When two car companies work with each other, you never entirely know what’s going to happen. It’s often the case that one car company can’t afford to develop a new model just on its own, and it’ll reach out to another company that has much more experience in developing a certain type of car. Other times, companies will work together due to one of them wanting something crazy, whether that’s a supercar or a tuned-up sedan.
Car companies collaborating together can lead to brilliant results. It’s even produced cars that have gone on to become classics later. Other times it can lead to total oddities, or cars that are so bad they never should have existed in the first place.
10/10 Awesome: Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
When it comes to collaborations between car companies, McLaren and Mercedes-Benz coming together to make the SLR is one of the coolest! Offered in both coupe and roadster format, as well as in several incredible special editions, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is an iconic supercar of the ’00s. It combined jaw-dropping futuristic styling with brutal AMG V8 power, making the imaginations of car enthusiasts of all ages run wild. Plenty of celebrities bought them at the time too, making them one of the ultimate automotive status symbols.
The SLR is still beloved today. Examples of them often go for high prices at auction, especially the more personalized special versions.
9/10 Terrible: Honda Crossroad (First Generation)
The first iteration of the Honda Crossroad is the result of one of the oddest automotive collaborations of all time. SUVs were starting to become a thing in the ’90s and Honda wanted one. But, it would have cost Honda a huge amount of money to develop their own. As a result, they called up a company that knew one thing or two about building SUVs. The company they called was Land Rover. The first generation Honda Crossroad was a Land Rover Discovery in all but name. This included carrying over the Discovery’s infamous reliability problems!
The first-generation Honda Crossroad is a great cautionary tale of where automotive collaborations and badge engineering can go badly wrong. This car really could have ruined Honda’s reputation if it had persisted. Thankfully, the second time Honda had a go at making the Crossroad they did it all in-house.
8/10 Awesome: Mitsubishi Galant AMG
The performance version of the Mitsubishi Galant is a fairly awesome car just on its own. That wasn’t enough though, as Mitsubishi decided to get AMG involved! Whilst AMG is now a subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz, back then it was its own company. Mitsubishi took full advantage of this and paid AMG to work their magic on the Galant. The Galant AMG has the same turbocharged 4-cylinder engine as the Galant VR4, but it’s even more powerful. It also looks noticeably different from other Galants, in a way where you can tell AMG worked on it!
The Mitsubishi Galant AMG is a very rare car. Combined with their genuinely great performance, it’s made them incredibly desirable to collectors. That’s no surprise, as it’s one of the best and most unexpected collaborations between two car companies you could think of!
7/10 Terrible: Alfa Romeo Arna
The Alfa Romeo Arna was a joint venture between Alfa Romeo and Nissan. On paper, this sounds like a fantastic idea. Japanese reliability with Italian flair? Nobody would think that was a bad idea! Unfortunately, Alfa Romeo and Nissan did things the other way around. The Arna had boring Japanese styling and mechanical and electronic components from the Alfasud. As a result, the Arna was a dull car that was woefully unreliable.
If there’s an argument to be made that some cars are just better left in the past, the Alfa Romeo Arna is strong evidence for that. It was a terrible misstep on all fronts, and it was all because they put the wrong companies in charge of the wrong things. Nobody was unhappy when Jeremy Clarkson blew one up on TV!
6/10 Awesome: AC Cobra
When you think of fantastic collaborations between two car manufacturers, it doesn’t get much more awesome than the AC Cobra. The Cobra was developed when legendary American tuner Carroll Shelby decided to put a V8 engine in AC’s Ace sports car. The result was a British-American crossover that reported classic European sports car styling with glorious American V8 power. There isn’t that much better of a combination out there!
The Cobra’s popularity endures so much that you can get endless different replicas of them today. This includes new Cobras built by a continuation of the AC company itself, this time using an electric powertrain instead of a V8. Original Shelby-built Cobras also sell for huge amounts of money at auction.
5/10 Terrible: Toyota RAV4 EV
motor1.com
With the way things are now, you wouldn’t expect Tesla to do a joint venture with any other car company. But, that’s exactly what happened with Toyota wanting to have a go at resurrecting the RAV4 EV! On paper, the RAV4 EV sounds like a fantastic idea. Everyone wants electric SUVs now. But, the RAV4 EV just wasn’t quite up to standard and it was devoid of personality.
In many ways, it’s a shame that the Toyota RAV4 EV didn’t turn out to be a great car. A collaboration between Toyota and Tesla should have meant great things. But, that’s not what happened at all, and Toyota is probably quite thankful now that it didn’t try any more joint ventures with Tesla afterwards!
4/10 Awesome: McLaren F1
The Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR wasn’t the first time McLaren collaborated with another manufacturer on a road car. The McLaren F1 was also the result of a collaboration! In this case, BMW was involved. BMW developed the incredible, high-revving V12 engine that powered the F1 for McLaren. This is the engine that gave the McLaren F1 its jaw-dropping performance, helping it to hit that 240+ mph top speed that wasn’t beaten until the Bugatti Veyron came along.
BMW’s involvement in the McLaren F1’s development is something that’s sometimes overlooked. But, it is very important to how the car came to be. Without that BMW-developed V12 engine, it wouldn’t have had anywhere near the performance and character that it does.
3/10 Terrible: Aston Martin Cygnet
The Aston Martin Cygnet was really a project that was doomed from the start. It was a cynical attempt at creating an Aston Martin-badged city car. To achieve that, the renowned British brand teamed up with Toyota. The result of that was what was basically a Toyota iQ supermini with some badge engineering and a fancy interior. To top it all off, Aston Martin’s marketing department tried to advertise it as being a sort of ‘tender’ to the ‘luxury yacht’ of an Aston Martin sports car. Why? It’s just baffling!
The Aston Martin Cygnet now occupies one of the weirdest spaces in the automotive world. It’s both loved and loathed for being a weird accessory to Aston Martin’s regular models. It may become a cult classic someday, but there’s no denying that it’s an unnecessarily gaudy version of a supermini that was quite boring to begin with.
2/10 Awesome: Toyota GT86/Subaru BRZ
Many of us thought that Toyota would never make an affordable and fun sports car again. We were very wrong! The 2010s brought with it the rise of the Toyota GT86 and the Subaru BRZ. These two cars were developed jointly by the two Japanese manufacturers and both aimed to be basic and fun cars that were very receptive to tuning. This made both of them an instant hit, praised by journalists and owners alike.
These days, a secondhand Toyota GT86 or Subaru BRZ is a great entry point into sports car ownership. They’re simple, affordable, almost enough, almost faultlessly reliable and there are plenty of tuning kits available for them. We should all be really glad Toyota and Subaru decided to join forces to bring the affordable Japanese sports car back.
1/10 Terrible: Lotus Europa S
The Europa S is one of Lotus’s most forgotten cars. Designed in partnership with Proton (who owned Lotus at the time), the car was originally intended to be built in Malaysia. There would have also originally been a Proton-badged version of the car. Neither of these things came to fruition, as it was instead built at Lotus’s factory in Hethel and the Proton-badged version never surfaced. The car we also eventually got was terribly received. Top Gear also didn’t even bother showing its test of the Europa S, with Jeremy Clarkson claiming it was “such a dreamy car.” Ouch!
Even with an updated SE version, the Europa S was a total failure. Only 504 of them were ever made before Lotus was forced to cease production in 2010 over tightening emissions regulations. Perhaps this odd British-Malaysian joint venture really is best left forgotten.
