ford edsel failure case study

4 lessons from the failure of the Ford Edsel, one of Bill Gates' favorite case studies

On this day in 1957, Ford released a car that flopped so spectacularly that it has become a timeless case study on how not to develop and launch a product.

The 1958 Ford Edsel was supposed to be the new premiere car for middle-class Americans.

Ford was so confident in the product that it pumped $250 million into it. But instead of starting a revolution, the company lost $350 million on the unattractive gas-guzzler.

In the late John Brooks' book " Business Adventures ," a collection of New Yorker articles from the '60s that was republished last year, Brooks explains what went wrong in the story, "The Fate of the Edsel."

"Business Adventures" is Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates'  favorite business book , and he finds the Edsel piece especially interesting. He explains in his blog:

[Brooks] refutes the popular explanations for why Ford's flagship car was such a historic flop. It wasn't because the car was overly poll-tested; it was because Ford's executives only pretended to be acting on what the polls said.

"Although the Edsel was supposed to be advertised, and otherwise promoted, strictly on the basis of preferences expressed in polls, some old-fashioned snake-oil selling methods, intuitive rather than scientific, crept in."

It certainly didn't help that the first Edsels "were delivered with oil leaks, sticking hoods, trunks that wouldn't open, and push buttons that … couldn't be budged with a hammer."

Here are some lessons from the failed launch that are still relevant today:

Don't let egos trump research

Ford's designers and marketers began development on the car in 1955, with the intent of creating an automobile tailored to the desires of the American people, as determined through seemingly endless polling.

Ad men got to work thinking up thousands of names and testing them in focus groups with civilians and Ford execs, and even consulted the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Marianne Moore for the perfect name for the perfect car. (Moore suggested such absurd names as the Utopian Turtletop and The Intelligent Whale.) Despite endless hours of testing and consultation, the chairman of the board decided at the last minute that he was going to go with Edsel, the name of Henry Ford's son.

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"As for the design," Brooks writes, "it was arrived at without even a pretense of consulting the polls, and by the method that has been standard for years in the designing of automobiles — that of simply pooling the hunches of sundry company committees."

Focus your vision

In the late '50s, American consumers had a limited choice of car models, and there weren't tremendous differences in performance from model to model, at least by today's standards. Edsel's designers knew that they were creating an image, a character, but instead of refining their vision, they decided to make it everything at once.

In a lazy attempt to please everybody, they made the terrible decision to debut 18 variations of the car at launch . The academic S. I. Hayakawa dubbed the car the Edsel Hermaphrodite because it seemed as if it were explicitly trying to be masculine and feminine.

And, because it was 1957, Ford decided to have two media previews, one for male reporters and one for their wives. In the former, the Edsel was driven around a stunt course as if it were in a Hollywood blockbuster — at one point an Edsel almost flipped.

Gates mentions in his blog that the women's event, a fashion show, was one of his favorite passages in the story because the host was revealed to be a "female impersonator" (i.e. a man in drag), which was not only bizarre but, as Gates says, "would have been scandalous for a major American corporation in 1957."

Don't put yourself in a situation you can't get out of

A year before launch, Ford began a teaser campaign for the E-Car, the code name for the Edsel as it was being developed. It gave customers the expectation that they were going to get an irresistible car of the future.

Ford execs seemed to never once consider failure to be an option. They created an entire Edsel division and persuaded dealerships to order a certain number of cars before the Edsel was even finished.

Had they acted more cautiously and avoided betting so much on the car, they could have pulled back once the stock market took a nosedive in the summer of 1957, and people stopped buying mid-priced cars. Mere weeks before the car's launch in September, Brooks writes, "Automotive News reported that dealers in all makes were ending their season with the second-largest number of unsold cars in history."

If you fail, accept it and move on, all the wiser for it

At launch, the car was too expensive, used up too much gas, and was mocked in the press. A redesigned 1959 Edsel debuted to better reviews, but the damage was done. Nobody wanted an Edsel. A 1960 Edsel came out in limited production, but Ford president and future secretary of defense Robert McNamara finally pulled the plug in 1960.

Brooks estimates that "every Edsel the company manufactured cost it in lost money about $3,200, or the price of another one."

Even though Ford recovered from the setback, the executives who led the project expressed to Brooks no recognition of their countless mistakes and even looked back fondly on their time developing and marketing the car.

J.C. Doyle, an Edsel marketing manager, even went so far as blaming the American public for the failed launch. He tells Brooks that he was flabbergasted that the American consumer dared to be so fickle.

"What they'd been buying for several years encouraged the industry to build exactly this kind of car," he says. "We gave it to them, and they wouldn't take it. Well, they shouldn't have acted like that ... And now the public wants these little beetles. I don't get it!"

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4 lessons from the failure of the Ford Edsel, one of Bill Gates' favorite case studies

Flickr/free photos & art

The Edsel has new life today as a collector's item.

The 1958 Ford Edsel was supposed to be the new premiere car for middle-class Americans.

Ford was so confident in the product that it pumped $250 million into it. But instead of starting a revolution, the company lost $350 million on the unattractive gas-guzzler.

In the late John Brooks' book " Business Adventures ," a collection of New Yorker articles from the '60s that was republished last year, Brooks explains what went wrong in the story, "The Fate of the Edsel."

"Business Adventures" is Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates' favorite business book , and he finds the Edsel piece especially interesting. He explains in his blog:

[Brooks] refutes the popular explanations for why Ford's flagship car was such a historic flop. It wasn't because the car was overly poll-tested; it was because Ford's executives only pretended to be acting on what the polls said.

"Although the Edsel was supposed to be advertised, and otherwise promoted, strictly on the basis of preferences expressed in polls, some old-fashioned snake-oil selling methods, intuitive rather than scientific, crept in."

It certainly didn't help that the first Edsels "were delivered with oil leaks, sticking hoods, trunks that wouldn't open, and push buttons that … couldn't be budged with a hammer."

Here are some lessons from the failed launch that are still relevant today:

Don't let egos trump research.

Ford's designers and marketers began development on the car in 1955, with the intent of creating an automobile tailored to the desires of the American people, as determined through seemingly endless polling.

Ad men got to work thinking up thousands of names and testing them in focus groups with civilians and Ford execs, and even consulted the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Marianne Moore for the perfect name for the perfect car (Moore suggested such absurd names as the Utopian Turtletop and The Intelligent Whale). Despite endless hours of testing and consultation, the chairman of the board decided at the last minute that he was going to go with Edsel, the name of Henry Ford's son.

"As for the design," Brooks writes, "it was arrived at without even a pretense of consulting the polls, and by the method that has been standard for years in the designing of automobiles - that of simply pooling the hunches of sundry company committees."

Focus your vision.

In the late '50s, American consumers had a limited choice of car models, and there weren't tremendous differences in performance from model to model, at least by today's standards. Edsel's designers knew that they were creating an image, a character, but instead of refining their vision, they decided to make it everything at once.

In a lazy attempt to please everybody, they made the terrible decision to debut 18 variations of the car at launch . The academic S. I. Hayakawa dubbed the car the Edsel Hermaphrodite because it seemed as if it were explicitly trying to be masculine and feminine.

And, because it was 1957, Ford decided to have two media previews, one for male reporters and one for their wives. In the former, the Edsel was driven around a stunt course as if it were in a Hollywood blockbuster - at one point an Edsel almost flipped.

Gates mentions in his blog that the women's event, a fashion show, was one of his favorite passages in the story because the host was revealed to be a "female impersonator" (i.e. a man in drag), which was not only bizarre but, as Gates says, "would have been scandalous for a major American corporation in 1957."

An advertisement for some of the many variations of the Ford Edsel.

Don't put yourself in a situation you can't get out of.

A year before launch, Ford began a teaser campaign for the E-Car, the code name for the Edsel as it was being developed. It gave customers the expectation that they were going to get an irresistible car of the future.

Ford execs seemed to never once consider failure to be an option. They created an entire Edsel division and persuaded dealerships to order a certain number of cars before the Edsel was even finished.

Had they acted more cautiously and avoided betting so much on the car, they could have pulled back once the stock market took a nose dive in the summer of 1957 and people stopped buying mid-priced cars. Mere weeks before the car's launch in September, Brooks writes, "Automotive News reported that dealers in all makes were ending their season with the second-largest number of unsold cars in history."

If you fail, accept it and move on, all the wiser for it.

At launch, the car was too expensive, used up too much gas, and was mocked in the press. A redesigned 1959 Edsel debuted to better reviews, but the damage was done. Nobody wanted an Edsel. A 1960 Edsel came out in limited production, but Ford president and future secretary of defense Robert McNamara finally pulled the plug in 1960.

Brooks estimates that "every Edsel the company manufactured cost it in lost money about $3,200, or the price of another one."

Even though Ford recovered from the setback, the executives who led the project expressed to Brooks no recognition of their countless mistakes, and even looked back fondly on their time developing and marketing the car.

J.C. Doyle, an Edsel marketing manager, even went so far as blaming the American public for the failed launch. He tells Brooks that he was flabbergasted that the American consumer dared to be so fickle.

"What they'd been buying for several years encouraged the industry to build exactly this kind of car," he says. "We gave it to them, and they wouldn't take it. Well, they shouldn't have acted like that... And now the public wants these little beetles. I don't get it!"

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What Happened to the Car Industry’s Most Famous Flop?

Any crossword puzzler knows there’s a five-letter word for a Ford that flopped: Edsel.

More from TIME

At the heart of any big flop–like when Ford ended the Edsel 55 years ago, on Nov. 19, 1959–lies high expectations. The Edsel was named after Henry Ford’s son, no small honor, and it had its own division of the company devoted to its creation. As TIME reported in 1957 when the car debuted, the company had spent 10 years and $250 million on planning one of its first brand-new cars in decades. The Edsel came in 18 models but, in order to reach its sales goals, it would have to do wildly better than any other car in 1957 was expected to do. The September day that the car first went on the market, thousands of eager buyers showed up at dealers, but before the year was over monthly sales had fallen by about a third.

When Ford announced that they were pulling the plug on the program, here’s how TIME explained what had gone wrong:

As it turned out, the Edsel was a classic case of the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time. It was also a prime example of the limitations of market research, with its “depth interviews” and “motivational” mumbo-jumbo. On the research, Ford had an airtight case for a new medium-priced car to compete with Chrysler’s Dodge and DeSoto, General Motors’ Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick. Studies showed that by 1965 half of all U.S. families would be in the $5,000-and-up bracket, would be buying more cars in the medium-priced field, which already had 60% of the market. Edsel could sell up to 400,000 cars a year. After the decision was made in 1955, Ford ran more studies to make sure the new car had precisely the right “personality.” Research showed that Mercury buyers were generally young and hot-rod-inclined, while Pontiac, Dodge and Buick appealed to middle-aged people. Edsel was to strike a happy medium. As one researcher said, it would be “the smart car for the younger executive or professional family on its way up.” To get this image across, Ford even went to the trouble of putting out a 60-page memo on the procedural steps in the selection of an advertising agency, turned down 19 applicants before choosing Manhattan’s Foote, Cone & Belding. Total cost of research, design, tooling, expansion of production facilities: $250 million. A Taste of Lemon. The flaw in all the research was that by 1957, when Edsel appeared, the bloom was gone from the medium-priced field, and a new boom was starting in the compact field, an area the Edsel research had overlooked completely.

Even so, the Edsel wasn’t a complete loss for Ford: the company was able to use production facilities build for Edsel for their next new line of, you guessed it, compact cards.

Read the full report here, in the TIME Vault: The $250 Million Flop

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Case Study: The Ford Edsel - A Classic Example of Marketing Misstep 🚗💥

Introduction.

This case study delves into the marketing failure of the Ford Edsel, a car that has become synonymous with business failure. Launched in 1958 by the Ford Motor Company, the Edsel was a highly anticipated car that ended up being a colossal failure due to a series of marketing and design blunders.

The Ford Edsel was named after Henry Ford’s son and was intended to fill a gap in the mid-priced car market. It was one of the most hyped car launches of the era, with Ford investing heavily in marketing and teasing the public with promises of an entirely new kind of car.

The Launch and Immediate Problems

1. overhyped expectations.

• Ford created a massive buildup of expectations, claiming revolutionary features. However, when the Edsel was unveiled, it did not live up to the hype.
• The public expected something futuristic but found the car to be overstyled and unattractive.

2. Design and Quality Issues

• The Edsel’s design was criticized for its awkward grille and over-the-top features.
• Early models were plagued with quality control issues, further tarnishing the brand’s image.

Analyzing the Marketing Failure

A. misreading consumer trends.

• Ford misread consumer trends. The car was designed in a booming economy but was released during a recession. The public was looking for smaller, more economical cars, not the large, expensive Edsel.

B. Poor Brand Positioning

• The Edsel was meant to bridge a gap in Ford's lineup between mid-priced and luxury cars. However, the market didn't perceive a gap, leading to confusion about the brand's positioning.

C. Ineffective Marketing Strategy

• The marketing strategy failed to convey a clear value proposition for the Edsel, resulting in a weak connection with potential customers.

The Aftermath of the Failure

1. financial loss and discontinuation.

• The Edsel resulted in a loss of about $350 million (equivalent to billions today). Ford discontinued the model in 1960, just two years after its launch.

2. Lessons for Ford and the Industry

• The failure of the Edsel became a valuable lesson for Ford in understanding market needs, customer perceptions, and the importance of product quality.
• The auto industry, in general, learned about the risks of overhyping a product and the need for thorough market research.

Lessons Learned

A. importance of market research.

• A thorough understanding of market trends and consumer preferences is crucial before launching a new product.

B. Risks of Overpromotion

• Building unrealistic expectations through overpromotion can backfire if the product does not deliver.

C. Product-Market Fit and Timing

• Ensuring product-market fit is essential, and the timing of a product launch can significantly impact its success.

The Ford Edsel remains one of the most notable examples of a marketing and business failure. It serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of understanding consumer needs, effective branding, and the dangers of overreliance on hype in marketing strategies.

  Speak a Short Summary

Related insights.

The Edsel Proved Why You Should Never Design a Car by Comittee

Ford had big ambitions for Edsel. Unfortunately, they were too big.

Ford in the 1950s was nothing if not ambitious. Unfortunately, this ambition gave birth to the Edsel, whose name became synonymous with abject corporate failure after the nascent brand was killed in 1959. The Edsel's short history makes a fascinating cautionary tale for anyone in business–not just the car industry.

Our pals at Regular Car Reviews got into the history of Edsel in a new documentary podcast. It's a great listen for anyone interested in the car business.

Under the leadership of Henry Ford II, the Ford Motor Company hired some of the brightest minds in America as executives. This group, dubbed the Whiz Kids, wanted to increase Ford's market share in the U.S. with a new brand to slot between Ford and Mercury.

Only trouble is, they couldn't come up with a good name. After literally thousands of names were suggested, they eventually settled on Edsel, the first name of Henry Ford's son, Henry II's father–"settled" being the key word here. They threw lots of new technology at the Edsel too, but no one really had a clear vision for what the car was supposed to be. To make matters worse, the first Edsels built were plagued with production problems, enraging dealers.

The public didn't really understand this bizarrely-styled, badly-named, poorly-conceived car either. Whatever small chance of success the Edsel had when it debuted in 1958 was killed by an economic recession. To their credit, Ford executives realized how much of a failure they had on their hands, killing the Edsel brand at the end of 1959.

Bad circumstances played a big role in the Edsel's demise, but in hindsight, it seems the car was doomed from the start. Ford had a wealth of smart executives at the time, but with too many hands working on the Edsel, the project had no direction.

It's no coincidence that world's most successful cars–the Model T, the Beetle, the Mini, and others–were conceived by individuals or small groups. The more people working on a car, the more its intent gets muddied. Even if you have the brightest, best-intentioned minds in the business.

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Was the Ford Edsel really that much of a failure?

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In a word, yes. Many consider it the biggest failure the Ford Motor Company has ever had. However, the car itself really wasn't all that bad. Sure, it wasn't conventionally attractive and Ford did make a few bizarre engineering decisions ... and, yes, there were some quality issues — but it was still drivable, which is something that people seem to forget when they reminisce about the awful, awful Edsel.

This car never had a chance, as it failed to gain traction immediately after its debut. Sales were even worse the following two years, until it was finally pulled off the market. Ford lost $350 million on the Edsel during those years, and it simply blamed the economy, which had taken a sharp turn for the worse just a few months before the car's debut, worrying consumers and leaving car dealers with a lot of excess inventory. The economy was one factor, sure, but there was much more than that.

So what was going on prior to the Edsel's launch in 1957? Well, Ford started with a good idea: a car that was slightly more upmarket than their current offerings, and the hope to capture and retain middle-class buyers rather than losing them to the competition. They spent millions on research. They wasted countless hours debating thousands of potential names, until the board chairman (in an effort to earn some brownie points), declared the car "Edsel" after Henry Ford's son. Meanwhile, the American public was told for months on end that Ford's new car would be the best thing to ever hit the road. The truth is, no car could have ever lived up to the hype that Ford and its ad agency managed to build up. Especially since no one outside the company had the chance to see what the car looked like, or even hear its awkward name, until right before the launch.

When the Edsel finally made it to the showroom floor, it was offered in 18 trims. Instead of being focused, Ford's attempt to woo everybody made the car seem confusing and poorly planned. And then there were those weird design decisions. The oval in the grille was initially intended to be a lot smaller, but the original version didn't allow enough airflow to actually cool the engine, so it just kept growing until it eventually took over the car's entire face. (Ford designers have said that it actually looked good, prior to all the revisions.) It used way too much fuel. There was a bizarre push-button transmission — innovative for no good reason. Design quirks then gave way to actual quality issues, like stuck trunk lids, peeling paint and even missing parts. As the story goes, the Edsel design was so counter-intuitive that assembly line workers simply stopped trying, and the car's reputation for being weird turned into a reputation for actually being bad. At one point, Ford dealerships tried to give away ponies in a contest to entice people to drive the Edsel. The winners instead opted for a cash prize, leaving Ford stuck with piles of poop — both figurative and literal. The Ford Edsel was killed off in 1959, but the marketing case study will last forever. Ford was its own worst enemy during every chapter of the Edsel story.

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• 1958 Ford Edsel - The 50 Worst Cars of All Time
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• Carlson, Peter. "The Flop Heard Round the World." The Washington Post. Sept. 4, 2007. (March 15, 2015) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/03/AR2007090301419.html
• Feloni, Richard. "Why This Historic Ford Flop Is One Of Bill Gates' Favorite Case Studies." Business Insider. July 23, 2014. (March 15, 2015) http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-flop-bill-gates-favorite-case-studies-2014-7
• Neil, Dan. "1958 Ford Edsel - The 50 Worst Cars of All Time." Time. (March 15, 2015) http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1657867_1657781,00.html

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The Ford Edsel Was a $250 Million Monumental Failure in Automotive History

Have you ever even heard of the 1956 Ford Edsel? The automaker probably wants it that way. Ford conducted 10 years of research to create the perfect automobile to appeal to buyers, but the Edsel still missed the mark. What mistakes did the Ford brand make?

Why was the Ford Edsel a failure?

In an old article from Time Magazine , the Ford Edsel was referred to as the “car industry’s most famous flop .” The Ford Edsel was a two-door sedan name after Henry Ford’s son, Edsel. In 1957, the automaker had a division created to bring this automobile to fruition. The cost of that was about 10 years and $250 million in research and development. It was supposed to be one of Ford’s new cars, the first in decades.

The Ford Edsel had 18 models to choose from, but that still didn’t help sales. To reach the company’s goals, it had to sell better than most cars on the market. When it first went on sale in September 1957, people were lining up to get ahold of one. But by the end of the year, sales had already fallen to one-third of the initial purchases.

The Ford Edsel was the “wrong car at the wrong time”

Ford tried to explain away the failure of the Edsel by saying it was simply the wrong car at the wrong time. The automaker set out to create a car that would compete with Chrysler’s Dodge and DeSoto sedans and the GM Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick vehicles.

“Studies showed that by 1965 half of all U.S. families would be in the $5,000-and-up bracket, would be buying more cars in the medium-priced field, which already had 60% of the market. Edsel could sell up to 400,000 cars a year.” Time Magazine

Ford ran more studies to confirm that the Edsel was the right choice for this market sector. Research shows that buyers interested in Mercury were younger and more into hot rods. Pontiac, Dodge, and Buick aimed at reasonable middle-age buyers. The Ford Edsel was supposed to fit right in between.

The factories created for this car were able to be used for future models

The Ford Edsel was introduced #OnThisDay in 1957. Why do you think it flopped? #AcrosstheDecades pic.twitter.com/qcTNBiktRm — Decades TV Network (@decadesnetwork) September 4, 2018

Ford went so far as to put out a 60-page memo about the procedure to try and find the right advertising agency. After turning down 19 companies, Ford executives settled on Foote, Cone & Belding. After all was said and done, the Ford Edsel cost $250 million.

But the research overlooked a critical area of potential buyers. By the time 1957 rolled around, buyers seemed to want compact cars more than mid-priced cars. “As it turned out, the Edsel was a classic case of the wrong for the wrong market at the wrong time. It was also a prime example of the limitations of market research,” Time noted.

The last Edsel rolled off the production line in 1960. Less than 200,000 units were made from facilities that cost $100 million to build. Ford pivoted to build compact cars in these facilities to try and capture more of the market. The Ford Edsel was unsuccessful, but the brand is still around and quite successful with vehicles like the Ford F-150 and Ford Mustang Mach-E , so not all hope was lost.

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Amanda Cline is an avid fan of Formula 1 and joined MotorBiscuit in 2021. A Southwest Floridian, she easily and often finds automotive events to attend in the Tampa, Orlando, and Miami areas. Amanda is a graduate of the University of Central Florida, where she earned a Bachelor’s in English Literature and a Master’s in Technical Communication. Combining her editorial and digital media expertise, Amanda served as a content creator for FanSided and now provides our readers with a variety of automotive subject matter like pickup trucks and SUV s, including valuable consumer advice.

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Why Was The Ford Edsel Such a Failure?

By 1950, Chevrolet had built a grip on the top spot as America's best-selling automotive brand. Chevrolet sold one million more vehicles than Ford, the runner-up. On the other hand, General Motors took the next three spots in the top five in that same year. In the mid-1950s, Ford Motor Company decided to add another automotive line to compete with General Motors. Since 1908, when it merged with the Oldsmobile Motor Company, General Motors Corp had developed into six independent divisions. Ford would employ a similar tactic to expand its market share. Edsel Bryant Ford, the company's founder Henry Ford's only son, would be the name of the new car line. During spring in 1957, Ford launched a hugely effective advertising campaign that capitalized on the human desire to know more. "The Edsel is Coming," read the first commercials on the airwaves.

The mysterious car, however, was invisible. The sight of it piqued people's interest. They gradually allowed a hazy glimpse of the vehicle's shadow as well as the hood ornament as the campaign advanced. Anyone connected with the Edsel was pledged to secrecy, promising not to say anything about what was billed as a revolutionary new automobile. According to Liveabout , dealers were supposed to store the Edsel covertly, and if the automobiles were seen before the release date, they would be penalized or lose their franchise. The hooplas drew a record-breaking crowd to see it unveiled on September 4th, the “E-day,” in 1957. They then left without purchasing anything. In this article, we have highlighted some of the main reasons that led to the failure of Ford Edsel.

The beginning of Ford Edsel faliure

Ford Edsel was not purchased since it was a lousy or unsightly car. People did not purchase the vehicle since it did not measure up to the lofty expectations set by the company's spectacular advertising effort in the preceding months. So the Ford Edsel's first failure occurred before anyone had even seen the vehicle. Those who did purchase an Edsel discovered that it was plagued by substandard construction. Various automobiles that arrived at the dealership had notes on the steering wheel indicating the manufacturer's parts had not been installed.

Discord in the workplace

Based on early 1950s market research and a strong US economy, Ford's executive vice president, Ernest Breech, effectively Edsel's father, persuaded the company's top management that premium midsize cars would thrive. Chairman Henry Ford II was wary of jeopardizing his father's reputation with a vehicle that ventured into uncharted territory, but the Edsel label was approved while he was away. According to Motorcities , Robert McNamara, who was in charge of keeping the company on track financially, advised against having various sales divisions, as well as the mechanical differences between the Edsel and the new vehicle's an advertising and promotion budget. He was the first to advocate pulling the plug when the E vehicle did not fly to minimize more losses. Unfortunately, the great Lee Iacocca was preoccupied with something else. The Ford Edsel scheme would have performed better if he had supplied his keen knowledge of client demands and needs.

The vertical grille feature of the new For Edsel was meant to be far slimmer than it was in production. This was according to Edsel design leader Roy Brown. Engineers increased the size of his grille, claiming that the original design did not provide the radiator with enough cooling air. People began calling it the horse collar, a toilet seat, and an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon due to the resulting design. The manufacturer replaced the vertical grille with a horizontal pattern for the third model year, which ironically resembled a 1959 Pontiac.

Poor timing

The introduction of Ford's nascent automobile could not have come at a worse moment. A recession hit the United States in the fall of 1957, causing car sales to plummet. Desoto sales were down 54% from the previous year. Mercury sales were down 48%; Dodge sales were down 47%; Buick sales were down 33%; Pontiac sales were down 28%, and so on. Ford pondered launching the vehicle in June rather than September but ultimately opted against it. As a result, the company only sold 63,000 Ford Edsels in the first year of its launch. The recession was largely to blame for Edsel's dismal sales, while the American Motors Rambler, a different car, sold more than 100,000 that year and double that the following year. The market accepted the Rambler positively compared to the Ford Edsel’s. With the Edsel, Ford made yet another blunder. The stylish, mid-priced Ford Fairlane had debuted in 1956, undercutting Edsel's market category. Many automobile purchasers who sought a Ford considered the Fairlane a better value than the Edsel because it cost less.

To decrease costs, Ford consolidated the Edsel and Lincoln-Mercury divisions, reduced the number of available models, added a six-cylinder engine, and changed the appearance slightly for 1959. For 1960, plans were already in the works to update Edsel's appearance. In 1959, just about 45,000 Edsels were sold. Ford Edsel is a classic case of corporate arrogance and disrespect for market reality. It also shows that advertising and pre-delivery excitement can only go so far in persuading people to buy a new, unproven car. The success or failure of an automobile is determined in a free market economy by the car-buying public, not by the manufacturer. If a car company oversells a new model, consumers will have false expectations. If the newly launched car fails to meet expectations, it is condemned to fail on the showroom floor. Edsel taught Ford that it could not tell people what to buy. Since then, it has not made another blunder. Ford introduced the Mustang, a brand-new, sporty, cheap car that Americans quickly welcomed, some years after the Edsel was discontinued. Ford recently introduced the Taurus, which was designed in response to automobile buyers' demands and desires and has proven to be a huge commercial success. On the other hand, the Edsel will continue to be an oddity in the automotive world, the solution to a question that no one asked.

Written by  Benjamin Smith

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