Five production cars that vastly improved on their concepts

Happily, however, this isn't always the case. There have been plenty of concepts over the years that caused eyebrows to be raised, chins to be scratched and a collective “hmm” to be uttered as the covers came off, only to be nipped, tucked and tweaked ready for the road. It’s an odd phenomenon, given the reaction to a concept often dictates whether a production version will see the light of day. So, without further delay, here is a selection of concepts that were invariably improved for the forecourts of dealers…

Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren

These days the SLR is probably the most unloved top-end supercar of that generation. While Zondas and Enzos have comfortably clattered past million-pound valuations in recent years, the slightly bipolar SLR still lingers around its original £300,000 list. We might be a minority here but we can’t fathom why. It’s an imperious hyper-GT with the performance to batter anything south of the aforementioned mid-engined exotics and in spite of prevailing opinions, continues to command a similar camera-baiting exotic status. It’s something of a bargain, especially when you consider what could have been…

The Vision SLR concept (note no mention of McLaren yet) looks, to our eyes, what you might get if you sent the production SLR down the vets to have its supercharger removed. It’s sunken, sad and drooping in all the places the production McLaren is magnificent and muscular. If the McMerc really isn’t worthy of the early-2000s hypercar leagues, the car that previewed it wouldn’t have had a hope in hell had it headed to the dealers un-altered. 

Bentley Bentayga

We’re pretty sure the yelps that were uttered upon the reveal of 2012’s Bentley EXP 9 F concept are still echoing around Geneva to this day. That said, upon revisiting it, it’s nowhere near as challenging as memory serves.

Bentley had a good eye on this one. Though the design of the car had a less than rapturous reception, the sales of a production version would be through the roof regardless. Nevertheless, the Bentayga did receive a precautionary makeover come time for its debut, with a more handsome and familiar Bentley face replacing the EXP’s awkward mug.

Nissan GT-R

There’s something about a drawn-out Japanese performance passion project that sees the most hapless sexless designs get whipped into shape. The GT-R and the next car on this list are both the products of feverish enthusiasts who didn’t know when to quit. The GT-R concept of 2001 must have been the last thing Skyline lovers wanted to see following news that the bloodline they so adored was to die with the R34. It looks like some half-baked prop from a film set in a dystopian future.

Thankfully the course of its development quickly moved toward the muscle-bound giant-killing Godzilla that endures today, ten years on from its debut and 16 years on from that strange machine that signalled its approach.

Lexus LFA

The LFA come the time of its release had blossomed into the most gloriously pointless expression of an engineer’s fetishism. Fully clad in carbon and running an F1-inspired fast-revving V10, 2009’s LFA production car was a world beyond the concept of the same name that previewed it in 2005. It was around this time – four years before the production car would debut and five years since development began – that the LFA that would see production really began to come together.

A lot of what was an 85%-complete alloy version of the car was scrapped in favour of a primarily carbon construction. This, along with countless other delays put down to Akio Toyoda’s engineering pedantry would nurture the LFA from the slightly confused and dumpy sports-GT that was previewed in 2005, into the bleeding-edge fully-fledged unicorn supercar that we know and love today. It was all-the-better for the delays and absolutely worth the wait, if only so it could lose the cheap hi-fi dashboard of the original concept.

Volkswagen Scirocco

Before we catch hell in the comments, we’re not suggesting the IROC concept of 2006 is an ugly car. To say so would be to charge the production version that followed a year later with the same thing. They are quite similar but bear with. The transition from IROC to Scirocco is the perfect example of how concept-to-production should be done. Keep the dimensions and the proportions – the pleasant shapes and the curves. Lose the concept frippery – the massive metal muzzle, the silly lurid green flashes and the cheap blue lighting. The Scirocco that we got was the contemporary hatch-come-coupe we all wanted. The IROC, while cool, did well to hold on to most of its “concept-ness”. 

What do you make of our list of concepts that were improved upon by their production counterparts? Are we comically ill-of-taste? Are there any more we haven’t thought of? Let us know!