Derailed Design: 2000 Chevrolet Impala

I have trouble thinking of a better example of Derailed Design than the 2000 Chevy Impala. It's just tough to imagine a car that spat so conspicuously on it's history than the turd of a car Chevy foisted upon us back at the turn of the century.  First, though, some history.

The original Impala debuted in 1958, intended to compete in the full-size sedan market as Chevrolet's top of the line model.  It was an upmarket version of the Bel-Air coupe and convertible, with some stylistic differences (like the 6 tail lamps instead of 4) and more chrome 'n glitz.  It became it's own separate model for  1959, which is where it really becomes significant.  Look at this imposing beast of a car:

The Impala was a huge seller; it offered space, power, and style at a reasonable price.  Americans were on it like white on rice; it's not hard to see why.  The car was redesigned again in 1961, into what many consider to be the definitive Impala.  Look familiar?

The Impala had the distinction of being the best-selling car in America for an entire decade - between 1960 and 1970.  The 1961-64 Impalas have become something of a cultural icon these days, due to their large engines, big sales, and crisp, clean styling.  Things didn't really get better in the 70's, but you know - nothing did.  The Impala morphed into a largely forgettable slab-sided land barge, but that was par for the course in the malaise-ridden 70's.

The Impala followed market trends as it saw a major downsizing in 1977 to meet consumer demand for smaller, more efficient cars.  It continued in production until 1985, when it was dropped and the Chevrolet B-body line was held up by the more upscale Caprice model until MY 1990.

The Impala name was resurrected for a brief period of time from 1994 to 1996 for a high-performance variant of the newer Caprice.  It was a muscle-car through and through; a Corvette-derived 5.7L LT1 V8 with 260bhp thumped away under the hood, mated to a heavy-duty 4 speed automatic and a limited slip rear differential.  These monochromatic Impala SS's were largely black, which gave them a very menacing appearance - which lead to this advertisement, one of my personal favorites:

The real tragedy is that just when things started to get good, GM pulled the plug on the entire B-body line (which included the Impala SS, Caprice, Buick Roadmaster, Cadillac Fleetwood, etc.) in 1996 to open up some plant capacity for... wait for it... more SUV's.  Yeah, how'd that one work out?

Anyway, 1996 was the end of the Impala name, at least until 2000, when GM brought us... This!

In one fell swoop, the Impala went from a muscle-bound black-clad thug of a car, to a front-wheel-drive lump of boring rental car hell.  It looked like it was styled by a committee, handled like a slightly worse Avalon, and had very few redeeming features besides good fuel economy for it's impressive girth.  Ugh.  Not much more needs to be said on this topic, methinks.