The Car Nobody Wanted: How Ford Lost $2 Billion
For eighteen months, Ford built the suspense.
The Edsel would be revolutionary—the car of the future. Dealers clamored for allocation. Customers waited to see what Ford had been hiding.
Then, in September 1957, the curtain lifted.
Within three years, the Edsel was dead, leaving losses that totaled more than $2 billion in today’s dollars.
The Vision Made Sense Ford saw a real gap in its lineup. Buyers were graduating from entry-level Fords but weren’t ready for premium Mercury prices. The company needed a bridge—a car for the upwardly mobile American family.
So Ford invested hundreds of millions, created an entirely new division, and ran months of teasers that built anticipation like a Hollywood premiere.
And they designed a car with a front grille that critics immediately compared to a toilet seat. Ouch.
The First Delivery When the first cars reached dealerships that September, excitement turned to alarm. Dealers discovered vehicles with leaking oil, sticky door handles, and unreliable push-button transmissions. The launch had been rushed.
Even worse, salespeople couldn’t explain what the Edsel was supposed to be. Was it sporty? Luxurious? Practical? Ford’s own marketing and product teams couldn’t agree.
The Way Out: How the Six Cs Would Have Helped The tragedy of the Edsel isn't that the idea was bad. It’s that the execution conditions weren't there.
While a failure this size usually involves cracks across the entire system, looking at my "Six Cs" framework reveals two specific gaps that made the disaster inevitable:
Co-creation: Ford’s product team designed the car in extreme secrecy, isolating themselves from the marketing teams and dealers who had to sell it. They didn't have internal validation. True Co-creation means the "builders" and the "sellers" align on the vision before metal is cut.
Clarity: By skipping Co-creation, they lost Clarity. Because the internal teams were disconnected, the customer story was confused. The marketing team was selling a dream, but the dealers were delivering a confusing reality.
The Lesson: You cannot sell what you don't understand. Ask yourself: Are my Product and Marketing teams telling the same story, or are they strangers until launch day?
Master the Six Cs These stories are just the warning signs. The solution is the system. You can learn exactly how to apply Co-creation, Capacity, Clarity, Communication, Coordination, and Coaching in my upcoming book, The Strategy Trap.
[Pre-order from your favorite bookseller at TheStrategyTrap.com]
Next Week: Failure #9. We head north to look at a retailer that tried to conquer a new country in record time, only to collapse in less than two years.
