Automakers that have been around a long time, like, say, General Motors, have a lot of history. Some of that history is just that, history, and other aspects are physical—as in, it has preserved old models for display or reference, and even some show cars and prototypes. When you’ve been around as long as GM, you might even have so much historical stuff on hand, you run out of space or the desire to maintain it, so you do a little spring cleaning. Recently, GM decided to do just that, discarding two old concept cars—one of which you’ve probably remember.
An eagle-eyed photographer spied the 1990 Cadillac Aurora show car and, on a separate occasion, the 2001 Pontiac Rev concept in the same GM lot where cars headed for the crusher are gathered. It’s an ignominious holding pen, this lot, where usually tired prototypes and early build test cars that can’t be sold to the public and have lived out their useful lives meet their demise.
The two concept cars originally debuted beneath the gleaming lights of the Chicago auto show, the Cadillac at the 1990 event and the Pontiac at the 2001 show. The Cadillac (the silver sedan-lookin’ thing) featured a 200-hp 4.5-liter V-8 engine, all-wheel drive, and a frame adapted (somehow) from the front-wheel-drive DeVille. Curiously, the DeVille has a transversely mounted engine powering the front axle, while this Aurora concept’s V-8 sat lengthwise within those same frame rails, the longitudinal position lining it up with a driveshaft powering the rear wheels.
Besides going on to have a second life as a movie prop in 1993’s Demolition Man, which used several other 1980s-era GM concept cars as futuristic stand-ins, it also inspired the styling on the later 1997 Cadillac Catera sport sedan (the Cadillac that zigs!) and its Opel-badged Omega European sibling); you can see the similarities in the segmented full-width taillights, softly rounded body, and the headlights. While the Catera was also rear-wheel-drive and had 200 hp, its engine included only six cylinders, not eight, and the proportions were more Chevy Malibu than the sexier Aurora.
Pontiac’s Rev concept is clearly of its early aughts time. Where the Cadillac was born in an era where sedans still ruled the roads, the Pontiac shows just how much the American public’s automotive desires had shifted in favor of crossovers and SUVs in just over a decade. Sitting high up, the Rev has a windswept profile that recalls today’s coupe-ified SUVs and their raked rear windows and huge wheels. In spite of its ground clearance, the Rev wears few rugged elements, with only a set of roof rails and performative skidplate garnishes poking from its chin and tail like thin goatees.
As captured here, each show car has seen better days. The Cadillac’s tires—which otherwise look to be in shockingly good shape for 34-year-old rubber—are deflated, and there’s a puncture or rust perforation in the driver’s door, a long section of paint peeled off the rear bumper and left bodyside, and the entire thing appears to have been unceremoniously dumped paint-to-paint against an also doomed Buick LaCrosse sedan.
The Pontiac Rev also was smooshed up between to far less interesting GM products, namely a current red Cadillac XT4 SUV and a rather blown-out-looking Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV. The show vehicle is so cozy with the adjacent Lyriq, in fact, it’s left some of its searing neon-green paint transferred onto the Cadillac’s back door and fender. We can’t see the front of the Rev, but from what we can make out—paint rub notwithstanding—it appears to be in much better shape than the Aurora concept. All four tires have air, for starters.
We get it, neither of these concepts are seminal efforts in GM’s design history. The Aurora’s name went on to adorn an Oldsmobile sedan that, though windswept like this show car, otherwise looked nothing like it. Pontiac doesn’t even exist anymore, and it’s not clear much if any styling from the Rev made it to any production models in a direct way. Still, it’s sad to see cars that once represented their respective brands under the brightest lights in the auto industry, on stage at a major auto show, fall this far from grace, however marginal their significance.