was about a half-size bigger, yet the new car’s shift from being constructed on a VW Phaeton platform to being built on Porsche Panamera–based underpinnings allowed for the swept-back, sporting shape so beloved in the concept. The GT remains Bentley's biggest-selling model overall, with nearly 100,000 sold since its 2003 launch.
2017 Honda Urban EV Concept
With a Pixar-adorable face, suicide doors, and oversize thin-spoke wheels seemingly grafted on from an Alpina B7, Honda's Urban EV Concept was a high mark in retro-futuristic EV design when it was shown in 2017, referring back to the brand's innovative (and U.S.-market-making) first-gen Civic hatchback, both inside and out, but tastefully updated for the electric age.
2020 Honda e
In 2020, the renamed Honda e debuted with its profile and cutesy face intact, though it had lost the Dubs. Reviewers deemed it stylish and fun to drive, but a high price and limited range kept the e from the States, sadly.
2019 Hyundai Concept 45
Rather than launching a heedless campaign of imitating competitors, Hyundai went into its own archives for the design of the Concept 45. The angular hatch drew heavily from the 1974 Pony coupe, penned for Hyundai by Italian genius Giorgetto Giugiaro, who was in heavy demand at the time by Japanese and Korean automakers looking to incorporate Western aesthetics in order to penetrate a potential Western market. The Pony did not exactly achieve that back in the 1970s and '80s.
2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5
But today, the production Ioniq 5 is an award-winning, successful, innovative EV hatchback. The multi-spoke two-tone wheels, LED taillights, and origami-crisp sheetmetal are derived directly from the auto-show floor.
2022 Cadillac Celestiq Concept
The 2022 Celestiq Concept emanated from a line of wildly compelling, but unbuilt, flagship Cadillac concepts including the Sixteen, Ciel, and Elmiraj. Like those cars, it combined retro-modern Art Deco and retro-louche Baroque Malaise flourishes with an imposing wheelbase. Unlike those concepts, it was all-electric, built on GM's new Ultium EV platform. Also, it made it to production.
2025 Cadillac Celestiq
As of this year, you can commission a Cadillac Celestiq to be built at the historic Eero Saarenin–designed building at the GM Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, the first production car to be assembled there. At around $340,000 to start, only 100 to 150 Celestiq sedans will be produced each year.
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