--- title: Ford Edsel History: Why the Car Flopped description: Market researched failed in a major way canonical: https://time.com/3586398/ford-edsel-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-19T12:00:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:21.504Z article:section: History og:title: Ford Edsel History: Why the Car Flopped og:description: Market researched failed in a major way og:url: https://time.com/3586398/ford-edsel-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt637f97868bb4b2cb/698768e63c163913ab44ffab/edsel.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: A 1958 Edsel Convertible og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ford Edsel History: Why the Car Flopped twitter:description: Market researched failed in a major way twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt637f97868bb4b2cb/698768e63c163913ab44ffab/edsel.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Happened to the Car Industry's Most Famous Flop? > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022: Rivian [Watch (HLS stream): TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022: Rivian](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MDTRHmVn.m3u8) (3:06)  _Published 2022-03-30. Rivian CEO and founder R.J. Scaringe on the inspiration behind the company._  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 19, 2014 12:00 PM UTC  A 1958 Edsel convertible made by Ford A 1958 Edsel convertible made by Ford Underwood Archives / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 19, 2014 12:00 PM UTC 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](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,809839,00.html) 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: --- > “” --- 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](http://time.com/vault/issue/1959-11-30/page/89/) ## Transcript We're in a very unique moment in time  where our society has the ability to impact   the world that we live in 10 generations from now; 20 generations from now. Our decisions are on what   we do in terms of minimizing the amount of carbon  we put into the atmosphere, to the way in which we   protect all the biodiversity on the planet. All of  that's going to be felt for generations to come. It's the core motivator behind really all the  energy our teams are pouring into the products   and we need to help drive that excitement around  making this transition towards electric vehicles. So I grew up since I was about this tall, massively  into cars and essentially anything with wheels. It was incredibly upsetting as I started to realize  that these things that i love so much were at   the center of so many of the problems we have  around the world. Whether it's local air quality,   climate change, a lot of our geopolitical issues. That sort of realization created this tension   that ultimately led to me realizing I wanted to  start something to make the things that i was so   excited about part of the solution. We're building  a portfolio of Rivian products. There'll be  different form factors, different sizes, different  price points. We wanted to make sure the products   we're creating challenged existing expectations so they're both really fun to drive and also   really efficient. One of the reasons we started  with the pickup truck; not only did those really   embody the idea of adventure, those are also the  least-efficient vehicles in the road. We said let's   make a vehicle that's simultaneously just as  capable and as exciting as the best vehicles   in the world but does it in a really sustainable  way. And in parallel to that, we're also building   a commercial side of the business. We did that  with close partnership and a close relationship   with Amazon, where we had drivers in vehicles  we watched them we got feedback from them. And all of that fed into all different types  of tweaks and improvements to make the vehicle   as easy to use as possible, while also making it  something that's very efficient to run as a fleet. It really comes down to this desire to help  drive towards sustainability and have impact. And it became ever more important when  I had kids. My oldest is now six and   when I see how he looks at the world, and the  idealism he has around what the future holds,   I feel a real sense of responsibility to the  products we're creating and how those are going   to enable and hand off a world to my kids, and then  in-turn his kids, and so on and so forth. That's   really a motivator and it's something that we've  really built into the way we think as a business. The question I get asked most commonly  is: "When is my vehicle going to arrive?" Which is exactly the question we want to have,  and exactly the type of excitement we want to see. So the pressure's certainly on us  to ramp as quickly as possible, to   get products out into the world. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3586398/ford-edsel-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3586398/ford-edsel-history/"},"headline":"What Happened to the Car Industry's Most Famous Flop?","datePublished":"2014-11-19T12:00:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:00:21.504Z","description":"Market researched failed in a major way","url":"https://time.com/3586398/ford-edsel-history/","keywords":["Transportation","cars","Ford","Autos","Automotive"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt637f97868bb4b2cb/698768e63c163913ab44ffab/edsel.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt637f97868bb4b2cb/698768e63c163913ab44ffab/edsel.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"A 1958 Edsel Convertible","caption":"A 1958 Edsel Convertible","creditText":"Underwood Archives / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3586398/ford-edsel-history/","name":"What Happened to the Car Industry's Most Famous Flop?"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022: Rivian","description":"Rivian CEO and founder R.J. 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