Title
The Edsel: Forty Years as a Symbol of Failure
Abstract
No automobile has been so widely anticipated and so quickly rejected as the Ford Edsel. Within two months of its highly publicized launch on September 4, 1957 the Edsel became a rolling joke. By the time the last car, a beige six‐passenger Villager station wagon, rolled off the line on November 20, 1959 the word "Edsel" had become convenient shorthand for any massive and embarrassingly public failure. In the nearly two generations since that day millions who have never seen the car have recognized the name and image as a synonym for failure. In actuality, however, the Edsel, while undeniably unpopular, was, at most, an ambiguous failure.
Department(s)
History
Document Type
Article
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00754.x
Publication Date
2010
Recommended Citation
Dicke, Tom. "The Edsel: Forty years as a symbol of failure." The Journal of Popular Culture 43, no. 3 (2010): 486-502.
Journal Title
The Journal of Popular Culture
