Why did Ford's Edsel project fail?

Quite a few American names and terms have penetrated into the Russian language. For example, few people today will say that he does not know who a “loser” is. Interestingly, the Americans have another term for the same thing that you most likely do not know about. This is edsel. Yes, for a person who does not live in America and is far from a detailed history of the Ford automobile brand, such a comparison will be incomprehensible. And the thing is that in the 50s of the last century, Ford decided to “sit out” its main competitors and create a line of moderately luxurious cars, but at an affordable price. The idea was to push those companies that have already conquered the segment of mid-priced cars. Another task was not to lose the client, who had grown from the cheap segment, but had not yet matured to luxury models.


Having passed the preparatory period, Edsel in 1958 "came out to the people." Unfortunately, instead of the expected triumph, a complete failure awaited her. And this was facilitated by several unfavorable factors at once. For example, to reduce the cost of production, parts of a new car were manufactured at different structural divisions of the company according to the residual principle. This had a very negative impact on its quality. So over time, buyers began to decipher the abbreviation Edsel as "every day - a new breakdown." Another disadvantage for the success of the car was the American crisis that erupted in 1957. He hit first of all on the sale of cars in the category to which the Edsel belonged. Just two years after the start of production, the history of the new car was ingloriously completed. You can learn more about Ford's unsuccessful attempt from the video from the Autotrends channel.