It might sound like a bit of a cliché to say that a car saved a brand. But in the peaks and troughs of the automotive industry – and there are many – there are indeed models that have done just that.
For decades, very successful auto makers have gone in cyclical waves of sales success and slumps, with common themes including falling behind the competition, aging model lines, high costs of production, and economic turmoil.
Unfortunately a few brands to feature in this list are seeing history repeat itself in the present day – Nissan, we’re unfortunately looking at you.
Luckily, all it can take is one brilliant car to turn around the tide.
Indeed, some are now as famous as the marques that made them because they fixed their fortunes, kept legacy alive and in many cases gave car makers mass market appeal.
We’ve picked five cars from the past that played a pivotal role in saving their brands from going under – and they range from performance motors to practical models still popular today.
Five cars that turned around the fortune of trouble car brands: We start with the Peugeot 205 – the small car that saved a French brand
Peugeot 205 – small car big success
To understand the huge importance of this little car, one must first understand why Peugeot was having a ‘passer un mauvais quart d’heure’ around the time it debuted.
The 1970s had not been kind to the French car firm.
A takeover of Citroen in 1975 was followed by an unwise acquisition of Chrysler in 1978-79 that led to the once great marque, which had survived two world wars and become an emblem of France, to accrue such great debts by the 1980s that it was all but bankrupt.
So, when the Peugeot 205 was in the development process during the early eighties, it not only needed to be a good car – it also had to be the manufacturer’s saviour. No pressure, then.
Luckily Jean Boillot’s, a member of the Peugeot board of directors at the time, came up with an ambitious project to make a small car that would be as comfortable in the city as it was on country roads – a multi-purpose small family transporter that was also affordable.
And so, on 24 February 1983 Peugeot launched the 205.
The modern interior design was a big factor in the 205’s popularity and sporty editions like the Turbo 16 added to this appeal
Peugeot was doing ‘tennis core’ before it was even a thing: the 205 Roland Garros collaboration cemented the small car as ‘trés ‘chic’
Originally meant to be called the 105, the idea of following on from the company’s underwhelming first small model, the 104, seemed a bad one, and so 205 was chosen instead.
It was cleverly advertised under the idea of ‘the sacred number’, and this struck a chord with the masses, as did famous TV ads such as the ‘James Bond’ themed car chase ad.
Marketing genius, the fact that it was the first small Peugeot to receive a wide range of engines – from 45 to 200hp – and the modern exterior and interior design, on top of its low cost and immense practicality made it a winner.
Not to mention the special editions, GTIs and Turbo 16 World Rally Champion, 205 Rallye Paris-Dakar and the 1989 Rolland Garros 205 that raised the 205’s profile around the world.
The 205 only stopped production in 1998 when it was replaced the 206, at which point almost 5.3 million units had been produced.
It didn’t just reinvigorate the French maker’s fortunes, it allowed the company to expand its entire PSA range and become a front-runner in the supermini sector.
The Boxster: The poor man’s Porsche did a lot of heavy lifting for the legendary car maker, and Porsche fans should be forever grateful
Porsche Boxster – the poor man’s Porsche that pulled in sales
In the 1990s, Porsche had a problem on its hands – an age problem to be specific.
Porsche’s models on sale at the time were almost 20 years old at least (in the case of the 911, 32 years old by 1995). And not cool or retro – simply outdated.
It wasn’t just that Porsche’s product line-up was gaining in years, they were also extremely costly to build.
Many people thought Porsche was down and out. And in 1992 it was near the bankruptcy brink.
But Porsche brought in consultants that for once proved to be worth the spend.
Taking inspiration from Mazda, the Japanese consultants advised Porsche how to build cars affordably that would go on to actually make money. Mazda had the Miata (MX-5 to us Britons), which was proving that the market for two-seat roadsters was red hot.
So, Porsche decided to put its Stuttgart stamp on the idea and bring out a mid-engined roadster that harked back to the ’50s 550 Spyder: the Boxster was born.
The 986 followed the Boxster concept and was reportedly 42% cheaper to make than a 911. It made Porsche cars profitable again and almost 56,000 were sold in three years
The year 1993 saw the reveal of the Boxster concept, and the 986-generation came along.
The roadster was universally appealing for fashion-forward drivers who weren’t diehard petrolheads but liked to drive a good looking car from a much admired brand.
Toyota engineers were called in to implement the Japanese marque’s ‘just-in-time’ production method – also known as lean manufacturing – and the Boxster shared parts with the forthcoming 996-generation 911, which meant Porsche pulled around its manufacturing issues while also producing a cheaper model with mass appeal.
The Boxster was said to be 42 per cent cheaper to make than a 911.
It might have been dubbed the car for those ‘who can’t afford a 911’ but it became a bestseller from 1996 onwards. 55,705 Boxsters were sold between 1997 and 1999.
The poor man’s Porsche did a lot of heavy lifting for the legendary car maker, and Porsche fans should be forever grateful.
The DB7 sold as many models in a decade as Aston Martin had in its lifetime up to the point the DB7 was released
Aston Martin DB7 – a ‘legend is reborn’
From a struggling German luxury car maker to a British one – we arrive at Aston Martin and its DB7.
There’s a lot of potential automotive financial ruin going around in late 20th century, but that’s because intensified competition, rising costs and economic downturns hit industry hard, especially automotive.
Aston Martin was no more immune than anyone else, and had been having significant issues since the 70s.
So, when people say the DB7 was the car that saved Aston Martin they really mean it – so much so that the Aston Martin Heritage Trust had a 30th anniversary exhibition called DB7: ‘The car that saved Aston Martin’?
The marketing for the DB7 came with the tagline ‘a legend reborn’ and the 1994 release of the car to customers was quite the rebirth with it being an immediate sales success
The DB7 represents opportunism and serendipitous timing in automotive history. Ford had taken control of Aston Martin in 1987, but the horizon wasn’t looking any more rosy for it.
The model range was stagnant and sales were down. But then in 1990 Ford bought Jaguar and all the luck changed.
Ian Callum took the culled Jaguar Project XX and re-engineered it as an Aston Martin model – one many people consider one of the most beautiful British cars ever made.
Unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in 1993 the DB7 was an instant hit and starting arriving with customers in 1994.
Most customers opted for the automatic model, a traditional Aston Martin Grand Tourer.
The DB7 gave Aston Martin stability and sales success, with the brand going from selling around 10,000 cars in its entire lifetime before the DB7 was launched, to the ‘saviour’ model selling nearly double that figure alone in a decade.
The sales brochure advertised it as ‘a legend reborn’.
That prophecy was a lot to live up to but the DB7 did indeed change Aston Martin’s ‘once in a blue moon’ production rate and pave the way for models like the Vanquish that are still being snapped up with enthusiasm today.
200mph and 552bhp? Unsurprisingly these stats made the Continental GT an immediate hit when it went on sale in 2004 costing ‘just’ £112,750
Bentley Continental GT – twin-turbo sales triumph
Bentley was in such a bad state that when it was bought by Volkswagen in 1998 the man made responsible for quality control and production told the Telegraph that he thought VW ‘should shut it down’.
If that’s not a dagger to the heart of a struggling automotive maker then we don’t know what is.
But everyone loves a resurgence story and luckily Bentley’s is an iconic one of the early 2000s.
Before VW took control of Bentley it was building under 1,000 cars a year. The brand desperately needed an injection of sheer manufacturing force.
The company from Crewe went from coach building cars to utilising the assembly line for crucial parts like the chassis, and and the Continental GT was the first model to be made with this blended mix of hand and machine.
There was lots of new with the GT. It was more sold at a more attainable price than the Continental R (around half the cost), had a VW twin-turbo 12-cylinder rather than the traditional Bentley 6.8-litre V8, and came with a six-speed automatic all-wheel drive transmission.
200mph and 552bhp? Unsurprisingly these stats made the Continental GT an immediate hit when it went on sale in 2004 costing ‘just’ £112,750.
VW used the massive sales success of the Continental GT to stir up more interest and get people on the wait list
In the end the Continental GT went on to be one of Bentley’s most successful models ever and by 2007 production topped 10,000. It blended machine production with hand crafting – the interior was still handmade
In 2004, Bentley sold over 6,500 cars compared to circa 1,000 cars in 2003, and VW’s marketing cleverly used the number of people putting down deposits to hype up the car and entice more people to buy it.
In the end, the Continental GT went on to be one of Bentley’s most successful models ever and by 2007 production topped 10,000.
It’s still one of the most recognisable cars on the road today, and is four generations strong.
The Nissan Qashqai arrived in 2007 and turned the tide for the struggling Japanese manufacturer. It also started the crossover trend
Nissan Qashqai – the crossover that changed customer tastes
We started with a sensible car and so it seems right to finish with one. Not all success stories can be sexy after all.
The Nissan Qashqai is one of the famous models today because it known as the originator of the mass market crossover that everyone and their aunt now drives.
But it should also be hailed as the car that kept Nissan going at the turn of the century.
In 1999, Nissan was in a bad place.
Renault joined it in a strategic alliance and assumed $5.4billion of Nissan’s debt in return for 36.6 per cent equity. Together they’d make the world’s fourth largest car maker.
This helped Nissan deal with its mountain of debt, but Nissan still needed to become a profitable business again after eight years of struggling and to ditch its terrible margins. And it wasn’t just about cost cutting, people had to want to buy Nissan cars.
And so the Qashqai came into being in 2007 – it was the answer Nissan needed.
More than three million Qashqai models were produced at the plant between 2007 and 2018
As well as its success for Nissan it is recognised as significantly contributing to the success of the British car industry thanks to its production in Sunderland.
More than three million Qashqai models were produced at the plant between 2007 and 2018.
The second generation of the model, launched in 2014, became the fastest ever UK-built vehicle to pass the half million production mark in a record-breaking 21 months.
The Qashqai blended the practicality and desirability of an SUV with the footprint, driving dynamics and running costs of a hatchback and sparked Europe’s obsession with the family SUV.
Today one in three cars on our roads is an SUV.
But almost 20 years from the Qashqai’s saving success, Nissan has found itself in another huge financial predicament.
In May Nissan announced its 2024-25 financial results, posting a £3.8billion loss on the back of a crash in demand in its two largest markets, the US and China.
A £1.3billion cost saving plan is underway, which includes shutting seven factories, slashing its workforce by 20,000 people, and pausing new product plans beyond 2026.
Nissan’s future success now hangs on three cars coming this year: the new-generation Leaf EV, the re-born electric Micra and the Juke EV.
The £21,495 Micra- which has been awarded the £1,500 lower level of the Government’s Electric Car Grant – is targeting the retro-inspired cheap end of the EV market, while the new Leaf is trying to claw back its position as a pioneering EV, and the Juke EV will cater for ever-hungry crossover buyers.
With the Leaf and Juke to be built at Sunderland this will help secure jobs in Britain and hopefully set Nissan up for success in the heart of its European market.
