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Ever since the conception of the first-ever motor car, by Karl Benz, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, there have been some extremely great cars, and others not so great.
Here are some of the worst car flops in history.
Number one.
The 1923 Chevrolet Series-C, Copper Cooled.
Chevy was always behind Ford back in the early days of motoring so, Delco's head engineer Charles Kettering had a great idea, of fitting his small air-cooled, 4 cylinder engine that he had designed, into the small new Chevy that was being designed at the time. Although the copper finned, overhead-Valve engine had some great attributes for powering a small motor vehicle, it also had some bad ones too. The little "series C" Chevy was hurried into production to try and keep up with Ford's "Tin Lizzie", which was Ford's answer to the small, affordable car market at the time. Unfortunately, even after failing virtual internal tests at GM, Chevy still used Charles's engine, plagued with problems. Upon delivery to customers in 1923, the little Chevy had big issues, as the copper fins were not able to keep the engine cool enough at low speed, this led to engine failures, overheating, and even fires. Chevy planned to produce 50,000 of the little Series-C's but only produced 759 cars before Chevy stopped production, and re-called all the remaining cars, which were eventually destroyed, only 2 of them remain. It's said that 259 cars were destroyed due to fires before they even left the factory. Despite this huge embarrassment at Chevy, by the end of the decade, Chevy was outselling ford with its water-cooled engine powered cars........
Number Two.
1957 Ford Edsel.
1957 was looking to be a good year for Ford, however, things didn't work out as well as they had planned. The Ford Edsel started to be developed by Ford in 1955, and one year before its debut, Ford had done some major, teaser ad campaigns, trying to bump up interest in the new luxury model, The Edsel. The Ford Edsel model range consisted of 18 different models, each with different options and paint schemes. 90 different color combinations could be had if you ordered a brand new Edsel. Unfortunately, the Edsel was plagued by quality and reliability issues from its release date in September 1957. The Edsel didn't sell well either, customers said it was either too expensive or too ugly. Ford only sold 120,000 Edsel's before production was canned in 1959. This left Ford with a loss of 350 million dollars, which equates to 2.8 billion dollars in today's money.
Number Three.
The DeLorean DMC-12.
Made famous, after its demise, by Hollywood's box office hit "Back To The Future". John DeLorean, after leaving his job as the vice president of car and truck production for the entire General Motors line in 1973, John decided to follow his dream of manufacturing and selling his own car. This was not without problems along the way, John encountered many obstacles throughout his journey. Such as money, John had managed to talk his way into getting funding from Northern island on the condition that the car was built there. Other company's such as Renault, Lotus, and Volvo were involved in the DeLorean, manufacturing and supplying parts to the car maker. Release dates were constantly pushed back due to production delays, and eventually, the car was released in January 1981. The public wasn't exactly excited when they saw and drove the completed DMC-12, high price and low horsepower was a complaint from car reviewers at the time. In 1982, lackluster sales of the car resulted in a financial problem for the company, John even tried to traffic drugs to bankroll the DMC-12 production costs and try to keep the business afloat. Unfortunately for John, and the DeLorean motor company, he was caught trafficking drugs, following a sting operation by the FBI. John was sentenced on October 19, 1982, for trafficking cocaine, later he was found not guilty in August of 1984. Even though John was free, the DeLorean Motor Company had fallen into bankruptcy and John's reputation was not in great shape. This marked the end for DeLorean and the DMC-12.
Number Four.
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