The American automotive market is one of the world’s biggest meritocracies. If a car is good, it sells well, and if it’s not, well, it gets a shorter Wikipedia entry. Now some may argue that vehicles like the Toyota Camry are too bland and don’t deserve their success. Then again, there’s a lot to be said for consistency…ask McDonalds.

Every now and then though, a car comes along that, despite a long list of merits, never quite achieves the ubiquity that you might expect. Sometimes it’s style, other times marketing, and yet other times it’s simply because the car was “ahead of its time,” that is, not exactly fitting in with contemporary consumer tastes.

Do these cars deserve their fate as also-rans? Not to me…they’re all good, and if people would be willing to overlook one simple thing (OK, maybe more than one in some cases), they’d find themselves behind the wheel of some very satisfying machinery. On the other hand, look for some great values on the used market in the near future.

read more from "10 Cars That Coulda Been Contenders"