Ford’s Edsel Project Wins a Place in Forbes Top 10 Business Blunders Ever

We just finished reading a very nice article from Forbes concerning the biggest business blunders ever and we thought we’d share the story with you since our beloved Ford managed to make the “Top 10” list with its infamous Edsel marque. Named after the son of FoMoCo’s founder Henry Ford, Edsel was created to compete head on with GM’s Oldsmobile brand as Lincoln was getting a makeover to run against the more prestige Cadillac.
Edsel’s first model was launched amidst great publicity on September 4 1957. But while consumers where expecting something really special, the Edsel line-up proved to contain nothing more than controversially styled Ford based models that actually fell within Mercury's price range; it was a disaster waiting to happen. In all, Ford spent $350 million (in 1950’s dollars) before it decided to close Edsel on November 19, 1959. Edsel is now considered as one of the most spectacular failures in the history of the American automobile industry. –Continued after the jump
Forbes list of humongous business blunders includes among others the sale of Alaska from Russia to the U.S. in 1867 for a mere $7.2 million or 1.9 cents per acre -a land that proved rich in oil and gold and is currently valued at $100 billion, and the sale of the 86-DOS operating system from Seattle Computer to Bill Gates (Microsoft) back in 1980 for a “pitiful” $50,000!
Link: Forbes
Source URL: https://sparesomeribs.blogspot.com/2008/03/fords-edsel-project-wins-place-in.html
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