Zombie Cars: The 10 Strangest New Car Sales of 2025 – Autoguide.com
Who wouldn’t want to buy a new car in 2026 that was discontinued in 2016?
Nearly every automaker has reported their sales figures for 2025. There are winners, there are losers, and then there’s… the undead. The vehicles that somehow avoided purchase when new-new, but have remained at dealers long after they were discontinued. Maybe it was a rare model, a “I know what I’ve got, no lowballers” sort of situation like the Dodge Viper—which, for the first time since that sports car ended production, isn’t actually on this list. Maybe someone forgot about a few older cars squirreled away in the back of a warehouse. Whatever the reason, here are the five strangest vehicles sold new in 2025, in ascending age order. (Fair warning: Stellantis utterly dominates this list.)
The first entry in the list is definitely more like the Viper example. Audi’s V10-powered mid-engined sports car only wrapped production way back in the sepia-tinted days of 2024, so it’s not terribly surprising a few were still up for grabs through 2025. To the five folks who bagged one of the best everyday sports cars of the last decade: we salute you. Just please, please actually exercise that V10 and its 612 horsepower (or 620 hp if any of these were the limited-production R8 GT models).
Like the R8, the Mini Clubman is a relatively recent member of the deceased, having rolled off into the sunset just over a year ago. Even by Mini standards it was odd: a slightly longer four-door with a barn-door tail, it the Clubman was essentially the smallest wagon you could buy. It was pricey but, at least in 302-horsepower, all-wheel drive JCW form, was quick and fun. We will miss it, and the 14 people who bought one may have a moderately collectible future classic on their hands.
Four Door Sports Car. That was the Maxima’s calling card in the late ’80s through to the start of this millennium. How far the mighty have fallen. Once Nissan recast the Altima as a Camry/Accord fighter, the Maxima grew into a full-size sedan, too big to be truly sporty but not fancy enough to lure folks away from a BMW 3 Series. At least it kept the stalwart VQ engine, with the 3.5-liter V6 making a full 300 horsepower at the end—but only sent through the front wheels via a CVT. With Nissan’s electric sedan plans on ice, this may be the last vehicle we see with the Maxima badge for a long time.
A round of applause to the 28 people who drove out of Volkswagen dealers behind the wheel of an Arteon in 2025. Discontinued on our side of the Atlantic at the end of 2023, the Arteon was easily one of the best-looking mainstream sedans on the market. It’s clean looks and elegant proportions were miles ahead of the staid Passat (which quietly disappeared just before), and a 2022 update saw the familiar VW 2.0-liter turbo-four making a full 300 horsepower. With the seven-speed DSG transmission and AWD this was basically a swankier, more spacious Golf R. In other words, too good for us SUV-loving North Americans.
Our hot take for today: the BMW i3 was the last time the German brand was truly adventurous and daring. A tiny city car with its own carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) chassis allowed for an ultra-short nose and an usually airy cabin, with its own satisfying blend of materials. The new iX3 moves the electric game on, sure, but the i3 felt truly different. Maybe that’s how it secured a single buyer in 2025, four years after production ended.
If we’re going to anthropomorphize cars, the Fiat 500L was never very human—it looked more like a snail. It drove like one too. It was an unloved vehicle throughout its short production run, eventually exiting our market in 2020. So it comes as a complete shock that not one but two brave souls bought like-new examples of the tall-roofed 500 in 2025.
The minivan that moved an entire generation—and thus is at least partially to blame for the segment’s smaller sales figures—ended production in 2020. To be clear, we mean the boxy ol’ Dodge Caravan seen here: Canada still gets the (Chrysler Grand) Caravan, which is the localized version of the Chrysler Voyager. Or perhaps the Voyager is the export version of the GC, since all of Stellantis’ minivans are built in Canada. Whatever the case, nine buyers snapped up a new Caravan in 2025. While it’s surely way off pace the segment these days, the boxy shape, easy-fold seats, and known mechanicals give it a certain utilitarian appeal.
The other Dodge seven-seater, the Dodge Journey was at one point the absolute cheapest way to get three rows and a new-car warranty. Let’s hope that’s what the 17 people who bought one in 2025 got, too. With the ignominious claim of being the last vehicle to feature a four-speed automatic, the Journey was a value play and little more. Dodge sold zero of these things in 2024, so the fact that it’s returned to the list makes it a… double-zombie, right?
BMW is breaking up Dodge’s undead grip on the pointy end of this list with its own shambler: the 6 Series. No, not the coupe, which made way for the 8 Series that, er, also died this year. We’re talking about the 6 Gran Turismo, the vehicle that split the difference between BMW’s liftback Gran Coupe body styles and the Touring wagons that North America rarely gets. It basically looked (and drove) like a 5 Series, but with an awkward tail. No wonder it only lasted a single model year—but that makes the two sold six years later all the more interesting.
How?! Why?! These are the questions we have for the six people—or one person with an incredibly specific obsession—who bought a brand new Dodge Dart in 2026. The failed American compact car struggled to find sales when it was actually new, and disappeared after only a few short years. That was nine years ago. Don’t get us wrong, the on-paper stats still hold up today, with an available 184-horsepower engine, Nappa leather-trimmed seats, but again, and we can’t stress this enough: these are nine-year-old cars. If you’re reading this and are one of the buyers, please reach out: we need to know.
We end the list with a bonus: a vehicle that isn’t even in production yet. On Jeep’s yearly sales sheet sits 56 Recons, the brand’s upcoming off-roader EV. Even stranger, only 22 of those were logged in the final quarter of 2025, which suggests the rest were sold even earlier. Is it an odd bookkeeping oversight for internal-use training vehicles? We’ve reached out to Jeep for an answer but had heard nothing back at the time of publication.
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Kyle began his automotive obsession before he even started school, courtesy of a remote control Porsche and various LEGO sets. He later studied advertising and graphic design at Humber College, which led him to writing about cars (both real and digital). He is now a proud member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC), where he was the Journalist of the Year runner-up for 2021.
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