Showroom: Expires 2013: Models That Won’t Return

Some vehicles fail to meet expectations from the very start. Many more lose their relevance over time. It’s a rare automobile that is introduced with a firm expiration date in mind.

While models like the BMW M3 and the Volkswagen Golf R are skipping 2014 because of redesigns, the vehicles presented here are truly dead. Don’t expect to see new models wearing these badges anytime soon, if ever:

ACURA ZDX The genre-bending ZDX combined the ride height of an S.U.V., the roofline of a coupe and the four doors of a sedan. From the driver’s seat it was as well-sorted as the more conventional MDX, but the ZDX’s styling left buyers confused enough that Acura never met its modest goal of 5,000 sales a year.

ASTON MARTIN VIRAGE The Virage was a head-scratcher from the moment it was announced, wedged into the narrow price and performance gap between the DBS and DB9. It was no surprise, then, that the British automaker pulled the Virage off the market after just 18 months.

AUDI TT RS Audi’s performance division conjured a 360-horsepower turbocharged 5-cylinder engine and a sweet-shifting 6-speed manual to create the RS. The result was powerful and nimble enough to transform the humble TT — its underlying platform is shared with the Volkswagen Golf — into a legitimate Porsche rival.

CADILLAC ESCALADE EXT Outward appearances suggest that the EXT rode on four standard tires, but what really carried this reskinned Chevrolet Avalanche was the Escalade name. The business case was just as tenuous as that of the failed Lincoln Blackwood, yet with an 11-year run the Escalade EXT disproved the notion that a luxury pickup is a sales-proof oxymoron.

CHEVROLET AVALANCHE Many will remember the Avalanche by its distinctive “midgate” between the bed and the cabin. Its place in history is more significant: the Avalanche was a harbinger of today’s trucks that place as much emphasis on moving people as they do on hauling cargo. The Avalanche was undone by the gentrification of conventional pickups, including Chevy’s own Silverado.

CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 AND ZR1 The new 2014 Corvette Stingray has sent the high-performance variants on sabbatical. While the Z06 and ZR1 had distinct personalities, rumors suggest that Chevrolet’s succession plan calls for a single car to replace the duo. Whether it will be closer in spirit to the brutal, track-ready Z06 or the sophisticated six-figure ZR1 remains to be seen.

FISKER KARMA Fisker lived and died by an Energy Department loan intended to promote the development and production of its plug-in-hybrid technology. But the Karma’s lasting contribution had nothing to do with batteries or electric motors. Rather, Henrik Fisker, the designer who founded the company, taught the establishment how to create a truly beautiful four-door car.

FORD MUSTANG BOSS 302 The Boss’s fate was sealed before it even went on sale: Ford promised to sell this rowdy special-edition Mustang for just two years. Its throwback name evoked the muscle car’s glory days while its 302-cubic-inch V-8 was a modern 444-horsepower dynamo.

NISSAN ALTIMA COUPE It’s a small pool of car buyers that prefers two-door coupes built on the underpinnings of sensible family sedans. Toyota buried its Camry-based Solara coupe four years ago. With Nissan now doing the same, Honda’s two-door Accord stands alone.

SUZUKI Perpetually besieged Suzuki gave up on the United States market in late 2012, just as it was finding its feet. The newest of its models — the SX4 subcompact and the Kizashi midsize sedan — were genuinely good cars. Its Grand Vitara S.U.V. and Equator pickup, not so much.

TOYOTA MATRIX Toyota’s small hatchback should be remembered as a survivor. When General Motors shuttered the Pontiac brand in 2009, Toyota lost the mechanical twin (the Pontiac Vibe) that gave the Matrix scale and the experimental joint manufacturing plant where both cars were built. Rather than call it quits, Toyota relocated the tooling to Cambridge, Ontario, and gave the Matrix another four years of life.

VOLVO C30 For conservative Volvo, the plucky C30 hatchback was a rare departure from conventional high-volume segments. With its 5-cylinder engine and all-glass rear hatch, the C30 packed loads of charisma into a package that was simply too small for most luxury buyers.

VOLVO C70 The 1998 C70 was the first modern Volvo to break out of the brand’s boxy design language. Initially sold as a coupe and soft-top convertible, the C70 later became a single model with a retractable hardtop. The Swedish automaker is focusing on mainstream segments as it reboots its lineup under its new owner, the Chinese automaker Geely.

Automakers Build Showroom in an App

“They won’t come into the stores to educate themselves,” said Peter Chung, general manager of Magic Toyota and Scion in Edmonds, Wash. “They’ll do that online.”

More than half of the younger buyers surveyed by AutoTrader.com, a car-buying site, said they wanted to avoid interacting with dealership sales representatives.

In response, automakers like Cadillac and Toyota are starting to embrace technology that tries to take the showroom to the buyer. Known as augmented reality, it embeds images and videos in a picture on the user’s smartphone or tablet. The result is a far more detailed view of the image, often in three dimensions with added layers of information.

For example, when Cadillac introduced the ATS last year, it created a campaign in cities across the country that allowed observers to point an iPad at a chalk mural and watch the car drive through scenes like China’s mountainous Guoliang Tunnel and Monaco’s Grand Prix circuit. The goal was to grab the attention of potential buyers, especially younger ones, who would not normally think of Cadillac when researching new cars.

Later, Cadillac added the technology to its print advertising, pointing readers to download the brand’s smartphone application to view a three-dimensional model of the car. The app allows users to zoom in on the car and turn it 360 degrees by swiping their finger across the screen.

“It’s obviously different than going to a dealership, but at least it’s enough to engage with the vehicle in an environment where they’re comfortable,” said Arianna Kughn, Cadillac’s social media manager.

Audi has used the technology in its brochures and instruction manuals, while Toyota added it to a campaign with the computer-generated pop star Hatsune Miku to interest a younger audience in its 2012 Corolla and to increase the number of downloads of the automaker’s shopping app.

Other businesses are seeing an opportunity as well. Metaio, a German software company with an office in San Francisco, has worked on projects for Audi, Volkswagen and Toyota.

Specular Theory, based here in Venice Beach, is using Hollywood production techniques to create renderings that allow users to open the doors of a car that is not really there, peer inside and roam around, or take a test drive, merely by running their fingers over a phone or tablet screen.

Its founder, Morris May, is applying the expertise he developed over 20 years as a graphic designer on movies like “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” and “Spider-Man 2” to redefine the way people view cars in the showroom, online and through mobile devices.

“We’re changing the way people experience cars,” Mr. May said, as he used his finger to open the car door of the virtual model displayed on his iPad, revealing the interior of the car, including the dashboard, steering wheel and texture of the seats.

Augmented reality to the uninitiated may seem like a bizarre sci-fi plot device but is actually accessible to anyone with a smartphone or tablet. Mr. May turned on his iPad and pointed the camera at a piece of paper that looked like a camouflage print, which concealed the code for what is called a target image. He trained the lens on the image and a three-dimensional car appeared on the tablet screen.

The technology offers cost savings to automakers. Traditionally, they spend millions when marketing a new model, on photo shoots or building a “cookie-cutter configurator” that changes the car’s colors or features on a Web site, Mr. May says.

When a new model is introduced, that work is scrapped, and the production team, which includes photographers, Web developers and media buyers, starts anew.

As an alternative, Specular Theory uses an automaker’s computer-aided design data to create material that is consistent across Web browsers, phone and tablet screens and showroom floors, where dealers can project and modify life-size, three-dimensional car models.

When an automaker makes a minor change to, say, the tailpipe of next year’s model, Specular Theory can eliminate the time and money spent creating a new campaign by tweaking data from the marketing materials.

Mr. May’s model uses the weight of the car and the tension of the springs to calculate how it drives, controlling the car with a joystick.

Specular Theory, which started six months ago, is still in its infancy but has landed Autodesk, which makes three-dimensional design software for a variety of industries, as a client.