Charting the Retro Success
Charting the retro success
Inspiration
The People’s Car, the average folks’ wagon, rear-engined, cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, with a silhouette unlike anything else on the market. It wasn’t whether the old Beetle was right or wrong, it was a Volkswagen, and became a thing unto itself.
Vehicle
A Winner?
Neo Beetle a huge hit, leading some to comment that current buyers never actually drove the rearengined original, or were so stoned when they did that they don’t remember how slow, how poor handling and, uh, what were we talking about?
Old Mini, the original front-drive hot-hatch impossibly big on the inside, impossibly small on the outside, with uncanny handling that allowed Cooper S racing versions to embarrass much burlier things like Ford Cobras on the track. Cheap transpo, too.
Another smashing retro success, the Mini-like its market counterparts here-commanded over-sticker prices when first intro'ed. Not as mini as the original, which is weird because the world is getting so small, but nobody seems to care, as the 100,000th new version rolled off the line last May, and they’re still crankin’ ’em out like hotcakes.
The ’55-’57 T-Bird originally meant to take on the then-new Corvette, but was way too fluffy to pull it off, despite V-Eight power. Killed in favor of a bigger-bodied, luxo-boat version that way outsold it. Ford still reckons it’s a good idea to copy the first version.
Turns out it was a good idea to copy the first-edition T-Bird, as the modern interpretation is flying off the showroom floor. Still thought of as fluffy, still no match for a Vette, but it doesn’t have to be. The ’Bird still seems like comfort food for the gearhead, suggesting simpler times that probably never were, but have been marketed into existence.
Harley-Davidson looked backward upon itself, way backward to the 1940s, for the roots that grew this fringe-laden, chrome-clad market success, Springer front end sealing the retro-look deal.
Are you kidding? Arguably The Motor Company’s whole line is “retro,” and the Heritage Springer is a pillar of Harley’s super-successful Softail lineup. Other bike-makers try to cash in on retro, but H-D’s taking all the cash. Nobody’s made “traditional” so hip.
Kawasaki claimed to be copying its own WSS of the late-’60s, but that was a copy of a BSA. The W-650 looked more like a copy of a classic Triumph Bonneville, which it was-and a better one than Hinckley could muster.
Killed in the U.S. after only a couple of seasons, Kawasaki sold the few W-650s it brought in, then ran for the performance hills with new-style Z100ÛS and such based on traditional ideas, not traditional styling. Sweet bike, but those who wanted retro Britbikes probably actually bought retro Britbikes.
Excelsior Super-X 750cc V-Twin introduced in 1925 served as the spiritual underpinnings of the new Excelsior-Henderson. As was the case with so many other American motorcycle manufacturers, the Great Depression killed Excelsior.
The Excelsior-Henderson Super X quickly became super-ex as the company didn’t grasp the idea that retro should be part of the spirit behind the bike, not the performance. E-H is again as dead as it ever was, and the only thing really successfully built was capital. Now that’s gone, too. -Mark Hoyer
