1990s

Today, the market is filled with compact crossovers like the Kia Soul and the Mazda CX-3. But there was a time when there really wasn’t such a thing. Perhaps the first such production vehicle was the seldom seen, but now beloved Isuzu VehiCROSS.

BMW just dropped a drop-dead gorgeous roadster with its new Z4 Concept, so I thought it might be fun to look back at another 2-seater designed by the German automaker for this edition of Concepts from Future Past.

If you have ever looked at a late ’90s Cadillac and thought what it really needs is a second Northstar V8 in the trunk and bizarrely designed sheet metal, I have found your ride. What you see here is something dubbed the “TwinStar” that was made by Mosler back in the late ’90s, and it’s now up for auction on eBay.

I’ll go on record now and say that the 1990s wasn’t exactly my favorite decade for automotive design. Cars became more and more homogeneous in style, and mediocre performance seemed to be the name of the game during those days, with none-too-thrilling cars like the Dodge Neon, the Pontiac Trans Sport and the Ford Tempo.

I kind of consider the 1990s “the lost decade” – I didn’t really care for mainstream music, movies, or cars during most of that period. Sure, there were some outliers like Radiohead, The Matrix, and the Nissan Skyline, but for the most part, it was a pretty crappy decade for most things.