Famous Ford Flops
By Matthew C. Keegan, Tue Dec 6th

American automakers sometimes get the brunt of the criticism forproducing models that are ugly, useless, or even downrightdangerous. Ford has had its share of beasts through the years inaddition to several winners including the current Mustang forwhich demand cannot be met. For the fun of it let's take a lookat some of the Ford models that have been derided down throughthe years.

Model T - What?! How can the car that introduced massproduction make the list? Well, the car was fine, but Mr. HenryFord's statement, "...you can have any color you want as long asit is black" has been attributed with the rise of General Motors[who gave its customers a choice in colors] which eventuallydethroned Ford as the top automaker in the world. No, the ModelT was fine, but Mr. Ford's marketing strategy was not.

Edsel - In September 1957, Ford launched a new division -Edsel - and introduced to America one of the weirdest lookingcars. Sporting a "horse-collar" shaped grille - some equated itwith a toilet seat - the Edsel line was hyped by Ford andrejected by consumers wholeheartedly. Expecting to build 200,000Edsels in its first year of production, only 63,000 were built.Other "radical" aspects of the Edsel included a "floating"speedometer that glowed upon reaching a particular speed and anawkward push button transmission with controls attached to thehub of the steering wheel. Even with a quick makeover completedin time for the next model year, the Edsel limped along only tobe pulled one month after the third model year vehicles werereleased.

Pinto - Hey, even I owned one! With a 2.3L inlinefour cylinder paired with a 3 speed manny tranny, the Pinto wasFord's answer during the 1970s to the onslaught of Japanese carsflooding the