Word: edsels
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Right "Personality." What happened? As it turned out, the Edsel was a classic case of the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time. It was also a prime example of the limitations of market research, with its "depth interviews" and "motivational" mumbo-jumbo. On the research, Ford had an airtight case for a new medium-priced car to compete with Chrysler's Dodge and DeSoto, General Motors' Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick. Studies showed that by 1965 half of all U.S. families would be in the $5,000-and-up bracket, would be buying more cars...
After the decision was made in 1955, Ford ran more studies to make sure the new car had precisely the right "personality." Research showed that Mercury buyers were generally young and hot-rod-inclined, while Pontiac, Dodge and Buick appealed to middle-aged people. Edsel was to strike a happy medium. As one researcher said, it would be "the smart car for the younger executive or professional family on its way up." To get this image across, Ford even went to the trouble of putting out a 60-page memo on the procedural steps in the selection of an advertising...
...Taste of Lemon. The flaw in all the research was that by 1957, when Edsel appeared, the bloom was gone from the medium-priced field, and a new boom was starting in the compact field, an area the Edsel research had overlooked completely. Edsel's styling, in particular the grille, which resembled an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon, was not much help, even after the lemon was removed. In its first six months Edsel made 54,600 cars, and then went steadily downward: 26,500 cars in 1958, fewer than 30,000 cars so far in boom-time...
...total, $100 million went for production facilities, which will be used to produce Ford's second entry into the compact-car field next spring. As a running mate for the Falcon, Ford plans a slightly larger, more luxurious compact model that it originally thought of calling the Edsel Comet. Now the new car will just be called the Comet...
...Edsel died, Ford got ready to put more pep into the Ford line. Next month Ford will begin deliveries of a 360-h.p. engine that is topped among U.S. stock cars only by the 380 h.p. in the Chrysler 3OO-E. Ford's aim is to outdo both Plymouth (330-h.p. top) and Chevrolet (335-h.p. top) with its new engine...