18. Saab Sonett
Even though Saab was famous for sedans and convertibles with turbo engines, during the ’60s and early ’70s, they produced a sports coupe. As expected, it was strange, obscure and quirky, just like the rest of the range. In fact, there were three generations of SAAB Sonett sports cars. The first one was a racing prototype from the ’50s, but the second and third were regular production models.
Saab designed the Sonett on a box chassis and fitted it with a fiberglass body. They initially equipped the Sonett with the tiny Saab three-cylinder two-stroke engine producing just 60 HP. As you can expect, most car buyers were disappointed with the poor performance. However, soon Saab fitted it with a 1.7-liter V4 they borrowed from the Ford European division.
The power grew slightly, but the V4 had much more torque. However, the small Sonett still wasn’t a record-breaker. They ceased production in 1974 after building less than 15,000 of them over three generations.