Halloween special: Cars that returned from the dead

We mark Halloween by looking at all the cars that - one way or another - managed to rise from the dead

Autocar

31 October 2022

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Since the first cars arrived more than 130 years ago, thousands of cars and car companies have sprung up only to disappear without trace.

In some cases these cars have been revived, even though they should have been consigned to the history books forever. Here we look at some of the motoring makes and models that have been brought back from the dead – sometimes more than once – and in many cases only to disappear once again:
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Abarth - then

Carlo Abarth built up a very successful business tuning Fiats and Simcas – so successful that Fiat bought his company in 1971 and turned it into nothing more than a badge to denote high-performance derivatives of its family cars such as the Strada and Stilo.
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Abarth - now

But in 2008 the brand was resurrected as a company in its own right, offering hotter versions of the 500 (pictured), and 124 Spider.
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Audi - then

August Horch set up a car company in 1899, then a decade later he fell out with his colleagues. Unable to use his own name again, he set up a rival business called Audi, which merged with DKW and Wanderer in 1932 to form Auto Union.
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Audi - now

With DKW proving the dominant partner, the Audi brand died in 1932 only to be resurrected in 1965 when the company was bought by Volkswagen. It’s one of the few brands featured here that’s done rather well for itself since being revived.
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Borgward - then

Here's one that nobody saw coming. In the late 1920s Carl Borgward added an ailing Hansa-Lloyd car-making business to his own, which was making three-wheelers for the commercial market.

It all ticked over nicely until things went belly up in 1961, and we all thought that was the last we'd heard of Borgward. But then Borgward's grandson Christian set up a new venture backed by Chinese automotive group Beiqi Foton Motor.
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Borgward - now

We got our first glimpse of a new Borgward production car at the 2015 Geneva auto show and since then the company has put its BX5, BX6 and BX7 SUVs into production. It intends to start selling cars in America in 2021.
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Bugatti - then

Why settle for one comeback when you can have four? Ettore Bugatti created a company to build luxury and sporting cars between the wars. He died in 1947, by which point the marque was already dead, but in the mid-1950s Ettore’s son Roland tried to jump-start the company.

He failed and so did Virgil Exner who tried to relaunch Bugatti at the 1965 Turin auto show. Another revival in the 1990s led to the magnificent EB110 (pictured) – then failure once again.
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Bugatti - now

Next the Volkswagen Group bought Bugatti in 1998, relaunched with the Veyron hypercar (pictured) in 2005 and then its follow-up model the Chiron in 2016 (pictured), which recently became the world's fastest production car, attaining 305mph. At last it looks like the brand is back for good. Hurrah!
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Datsun - then

It was 88 years ago, in 1931, that Datsun was born. Well, born for the first time. Back then the company built a handful of cars in its first year, ramping up production to three figures in 1932. By the mid-1960s Datsun had started to sell cars in Europe, having already set up shop in the US.

With Nissan branding taking over from 1984 and the brand killed off altogether in 1986 it seemed that was that.
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Datsun - now

But in 2013 Nissan relaunched Datsun as a budget brand in India, Russia, Indonesia and South Africa, with vehicles like this Go+ MPV (pictured). However, rumors now abound that the brand's future currently hangs in the balance.
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De Tomaso - then

Alejandro de Tomaso set up shop in 1959 to build sports and racing cars in the same vein as Ferrari and Maserati. However, he didn't produce his own engines (they generally came from Ford) and his cars were always overshadowed by more glamorous rivals.

His biggest hit was the Pantera (pictured), produced in collaboration with Ford, which owned a controlling stake in the company for a while. De Tomaso closed down in 2004, the man himself having died in 2003.
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De Tomaso - now

Seven years later a De Tomaso SUV concept was shown at the Geneva auto show. Borrowing a previous company name (Deauville), the plan was to build 3000 of them. Then it all went quiet...
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ISO - then

Few car brands are as obscure as Iso, yet the marque has just been revived for the second time. It was Iso that developed the Isetta which then sustained BMW throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. This Italian refrigerator manufacturer moved into microcars before trying its hand at GTs such as the Fidia, Lele, Rivolta and – most notably – the Grifo (pictured).
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ISO - later

By 1974 Iso had bitten the dust only to return in 1990 with a non-running prototype that would later be turned into a one-off fully driveable car. Now Iso is back once more with the Rivolta Vision, created for Sony’s Gran Turismo Sport with Zagato set to build up to five copies of the Corvette-based hypercar.
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Jensen - then

As well as building bodies for other brands (such as Austin and Volvo), Jensen built its own range of sporting and luxury cars from 1934. Best known for the Interceptor (pictured) and its four-wheel drive derivative the FF (the world's first car with anti-lock brakes), Jensen had gone out of business by 1976.
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Jensen - later

At the 1998 British auto show Jensen made a comeback but it would be another three years before its S-V8 would go into production (pictured).

After just 20 cars were completed the company died again, although another dozen examples were completed in 2003 by yet another iteration of the company: Jensen International Automotive.
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Lagonda - then

Founded by Wilbur Gunn and named after his hometown in Ohio, Lagonda built sporting cars for the wealthy enthusiast, like this LG6 from 1938. Swallowed up by Aston Martin in 1947, the final model from the marque was the Rapide, production of which finished in 1965.
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Lagonda - later

Lagonda was used as a model name for the crazy William Towns-designed sedan that appeared in 1976, then it all went quiet until the 2009 Geneva auto show when a cosmetically challenged SUV concept was unveiled, based on a Mercedes GL-Class (pictured).

It all went quiet again until the pricey Taraf sedan broke cover; just 150 or so were built.
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Lagonda - now

Now Lagonda is back once more, as an electric luxury sedan, launched in concept form by Aston Martin at the 2018 Geneva auto show - the latest relaunch of a marque that was first seen in 1906. We should see it in production form in 2022.
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Maybach - then

First set up by Wilhelm Maybach in 1909 to build engines for airships, the company also manufactured luxury cars from 1921 until 1940 like the magnificent Zeppelin (pictured).

Maybach built tank engines throughout the war - including those for the infamous Tiger - then it all went quiet until Daimler-Benz bought the company in 1960.
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Maybach - later

But it would be another 37 years before the brand reappeared with a luxurious concept car unveiled at the 1997 Tokyo auto show. A production car followed in 2002 (pictured) but sales proved sluggish and in 2013 the brand was effectively mothballed.
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Maybach - now

It's since been revived again as a range-topper for the Mercedes S-Class (pictured), and it looks like we'll see more as Mercedes seeks to guard the peaks of its model ranges against posher fare from the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bentley - both companies owned by its primary German rivals.
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Packard - then

Between 1899 and 1959 Packard built some of the most luxurious and advanced cars in the US, but when it bought the ailing Studebaker company in 1954 the writing was on the wall. Then, in 1993 entrepreneur Roy Gullickson decided to bring the Packard marque back from the dead.
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Packard - later

In 1998 the Packard Twelve was first shown. A 581 HP 8.6-liter V12 powered the four-door four-wheel drive sedan but it seems nobody wanted to buy one.

The sole prototype built (pictured) was sold by RM Auctions in 2014, for $143,000. The company's website is still live, at packardmotorcar.com.
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Lotus Elan - then

When Lotus unveiled a front-wheel drive Elan (known as the M100) in 1989 there were many who reckoned the company had lost the plot. After all, a decent sports car has to be rear-wheel drive, right? Not so - Lotus did a magnificent job in creating a landmark sportster
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Kia Elan - later

Lotus produced the Elan M100 until 1995 - a year later it was revived as a Kia, which built it for the Korean market. Outwardly identical to the Lotus edition, aside from new rear lights, the Kia Elan featured a 1.8-liter engine in place of the Lotus's 1.6-liter unit.
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Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato - then

Just 19 DB4 GT Zagatos were built in the 1960s. They went on to become the most collectible Aston Martins ever made.
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Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato - later

In 1988 Aston Martin put the Zagato back into production – kind of. It built four new cars known as Sanction II models with previously unused chassis numbers. In 2000 another two DB4 GT Zagatos were made, known as Sanction IIIs.
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Audi A4 - then

Taking over where the 80 left off, the first Audi A4 landed in 1994. A second take on the formula was released in 2000, known internally as the B6 and this was facelifted in 2004 to become the B7. By 2008 the B7 had been replaced by an all-new A4.
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Seat Exeo - later

The B7 might not have been up to date enough for Audi, but Audi’s Spanish sister company SEAT was quite happy to add the car to its range in sedan and wagon forms, as the Exeo. In the end the B7 was in SEAT's price lists longer than it was in Audi's (five years vs four).
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Studebaker Avanti - then

Founded in 1852, Studebaker built its first car in 1902. By 1954 Studebaker had merged with Packard then in 1963 the company closed its South Bend factory in 1963, just a year after its Avanti had been introduced.

With a production run of just a year, fewer than 6000 Avantis were made.
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Avanti II - later

When the company went belly up, Studebaker dealers Nate and Arnold Altman and Leo Newman took over production before selling everything on.

The Avanti would end up being made by five different companies after Studebaker went bankrupt, with convertible and four-door editions introduced along the way.
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Rover SD1 - then

SD1 is short for Specialist Division 1 as it was the first project undertaken by British Leyland's development team. Production ran for a decade from 1976, with 300,000 or so examples (badly) made, a few of which turned up in America – and very few of which survive today.
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Standard 2000 - later

Just as Austin Rover was giving up on the SD1, India's Standard was putting it into production. Whereas most SD1s featured a six- or eight-cylinder engine (although it was offered with a 2.0-liter four-pot), the 2000 came only with an 89 HP 1991cc four-cylinder engine based on the unit seen in the Standard Vanguard of the late 1940s. The Standard 2000 bombed.
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Morris Oxford Series III - then

Overshadowed by the later Farina Oxford, that British car's predecessor was the Series II which arrived in 1954, which was facelifted two years later to become the Series III.

This went out of production in 1959 when the all-new Farina-bodied Oxford came along, also offered in Austin Cambridge form.
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Hindustan Ambassador - later

The Morris Oxford Series III went into production in 1958 in India, as the Hindustan Ambassador. Incredibly it remained in production until 2014 and in the 1990s an attempt was made to import the Ambassador to the UK but British buyers didn't want to know – they'd been glad to see the back of the car several decades earlier.
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DeLorean DMC-12 - then

One of the most controversial cars ever made, the DeLorean was built in Northern Ireland but just 8583 were made before the company closed down, enveloped in various scandals.
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DeLorean DMC-12 - later

Having gained such a cult following, US DeLorean specialist DMC announced in January 2016 that it was going to build a small number of new DeLoreans, bringing the car back from the dead.
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MGB - then

Launched in 1962, the MGB went on to become the world's best-selling sports car. Apart from a few thousand V8-powered GT (hatchback) examples, all MGBs came with a 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine. The final MGB was built in 1980, and its factory near Oxford in England died with it.
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MG RV8 - later

British Leyland never offered a V8-powered MGB roadster, but more than two decades after the final MGB had been built the car was revived by Austin Rover in the form of the RV8. Just fewer than 2000 examples were made, each with a 3.9-liter Rover V8.
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AC Cobra - then

One of the most copied cars ever created, the Cobra started out as the AC Ace, into which Carroll Shelby shoehorned a Ford V8. At first it was a 289ci unit (4.7 liters) but later came the legendary 427ci (7.0-liter) edition.
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Autokraft Cobra - later

The original AC Cobra went out of production in 1969, in MkIII form. But the car was revived in 1982 by Autokraft, which licensed the AC name and came up with the MkIV, still powered by a Ford V8.

Since then the Cobra has remained in production, made by a series of companies and carrying a raft of different names.
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Marcos GT - then

Founded by Jem Marsh and Frank Costin, Marcos arrived in 1959 and five years later the GT was introduced with a choice of Volvo, Ford and Triumph engines. But by 1972 it was all over, with Marcos going bust thanks to changes in the market and taxation regimes.
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Marcos GT - later

Jem Marsh brought Marcos back from the dead in 1982, and having bought the moulds to the GT in 1976 he put the car back into production. At first there were various Ford and Triumph engines offered but in 1983 a Rover V8 option was added to the range. At first the cars were sold as kits only but from 1990 the cars came only fully assembled.
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Lancia Beta Montecarlo - then

A mid-engined sports car based on the Lancia Beta was always going to add some spice to a range with an image that lacked sparkle. Unfortunately, the Montecarlo (sold as the Lancia Scorpion in the US) suffered a litany of problems, including the over-servoed brakes locking the front wheels with just the slightest provocation. Lancia gave up on the Montecarlo in 1978.
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Lancia Montecarlo - later

After two years of development Lancia brought the Montecarlo back from the dead. The brake servo had been removed and some of the many build quality issues had been addressed. But in 1982 time was called on the Montecarlo for good.
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Lamborghini Silhouette - then

Lamborghini launched its V8-powered Urraco junior supercar in 1973. Three years later a two-seater version of this car was offered, known as the Silhouette and powered by a 3.0-liter mid-mounted V8. Just 52 were made before production was wound up in 1979.
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Lamborghini Jalpa - later

The 1970s were incredibly turbulent for Lamborghini so it attempted to get on an even keel in the 1980s by launching a new V8 junior supercar as a more affordable alternative to its V12-powered Countach.

Except it wasn't a new car at all - it was the Silhouette dusted down and relaunched under a different name, with just a light cosmetic refresh, a 3.5-liter version of the Silhouette's V8 and now called the Jalpa.

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