These Disappointing Cars Ruined The Companies That Made Them

Edsel Corsair

Edsel was a short-lived division of Ford Motor Company which was intended to steal some of GM and Chrysler’s domestic auto market share. Edsel automobiles were marketed as the cars of the future, a promise which consumers never seemed to believe. In 1958, Edsel rolled out the Corsair, a massive, streamlined bulk of a land yacht packed with features nobody needed. The feature which doomed the Corsair from the start was the Teletouch transmission, which included an arrangement of buttons on the steering wheel similar to a telephone keypad which was used to change gears. From the outset, the system was prone to failure - so much so that Edsel went out of business in 1959, sending the 1960 model year to market amidst the shutdown.