I'm reminded of Honda Motorcycle and its habit of making odd small-run bikes, such as the Valkyrie Rune or the NM4 Vultus. Both of those are in the premium segment of an already premium market (at least in the US/UK/etc) but it's great seeing a major manufacturer do something cool and weird. A bit like a rolling concept vehicle.
I'd love to see more of that in the car market, and I'm curious what prevents it. Safety standards might be a big part of that - of course motorbikes have very little in the way of safety systems or crash test requirements, which probably massively reduces the investment required for small-run vehicles.
Maintainability might also be part of it: there's just more stuff in a car which might have to be located and packaged differently for a different body shape, which affects anybody who has to work on it, requires a bunch of service manuals to be written, might even require spare parts to be stocked for decades, etc.
I'd love to see more of that in the car market, and I'm curious what prevents it. Safety standards might be a big part of that - of course motorbikes have very little in the way of safety systems or crash test requirements, which probably massively reduces the investment required for small-run vehicles.
Maintainability might also be part of it: there's just more stuff in a car which might have to be located and packaged differently for a different body shape, which affects anybody who has to work on it, requires a bunch of service manuals to be written, might even require spare parts to be stocked for decades, etc.