Over the decades through the past 100 years of their existence, GM had to close divisions due to poor performance: La Salle and Oakland to name some. This has never happened to Ford before and since Edsel, and it hasn’t happened to GM ever at all, at least not yet. That was about lack of Edsel brand identity, with no connection with a new brand compounded by vehicles style branded a certain way that customers couldn’t connect, understand, or relate to, so they shunned both the car and the brand. But the Edsel failure was too early for people to be getting sick and tired of the Edsel brand. The reason for cancellation is usually about the car, not necessarily the brand, unless history repeats itself with GM brand fatigue. And GM customers exercise patience when GM wears out a brand or sells another crap car, but they haven’t taken it out on GM for both at the same time.
Oh we all know from time to time over the years, that GM made crap cars that never should have made it to production. To my recollection, knowledge, and research, GM never had this kind of similar Edsel experience, ,where they lost a product, a product line, and a whole subsidiary division all at the same time by cancelling the launch or flagship product, costing millions or billions like it did at Ford because customers got turned off toward both the product and brand. When GM cancels a car or shuts a brand, it’s usually because, ,either the vehicle, ,was deficient in some way, and/or the brand just wasn’t as popular anymore to help the product line sell, so the brand had its day. The GM Product Failures and the GM Division Shut Downs But I believe Edsel did Ford a solid benefit that would help them post production back in the early 1960s and decades later: I'll explain at the end. In these two events happening it is considered one of the most expensive product failures in US auto history. So by the Edsel failing to meet sales, the car folded and so did the division. By adding an Edsel line, Ford could expand to three divisions, increase the dealership numbers nationwide to thebsizeof Chrysler’s at 10,000, and have a new brand that would delineate the core Ford brand from the luxurious Mercury brand that would add more prestige to the Lincoln brand. The feeling was at the time that perhaps Ford could open up consumer markets and sales by having a bridge division between mainstream Ford core branded, and luxurious Mercury branded vehicles before the step up to Lincoln. I can only imagine what the fiscal and collateral costs to launch then fold a car division and what those costs mean today and meant back in the day.
Today it takes from drawing board to showroom about $1 billion USD to bring a car to market. That would be about $2.4 billion in today’s money. Eventually as production continued only the Ford platform was used.Īfter three production years Ford shuttered the car and the brand after making a total of about 118,000 units over three years, industrially considered low output, and losing about $350 million 1959 USD. Of the seven variants, half had a longer wheelbase that was based on a Mercury platform, the other half had a shorter wheelbase based on a Ford platform.
WHAT DOES INVERTY MEAN ON VIN DIESEL WHEELMAN PLUS
The Ford Edsel was the launch of a car that had 7 different trims or variants in two and four door hard tops and sedans, two wagons, and two convertibles, in a total four year run from 1956–1959, that’s three model years, plus an additional 2,800 cars in post production for the 1960 model year. Ford only had two, three if you count Continental a few years prior but it had to drop Continental back into the Lincoln brand back in 1958, that Chrysler had to do the same with Imperial back into the Chrysler brand years later in 1975.
At the time in the late 1950’s General Motors and Chrysler each had 5 car divisions with different price points. What makes the Edsel failure unique that makes it difficult to answer your question for GM, is that not only did the car fail, but it was supposed to be the launch vehicle for an entirely new separate division of the Ford Motor Company. market not the USA: ,The cars with the shortest production runs: cut down in their prime. So I went mad researching on the internet and the closest I could find were these GM vehicles but they were sold in the European particularly the U.K. But you stumped me on this excellent question. I have a better than average knowledge of the US auto industry, particularly its history as I’m more of a car historian and analyst.
Was there a GM car that flopped just like the Ford Edsel? I believe that’s a no. Was there a GM car that flopped just like the Ford Edsel?