Five-star Chronicles
One Car, Two Automakers: Five Cars Developed with Joint Authorship
While two heads together don’t necessarily think better than one, they can surely produce more interesting results
Partnerships are rather common in the automotive world. Shares go back and forth, collaboration deals are signed all the time, brands are founded and ended… automakers know that the market becomes more competitive by the day, so there are times when joining forces is the only way they can have a real chance to do what it takes to survive. Sometimes, that strategy yields very interesting results.
Every once in a while, companies work together to co-develop one specific car model. It is not a typical joint venture, where the association reaches factories and offices; we are talking about only one or a few models. Because that kind of partnership is simpler and has fewer implications, it sets the companies free to be more creative. The paragraphs below show five examples released over the past few decades.
Alpine A310
The Dieppe company started modifying Renault cars for races, then moved to build their own using existing platforms and eventually developed whole cars from scratch only using key parts from the partner. Since it was always related to sportiness, it was only natural that Alpine chose to create high-performance coupés. The A310 was the first one not to use a project originally developed for an unrelated Renault car.
Moving to producing whole cars was a big step towards prestige; the specialized press gave them great reviews. However, sales never really took off despite the repeated attempts to improve the models and the division eventually had to end their run. The last one, named A610, was discontinued in 1995.
Alpine would only come back to life in the 2010s. Renault went through many options to decide how to recreate it, including a short-lived partnership with Caterham, and ended up creating a modern interpretation of the A110 coupé. More recently, the parent automaker decided to merge both the Renault Sport urban and racing branches into the Alpine brand to make it a unique division focused on performance cars.
Audi RS 2 Avant
Despite its success in motorsports and the appraisal from cars like the quattro, Audi still struggled to balance sportiness with practicality well enough to fight the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz. In the 1990s, it asked for Porsche’s help in a very specific way: not to design a whole new car, like the R8 which would come many years later, but to give its touch to one of the station wagons Audi has always had: the 80 Avant.
Audi’s five-cylinder 2.2-liter was improved with larger turbo and intercooler and modified parts and Porsche gave the RS 2 bespoke brakes, wheels, and the suspension setup — in fact, it was produced at Porsche’s plant in Zuffenhausen. Its 311 hp and 302 lb-ft take it from 0 to 60 mph (100 kph) in 4.8 seconds.
Audi got not only a station wagon that became a true legend around the world but also finally established itself as a high-end company that can make sporty when it wants. Porsche, on the other hand, was going through a difficult time finance-wise and simply needed the money. After that, Audi released a whole lineup of sporty S and RS versions; in nowadays, it goes from the compact S1 to the full-size RS Q8.
Chrysler TC by Maserati
While the K platform saved Chrysler from bankruptcy, it also steered its image away from the luxury segment. Then-president Lee Iacocca started to work on the issue with his friend Alejandro de Tomaso, who owned Maserati. The deal was signed in 1984 and led to a luxury convertible which hit the market four years later. Built on a variation of the K project and manufactured in Italy, the TC went on to make history.
The car resembled a LeBaron, had front-wheel drive, and most units used the same powertrains of other K cars; only 500 had manual gearbox and an engine modified by Maserati and Cosworth in Europe. Main rivals were Buick Reatta and Cadillac Allanté, the latter designed in Italy and partially built there.
It is easy to understand that the Maserati brand was not properly applied as to give this car the intended prestige. Heavy criticism came from both public and press because it was considered an overpriced LeBaron GTC. After the original production contract was fulfilled, the TC was discontinued and the companies went their separate ways. They would become partners again because of Fiat, but in a whole other context.
Dodge Omni GLH
The oil crisis of the 1970s obligated North-American automakers to drastically change their lineups to become more fuel-efficient — and they had to do it fast so as to keep their customers away from VW and Japanese makers. After joining forces with Mitsubishi, Chrysler decided to release its own compact in 1978: the Dodge Omni, which was based on the European Chrysler Horizon and spawned the Plymouth Horizon.
Following the “L-body” Charger, the Omni offered a performance trim modified by Carroll Shelby: it offered more powerful engine, larger brakes, stiffer suspension, wider tires, and the name which stands for “Goes Like Hell”. The model also had a turbocharged, 146-hp variation of that engine; the name was changed to GLH-T.
As if that was not enough, Shelby Automobiles bought the last 500 units of the Omni GLH-T to tune it even further: larger turbocharger and tires, intercooler, more sophisticated suspension, and several other parts were upgraded. While visual modifications were kept to a minimum, an interesting detail is that this model was officially sold by Shelby and received a new name: GLH-S stands for “Goes Like Hell S’more”.
Vauxhall Lotus Carlton
Three decades after working on the Ford Cortina, Lotus chose another partner whose car to give its touch: GM’s Opel Omega or Vauxhall Carlton, depending on the region. The British company redesigned the sedan’s entire powertrain, from enlarging the engine and adding two turbochargers to modifying brakes, chassis, suspension and steering to handle the new performance — parts came from both Lotus and Opel.
The 3.6-liter engine offered 377 hp and 419 lb-ft and took the sedan to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds, 100 mph in eleven, and to a maximum of 177 mph — fast enough to fight luxury sedans like the BMW M5 and even bother performance coupés like Ferrari 348 and Porsche 911 Turbo while seating five.
The Carlton was also known for being used in a series of thefts in the UK, but this story will be left for some other time. What matters for now is that Lotus’s concoction turned a quite forgettable sedan into an iconic surprise that shook the European market of the time. A scaled-down version of this story occurred in Brazil years later: Chevrolet recruited Lotus to tune-up its 4.1-liter inline-six engine for the local Omega.
As you could see, partnerships between automakers have been responsible for car models that simply could never have been developed otherwise. What do you think of them? Besides, do you know other examples that could integrate this Chronicle? Make sure to use the comment section to share your thoughts and opinions — they will be very useful for me to develop topics for new Five-star Chronicles like this one!
This Chronicle was updated on April 19th to include the Dodge Omni, whose GLH version was considered appropriate for its topic. The text about the Volkswagen K70 will be re-published in a future Five-Star Chronicle whose topic suits it better.
