These Car Brands Aren’t Making It Through The Next Recession

Do things feel ominous to you? Like we’re all trapped in the belly of a horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death? Some days — maybe most days by now — it feels like every bit of normalcy we have left is just itching to fall from a ledge and leave us all destitute in some Balkanized post-United States. When the world economy crashes, and it will crash, we must ask ourselves: Which car brands aren’t making it out of this one? 

The Great Depression killed the long hoods of Duesenberg. The Great Recession killed plenty of storied, long-lived nameplates. So, last week, I asked you all which automaker won’t make it out of the next recession intact. You gave a wealth of answers that spanned the globe, and today we’re looking through your picks. Some of them were even so outside-the-box as to not be brands maintained by GM or Stellantis. 

RAM could/should disappear — not because of financial pressure but because it shouldn’t have split from Dodge in the first place and smushing them back together will help the Dodge brand.

Chrysler also would make sense to cut. Dodge used to include minivans and trucks — I think customers would readily accept that going forward.

Submitted by: blueswor_zwloZ

VinFast. Even under ideal circumstances, it’s super difficult for a new country to break into the U.S. market, and the company didn’t have the best first impression as the VF8 was initially widely panned. They are already struggling to gain a foothold here and a recession is only going to make it harder for them to stay afloat.

Submitted by: Giantsgiants

Buick.

Buick only survived the last one because it sold well in China. Is that still true today with Chinese brands become much better? Add a likely anti-US brand for Chinese buyers in the next recession and suddenly Buick has to stand on how well it sells in the US.

Submitted by: hoser68

I said it during the last downturn, I don’t know what GMC has to offer that can’t be absorbed into Chevy. If we lost Pontiac, who actually had a few distinct products, what is it that keeps GMC as an actual brand?

Submitted by: potbellyjoe

I’m going to take a left turn right now and say: Saturn should’ve stuck around and been the GM experimental/EV brand. That being said, Chrysler or Maserati.

Submitted by: drb1986

My vote for major car brand (so excluding the obvious like VinFast), is Infiniti. They’re already two generations overdue for new product and can only sell (lease) cars if they give them away, even though they’re already a lot cheaper than their European competition.

If/when Infiniti goes out of business and the dealers switch to selling only used Infinitis, it would take years for the public to notice because the cars on the lot wouldn’t look any different.

Submitted by: Wantsamanuelalpharomero

Alfa and Fiat will be gone from our shores. Wouldn’t surprise me to see Chrysler get shuttered, too.

Submitted by: BuddyS

Chrysler, Infiniti, Buick, Jaguar, Mitsubishi, and Fiat/Alfa are all on the chopping block. I can see Mini getting out of the US market as well.

Submitted by: BraxtonFullerton

Mini. Their sales are stagnant and except for a upward blip early last year, resumed falling hard at the end of 2025. Mini is stuck in a trap. They need refreshed and new vehicles, but are stuck in the forced designs to keep them a Mini. Anything too large looks odd, and anything too small barely sells. It’s too bad because the Cooper/Cooper S/Cooper JCW are overall fun cars to drive, and the right size for a single buyer or a couple who doesn’t need a large back seat. Their interiors are creative and they are still driver’s cars. But that’s not what Americans want. And that might doom them soon.

Submitted by: Xavier96

Tesla.

Basically every other car company is trading on the market at a relatively rational valuation, with around 8x to 15x P/E ratio. IMO The big market crashes will come from the companies with P/E ratios that are completely irrational, and with a P/E ratio of over 300x, Tesla is the posterchild of completely irrational market valuation. This is for a company that objectively has shown numerous signs of failing; dropping sales figures, cuts to line-ups with no sign of replacements even being worked on, losses of many key employees, multiple scandals and legal issues piling up, and a CEO that is so unpopular that Tesla’s lawyers complain that it’s difficult for them to find juries that don’t just hate him in the numerous trials against Tesla. It’s really not hard to imagine a sell-off of Tesla stock getting out of hand.

Submitted by: Connor Paull