Ford Edsel
FORD EDSEL
The Ford Edsel was a big failure for the Ford Motor Company. There were numerous faults that contributed to the failure of the car to sell. I think that the biggest was it did not live up to the hype.
Ford decided to produce a new car that was bigger and better than those that were on the market being produced by the competition. In the early 1950’s people enjoyed having large cars, it made them feel successful, more powerful. Ford decided that they too would produce a larger model to compete. This is when the Edsel idea began.
The Edsel was widely publicized as the “E” car. Ford spent a lot of money in advertising. They claimed that this was the car of the future. The hype was enormous. They never published pictures of the Edsel, so it was a mystery to everyone as to what the car would look like. Ford made the car sound like a dream machine with fancy gadgets and big horsepower.
The Ford Company was in turmoil the whole time that the Edsel was being conceived. They could not come up with a name nor could they decide on where to build them. Some of the versions of the Edsel were on Ford chassis and some were on Mercury chassis. The plan to make the car that would boost Ford sales was not well planned out.
By using great amounts of advertisement Ford was able to intrigue the nation. Everyone wanted to see what this “E” car was all about. No one even knew what the car looked like. They only had their imagination to go by and with all the propaganda people had versions of super cars in their heads. Once the car was unveiled its radical form was not widely accepted. Sales didn’t boom as Ford thought.
To add to all the pressure of not selling, some of the space age gadgets did not work. The news spread about faulty equipment and vehicles arriving at dealerships incomplete. The Edsel soon became a synonym with...
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