Ford 021c

Over the years, we have seen many beautiful concept cars, all very sporty or macho. Then the marketing directors cover their asses against low sales by either not producing the concept or watering it down.

And often the more brilliant and ingenious the design, the less likely it will be produced. Stick a big engine into a car and give it ridiculous styling and a adolescent-fueled name like the Viper? Build it!

But produce something iconic and accessible, something that stood to be the new Mini before the new Mini actually was made? No way. But in 1999, well-known designer Marc Newsom handed the keys to such a car to Ford and… they took a pass. In that era of monster SUVs, the elegant and simple Ford 021c just was too radical a concept, not when you could be proving who had the longer dick with the new Ford Excrement or whatever they decided to call it.

The simple, playful lines really still tug at your sense of childlike wonder. Yes, it would be sort of a “chick car”, but something this cute should be built. And it is not too late- in a world where people are still milking 30-year old movies, a car concept made a mere nine years ago is still a valid contender.

Keep the styling as close to the concept as possible, even if it requires a lot of work to do so; ditch the carbon fibre for bright colored cheap plastic; make it crash worthy but not too heavy; skip the pull-out drawer trunk for a conventional trunk, but keep the suicide doors; not too much power, this is not a sports car and selling it based on sportiness will only mess up the marketing, that also means no SVT edition or anything silly like that, let the aftermarket tune it. Only one option in the US: you choose the color. In Europe, offer a diesel as the only other option and offer it here if you can; and the ubiquitous iPod integration. After a year, offer a convertible… it will literally be the new, cooler VW cabrio among sorority girls, but that is just fine, those girls were always hot and great cred for VW back in the day.

You now have a fuel-efficient car with a pleasant dealer experience… Sell it cheap and create goodwill among a new generation, or mark it up, intimidate people with the dealer packages and markups, and watch it be an also-ran. It need not make a huge profit, just create goodwill for Ford. Hell, you will probably sell a lot of them in Japan, and under the Ford name even. And that would be worth a lot.