Word: edsel
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...Saint John, N.B., on sale in the Northeastern U.S. next month. He expects to make 1,000 cars a month initially, 100,000 a year eventually. But it remains for the consumer to determine whether Mal Bricklin is the new Henry Ford or his car is the next Edsel...
DETROIT. Coleman Alexander Young's first speech as mayor was blunt and to the point. Squinting into the bright glare of TV lights in the Henry and Edsel Ford Auditorium, he declared: "I issue an open warning right now to all dope pushers, to all rip-off artists, to all muggers: It's time to leave Detroit. I don't give a damn if they are black or white, or if they wear Super Fly suits or blue uniforms with silver badges: Hit the road...
...play Ford in the computer industry to IBM's General Motors. And indeed he put together with astonishing speed a company that by 1968 was making more money selling and leasing computers than anyone except IBM. But now the Minneapolis-based CDC looks more like a computer Edsel. Its share of the global market has dwindled to 2.7%, from 4.2% four years ago, and in the past two years it has lost more than $45 million on computer operations. In order to raise badly needed cash last year, it sold off or leased some of its extensive Minneapolis property...
...years ago, jokes about the star-crossed Edsel were a part of almost every comedian's patter. For employees at Ford's Lincoln-Mercury Division, which produced the car, it only hurt when audiences laughed. Bedeviled by bad timing and uneven management, the whole division had become a career junkyard for faltering executives and a rugged boot camp for beginners. Beyond Edsel, Lincoln-Mercury's models offered little individuality. They were nothing but larger, costlier Fords. Sales fell so low that many Lincoln-Mercury dealers were forced to depend on used-car sales...
...ineffective dealer organization or a poor product." Bidwell obviously thinks he has the right products. "Little cars and luxury cars are selling well," he notes, "and we happen to be one of the few divisions that have both." Lincoln-Mercury, it seems, has finally exorcised the ghost of the Edsel...