Why Do Concept Cars (almost) Never Make It?

Something I’ve always wondered: why can’t an automaker take what they’ve shown as a concept and turn it into production?

I guess it just doesn’t make sense to me why they would spend all their time and resources designing and developing a concept car when all it’s going to look like when they release it is what the previous model looked like with different headlights. For example, the Bronco above excited us four-wheelers and we waited. Nothing happened. That made me wonder why the concept cars almost always are never made.

Now here’s something that angers me a little bit more than going from a Concept Car to a Production Car; the concept that never makes it to production. It almost feels as if the automaker would look you in the eye and tell you “This is what you want. And we could make it. In fact we did make it. But you can’t have it. No one can.”. I don’t think anyone would be able to change my mind on that fact that my favorite car that has ever existed is the Subaru WRX STI. All years. All models. They’re all amazing to me. And then they teased me with the WRX concept above. A concept that will never come to us and will never have more than the above example to show that they could definitely build this car and make so many people happy about it. And then just kind of sweep it under the rug and tick all of us off. It’s almost like a kick to the stomach except with the fact that that pain goes away. Eventually.

Now, I understand that there are concepts that will never make it to production. For example, the above. But that’s not something that they even built a prototype to show off to then say either “No.” or turn it into a Camry. It’s just a drawing that someone came up with to say “Hey, I wonder if this will ever be possible.” and then it goes into the drawing bin until one day when something like this will be possible.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t understand why the next generation of the Subaru WRX won’t look like the amazing concept that was shown off. Or why automakers feel the need to design and develop something that they’ll never put into production. It just angers me.