Here are nine cars that were sold at a loss

It may have been mighty clever in design and mighty popular with the public, but even after 14 years of production British Leyland admitted in 1973 that it was losing money on each Mini. Still, it got new customers into the brand and broke even when spare parts were taken into account.

Another car that was expensive to develop but then struggled to sell was the first generation Smart Fortwo. Yes, it was a clever design, but a 2013 report by financial analysts Bernstein Research exposed an estimated £2.85bn loss on the total project for Daimler. Ouch.

Another ridiculously complex, groundbreaking supercar that flopped financially. It had magnesium alloy wheels, electronically adjustable suspension, sequential turbos and adjustable AWD - but Porsche lost upwards of £100k on each car.

Quite how Jaguar took a Ford Mondeo and turned it into an unprofitable mess is beyond us. Ford bosses originally targeted 100,000 sales per year, but Jag had shifted just 350,000 when the plug was pulled after eight years on sale. That meant a loss of around £1.5bn on the project.

Another Piëch masterpiece, and one that apparently featured a £1.2bn-ish development budget, the Phaeton was a brilliant car that nobody wanted. Reports suggest Volkswagen lost around £25,000 on every single one.

The A2 was lightweight, super slippery and cleverly made. And a bit of a sales flop. Only 176,377 were built in its five-year production run, and its fancy aluminium construction made it pricey to produce. Sources suggest Audi lost between £4,000 and £6,000 per car.

When Mercedes revived the Maybach brand in the early 2000s to take on the R-R Phantom, it apparently invested over £800m in the project. Unfortunately, massive depreciation contributed to slow sales, and Merc ended up losing around £250k on each one.

With huge R&D costs, bonkers targets and a number of well-documented delays, it's perhaps no surprise that Ferdinand Piëch's magnum opus ended up being a loss leader for Bugatti. But given the success of the brand these days, it actually looks like it was all worth it.

How it must hurt Lexus now to see very lightly used LFAs selling for nearly £1m. Even the £345,000 price tag back in 2010 wasn't enough to save it from a hefty loss on each car, although that'll happen when development takes 10 years and includes multiple redesigns.