In the long history of the Ford Motor Company there have been many hits – starting with the first mass-produced Model T, and continuing with the Mustang – but also a few, and naturally lesser known, misses, like the Edsel. Ford’s confusion over where they wanted to place their new model in relation to their main competitor, General Motors, exhibited itself through coy advertisements that never showed the car clearly. The reaction at the car’s grand unveiling was muted: the people expected something revolutionary; they got another batch of the same old. The Edsel flopped.

On this day, November 19, in 1959, just about two years after its introduction, Ford announced they were discontinuing the Edsel. Total sales for the two years were 85,000, half of what was needed to just break even.

Why did Edsel fail? It was as much an engineering failure as a marketing one. Edsel occupied about the same price range as Ford’s Mercury brand, which meant that the two cars were essentially competing against one another, instead of with GM. Edsel also had the misfortune of coming out just as consumer interest was shifting to smaller economy cars. And the Edsel just looked strange — its front grille was shaped in an oval that some compared to a horse collar and others to a toilet seat. The 1960 Edsel models quickly moved away from that design.