This week we’re trying something NEW! Instead of one super long episode, we are giving you TWO episodes - one released Monday and the other released on Wednesday! Let us know what you think! We start off with Taylor telling the story of The Ford Edsel and all the terrific marketing and business mistakes that were made for this staggering loss for Ford. Firstly though, a plea to stop quoting Henry Ford for business things - we discuss that there is no ‘Great Man’ and nobody is perfect. However, we feel super comfortable drawing our first line at ‘if Hitler had a portrait of you hanging in his office and called you his ‘inspiration,’ we can do better’ (all that’s true). Here’s an inspirational quote for you >> “I got my start by giving myself a start.” - Madame C. J. Walker https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/ https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod
This week we’re trying something NEW! Instead of one super long episode, we are giving you TWO episodes - one released Monday and the other released on Wednesday! Let us know what you think!
We start off with Taylor telling the story of The Ford Edsel and all the terrific marketing and business mistakes that were made for this staggering loss for Ford.
Firstly though, a plea to stop quoting Henry Ford for business things - we discuss that there is no ‘Great Man’ and nobody is perfect. However, we feel super comfortable drawing our first line at ‘if Hitler had a portrait of you hanging in his office and called you his ‘inspiration,’ we can do better’ (all that’s true).
Here’s an inspirational quote for you >> “I got my start by giving myself a start.” - Madame C. J. Walker
https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/
https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod
Some sources:
The Short-Lived and Expensive Tale of Ford's Edsel
Henry Ford and the Jews, the story Dearborn didn’t want told | Bridge Michigan
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
0:15
and we're recording okay so I'll start by making the intro and then segue into
0:22
what we're doing different welcome to Doom to fail the podcast
0:27
where we explore two stories one historic One True Crime about red flag your relationships that should have ended and did not I'm far as joined here
0:34
by Taylor hi Taylor hello how are you I'm good I'm sweaty like I said I literally just got home from yoga and I
0:41
am gross but I needed to record this because it's getting late here I know I'm sweaty too we just drove home from
0:47
Las Vegas or from Las Vegas to Joshua Tree and [ __ ] it's hot it's like so hot during the Desert it's lit and then like
0:53
you can't even get the car not hot and then the house has to get cooled down and so yeah
0:58
it's consistently 100 degrees like every day in Austin now that sounds terrible it's awful it's awful there's feeling
1:05
like silly bad week because Luna hurt herself really badly she basically
1:12
ripped one of her nails on her toe completely off if you know anything about dogs dogs have a quiz
1:19
yeah and the quick and the nails of a dog is just
1:24
full of like nerve endings and the blood vessels she was she was just bleeding all over the house oh poor baby and
1:30
because of that you know the activity we usually do is she goes swimming in the pool because it's hot it's too hot for
1:37
her to be walking outside right but he can't have her in the pool because she'll get an infection so all right
1:42
yeah so she's uh she's not having a good time but I still get through it yeah so do you want to share the exciting
1:48
news um which one email
1:55
oh okay all right fine okay so we're gonna tee things up here uh but one thing that's gonna be
2:00
different that is worth calling out is we've decided on changing up the production schedule so going forward
2:06
instead of both Taylor and I telling our stories at one episode release at once one of us will tell our story we'll
2:13
release that on our regular schedule time on Monday the other one would tell the story and we'll release that at the
2:18
regular scheduled time on Wednesday or Thursday
2:23
it could be fun just because then you can you don't have to fast forward if you don't listen to one or the other you
2:29
can choose then we can like re-release them a little bit shorter one story you can without having to try to find it in
2:34
an episode we're gonna give it a shot there you go we'll see how people react to it awesome uh Taylor is today my turn
2:41
no it's mine you're going first okay yeah so I'll tell you what I'm drinking so I am it has nothing to do with
2:47
anything I I feel like I'm at this age where I gotta start being healthier and so I'm drinking Central Market kombucha
2:54
matcha lime because it's good for your gut health
3:00
so we could say that such a blanket thing to be like it's good for your gut it makes absolutely no sense but fine
3:06
um also I've been drinking kombucha mixed with vodka and you can't even taste the Vodka so it's not great but
3:11
it's good so you're doing it for health reasons too then foreign
3:27
but my drink that pertains to my story today of something that was doomed to
3:33
fail is motor oil I don't even know what more oil is like oil that you put in
3:38
your car I don't know it does I think that's basically it yeah and you know what it reminded me I remember like 10
3:44
years ago when we googled how to cut someone's brake lines and we we found out that it wasn't as easy as the movies
3:49
make it make it sound yeah these manufacturers are getting really crafty with where they put their brake lines in
3:54
the cars like can we just cut someone's brake lines and the answer is not really so oh well now we know now we know now
4:02
you don't have to Google it so you're not in trouble everyone else okay cool so I'm gonna jump in I
4:08
I'm gonna get to my story in like five minutes but I have a preamble to my story Preamble away here's how I got here so
4:17
it's July it is not women's history month but when it is women's History Month I always get mad at people for
4:24
quoting Coco Chanel because she was a Nazi I don't get mad at people I just like tell them I'm like hey it'd be cool
4:29
if you didn't quote her because like yes she like did some business things but also she bet on the Nazis
4:36
what do people quote her for she doesn't like I don't even remember she has like business things like women say and like
4:41
she's like a perfect I don't even I don't even have an example that's I should have had one but I don't yeah it should be a good business person
4:47
people could admire her for that and also think that she's a piece of [ __ ] for being a Nazi yeah but you cannot quote her anymore because we have other
4:54
people you can quote but you don't have to like anyone else let me continue my
5:00
story first sorry I'm sorry I gotta call you out whatever no uh no this is my whole point
5:06
of this is like you can't I'm gonna say in some cases you can't pick and choose like who you admire you
5:13
know like we're gonna tear down confederate general statues because they lost and they were
5:18
Shady people you know what I mean but so Coco Chanel was a Nazi like that's full stop so we can be like she was a good
5:25
businesswoman but also like who cares there's other business women I actually do have a quote I'll find it I did this at in I did this recently M.C Walker is
5:33
a woman who was a businessman a business business woman she was the first person in her
5:40
family born out of slavery she was a black woman and she has quotes like don't sit down and wait for
5:46
opportunities get up and make them she was the first self-made women millionaire in American history and she
5:52
got there by selling women's hair products to black women that is someone who I want to hear from okay
5:59
I I can tell you feel passionately about this I'm not gonna debate it there's just no reason to do it anymore
6:05
like we don't need to hear from Nazis anymore here's why here's my point of this you
6:10
know what else is a Nazi Henry Ford yeah I heard I heard he did have some
6:17
sentiments that were so I am tired of seeing white man quote Henry Ford it
6:22
happens a lot like around and I would ever see it I just like want to throw up because I'm like
6:28
he is a bad person and his quotes are not even that great like whether you think you
6:35
can or can't you're right who cares that's stupid and so I'm going to tell you a little about Henry Ford first I
6:40
know this is like okay so it's heavy and whatever you might disagree with me we don't have time to go talk about this forever but you know I've been reading a
6:46
lot about presidents and first ladies and things like that and like in the beginning you know they were they had they were in slavers they did bad things
6:52
and so you have to stop and think about people is like there is no great
6:58
we can't look at this person can't look at Washington and be like he's a great man because Washington did things that were really bad and he did things that
7:05
were good so we can like try to figure out how we're gonna we have to decide for ourselves how we want to read that and how we want to look at that and how we're going to look at him I wrote a
7:11
really good a couple really good books about this that I can totally recommend how the word has passed is a really good
7:17
good one what's a reckoning about slavery Across America by Clint Smith we hear the ghost challenge Jefferson's
7:22
house there's people there who like don't know that Thomas Jefferson was like a huge slave owner you know so you have to like have those
7:29
things in your mind when you're thinking about them um also like I know that you can't say
7:34
that slavery was something that everybody did when the founding fathers were around and I know that because John
7:40
Adams have slaves but I also know that John Adams laughed at his wife when she asked him to talk think about women when he was writing the Constitution so
7:46
nobody's perfect except Abraham Lincoln this is like this this is two sentences that could be a book but Abraham Lincoln
7:52
initially thought that uh maybe once the black people were freed they would want to like go somewhere else and have their
7:58
own country so he like suggested it to a bunch of people including Frederick Douglass he's like what if we sent you all to like South America and they were
8:04
like no we want to sit here and he was like oh they change is mine because Abraham Lincoln is a very smart man I
8:11
don't even know where I have my notes anyway but there's no great man there's no perfect man and one person who is absolutely not perfect is Henry Ford
8:17
he's the Elon Musk of his generation and this is why because he did some a couple good things he raised on that yeah
8:25
can you explain to me why we now not we the progressive perspective on Elon Musk
8:32
is that he's a bad person because he single-handedly created green energy as
8:38
a concept and popularized it to the point where the federal government has passed mandates trying to get the entire
8:45
country off fossil fuels and GM has I mean everybody's trying to catch up to
8:50
Tesla because Tesla just like literally invented the market and I know he didn't embed the technology yeah I know he
8:57
didn't invent the technology but it's it's like what we learned coming up in Tech which is like the idea really
9:02
doesn't matter it's the execution that matters and you execute on it yeah but on Twitter into a right-wing Cesspool
9:10
where people are allowed to be very very very racist and very very very sexist
9:16
very very very like anti-lgbt people like it's bad over there
9:23
I actually don't even have Twitter on my phone I don't really check it at all he turned it into a really really really
9:29
bad place because he has like really bad ideas about Humanity it's wild to me
9:34
it's so wild to me because it's like it's like he literally just we will come off of fossil fuels and reduce the
9:41
impact on climate change literally off the back of his contribution to society and now he's like a right-wing hero I
9:48
don't I don't understand it I don't get it but go ahead I think single-handedly is super not true
9:55
he just happens to have a lot of white man confidence okay okay well Elon Musk is a bad person and
10:02
so is Henry Ford like Henry Ford did not invent the car that was Carl Ben's he did not invent this assembly line that
10:09
was Ransom e-olds so yeah like you're saying like he executed on things that other people invented great but so he
10:16
also did something really dumb in 1915 he bought a boat and called it the peace ship and tried to sail to Europe with a
10:22
bunch of journalists and and solve World War one and they were like no you're stupid
10:28
that was like the celebrity singing imagine during covid essentially people were like embarrassed for him so
10:35
right now anti-Semitism in America is the highest it's been in decades according to the
10:43
Anti-Defamation League so it's like very true that it's like a big problem right now but Henry Ford wrote a book called
10:50
The International Jew which is a four volume set of anti-Semitic books that he published um through his his newspaper
10:57
born independent um he his book you can still buy on Amazon and white supremacists quoted all
11:04
the time and [ __ ] love it like they love it eventually he was sued by Jewish
11:09
groups around the country and he had to shut down the paper in the late 1920s and he apologized by saying that he
11:15
didn't know that that that was happening in his newspaper I'm literally looking at a copy of the newspaper that says the
11:22
Ford international weekly the Dearborn independent the international Jew colon the world's problem
11:29
so like don't tell me you didn't know like that's true you do in 1931 two
11:35
years before he became chancellor of Germany Hitler was interviewed in a magazine in Detroit And the reporter
11:41
went to his Munich office and over Hitler's desk he had a large portrait of Ford and said I regard Henry Ford as my
11:48
inspiration that's not that's not good
11:53
not call him anymore because like once Hitler loves you I don't think we should listen to your
11:59
voice anymore like yes you did things that were great yes I'm copy of your car we have a Ford I'm not mad at my art
12:04
truck but like as a man I don't think I'm done with it I don't
12:09
want to hear it anymore I mean the candies were also heavily into Eugenics and like sounds awful but this one
12:16
is particularly awful and like I regard Henry Ford as my
12:22
inspiration quote Adolf Hitler [Laughter]
12:28
I will say the trucks are nice the trucks are really good that's very nice not mad at the truck but I am I am like annoyed with the people so
12:34
I'm just gonna make that's my that's my preamble to this sweet so we talking about Henry for today no we're talking
12:42
about the biggest failure in car design history the Edsel
12:48
oh really so I have her that it's it's all so whenever I got um separated so I
12:56
had no home to live in in La there was a building I almost like rented in downtown and it was the original HQ for
13:03
the Edsel like they're they're building and they converted it into Apartments
13:10
that can't be true because it's from Michigan okay then I made that up hold on what was that building
13:15
that's a club no that's a a club of edsels wait gas company Lofts
13:23
is that what it was no no I don't think it was that Soul okay
13:28
if I'm wrong I'm going to edit this out and nobody's ever gonna know I was wrong but I have heard of the Edsel it was it
13:34
was Edsel Oldsmobile Buick that was kind of the Ford obviously right Ford is it's made by Ford really
13:42
yes that's right it was the Packard not the okay okay fine that I give you
13:48
that's fine in this book that I have this is from a book called business Adventures that I
13:53
got during my during my time in business school it was originally published in 1959 and they do say this is a quote
14:00
from this book there may be an aborigine somewhere in a remote rainforest who hasn't yet heard that things failed to
14:06
turn out that way like good for that Soul so he's like everybody knows that's bad
14:12
um so here's what happened there's some red flags that I'll call it right now above the production of this
14:17
car there's the timing the relying on market research the name obviously the
14:22
name Edsel it doesn't mean anything the way the car looked some specific things about it
14:28
um the crappy make of the car wasn't always like put together all the way um and then several really weird
14:33
attempts to Market it so picture it we're in 1955 we're in Detroit we're in Michigan things are
14:40
booming people are starting to make money post-war and people are starting to be like I'm gonna level up for my
14:47
starter car so Ford had a really great starter car but people were leaving Ford
14:52
to get a different kind of car like an Oldsmobile a Buick a Pontiac like that was more of like the next level up once
14:58
you started like to make money they weren't going to another Ford Model so Ford wanted to capture that market
15:03
the people who are involved are Henry Ford II he's the grandson of Henry Ford his father used to be he's a president
15:09
of Ford his father used to be president and his father's name is Edsel Ford so Edsel Ford is Henry Ford's son there is
15:17
the chairman of the board Ernest breach there's the designer named Roy Brown there's the head of the Edsel division
15:23
Richard crappy and there's also Robert McNamara he works there during this time wait is this is this some model of a car
15:31
or is this like a brand like a Honda brand okay okay well it's a line there's a couple I'll tell you the differences
15:36
between them it's a line of cars okay so Robert McNamara also works there do you know who he is he was Secretary
15:43
of State or Secretary of something defense defense okay during Vietnam and for Kennedy in the Cold War and the
15:49
Cuban Missile Crisis so he becomes president of Ford in like 1959 and then does that for a little bit and then goes
15:55
to work in DC um so he just like happens around they decided me to make a mid-level car they call it the e-car E for
16:02
experimental which doesn't sound terrible it sounds kind of cool an e-card it's very very secretive it's like
16:09
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in there like the locks and the doors are changed every day you don't know anyone
16:14
who's working on it like it's very very hush-hush they were like we're gonna make the best car in the history of the
16:20
world we can't let anybody know so they're just like building up this hype this hype even before it even happened
16:25
makes sense they do a ton of market research and like a little bit too much
16:31
it's like a cautionary Tale in market research because they ask people you know
16:36
I mean and maybe also they do this a lot now and they just didn't hadn't done it yet but they're like how does it make you feel like how does this word make
16:42
you feel how does looking at this hubcap make you feel what are your word associations if we give you all these
16:47
ideas for names like what do you want to have in a car what is your dream thing in a car and they asked so many people
16:54
that I think it's something that happens in like software development now where you're like you can't do everything yeah
16:59
what was it was it actually Henry Ford the one who said if I ask people what to
17:05
make they'll say uh Carriage with more horses yeah faster horse that's why you don't
17:10
ask people that many questions you just have to iterate on your own volition even though we don't quote heading for
17:16
Henry Ford anymore that is a good quote though that is a quote that is common in every product management book there that's out there well then let's make a
17:23
new one from someone who's not a Nazi someone come out with a better quote me I'll say
17:28
something I'll think about it not a Nazi just work hard and do a good job
17:36
superhero not a Nazi yeah credible
17:41
the internal market research and then like they're looking at personas for the first time you know like things like that we do see all the time in software
17:48
development but you're like if you build what everybody wants as their dream car you're gonna make a mess and that's kind of what happened Homer did that and one
17:54
of those Simpsons episodes one thing that they one tagline they had is the Smart car for the younger
18:01
executive or professional family on its way up it's like very wordy and like sure sure for sure in the very beginning
18:08
they suggested the name Edsel it's Henry Ford's son Henry Ford II is a president
18:13
and he's like no my dad would hate that that's dumb everybody's like this is a bad idea we don't want to see our dad's
18:20
name like on hubcaps that's embarrassing like they're just like no like we just don't like it no one knows what that word means like we don't want it so they
18:26
were like okay we're gonna go and you know pick a better name for this car they went to a marketing firm and they
18:32
were like give us a name and they sent back 6 000 names and they were like what it's not helpful at all thanks for
18:39
nothing you know and then they like Pare that down they did things like free association like what does this make you
18:44
think of what does this make you think of what is the word look like backwards like they suggested draft which is
18:52
forward backwards you know like and things so some of the names that like actually became car
18:58
names and or part of the Ed so like division line which I'll tell you about but like some ideas were like citation
19:04
Corsair Pacer Ranger Roundup Voyager all those are pretty good region Clipper
19:09
Monte Carlo most of those are most of those are actual car names I know but they didn't pick any of them they also
19:16
consulted a poet named Marianne Moore they didn't pay her but they were like what ideas do you have and here's a
19:22
smattering of her bananas ideas utopian Turtle tap resilient bullet Mongoose
19:28
Civic pastelogram whatever whatever what other things Maelstrom Verve silver
19:34
sword Thunder blender I do like I like thunder blender and I
19:41
like silver sword it's called that Varsity stroke yeah what the [ __ ] was
19:47
she on it's like slamming absent like most likely was it bison Dale Andante
19:54
called Moto anyway terrible ideas they did not pick any of her ideas so in 1956
19:59
they're already working on this car like we have to have an answer we can't continue to call the e-car forever all
20:04
three four brothers all three grandsons of Henry Ford were out of town and the board had a board meeting and the chairman was like all the exams are
20:11
garbage what happened to Edsel I heard Edsel in the beginning and they were like yeah well we didn't even we like rolled it out in the beginning and the
20:17
chairman was like [ __ ] it just do it yeah is it a Ford isn't a Ford the chairman
20:22
yeah no no the chairman of the board is I said his name a second ago
20:28
some news not in the family not in the family correct the chairman of the board is Ernest breach uh he's the chairman so
20:36
even though the Ford is a president but he's not there when they made the decision and he's like just [ __ ] do it it's called The Edsel so they call it
20:43
that people are pissed because they said that whoever named it would get a free car and they weren't allowed to pick
20:49
Edsel and then they picked Edsel so they're like that's not fair so like you said it's actually a line of
20:55
cars so there's the Edsel Ranger which was an entry-level model it could come
21:01
as two-door or four-door and also two-door like hard top but also it was mostly like a convertible the Edsel
21:07
Pacer was a little bit above the ranger had some more features the Edsel Corsair was the top of the line model had the
21:14
most luxurious amenities and then the Edsel citation was the highest level within the lineup same thing like a lot
21:22
of like fancy things you could get added onto it so now they want to unveil it and
21:27
they've been doing all of these things like you know teasing people with it they do it piece by piece they do
21:33
presentations to like dealerships and they show them like a hubcap and a wheel and a window but they don't show the
21:39
whole thing because they want people to be like talking about it they would have like when they started to eventually have the cars get delivered to
21:46
dealerships they would like put it on the back of a truck but like put the sheet over it where it would like you
21:52
could kind of see it you know like teasing it if you're driving by and they thought that people were gonna like go crazy on the freeways like following
21:57
these Ford trucks but they did not people were like what they would one ad
22:03
that they had they have a couple ads here that I think are hilarious and they kind of remind me of things that like potentially Donald Trump would say
22:09
because one ad said we are proud of the Edsel it's like so funny like if you have to say that like are you
22:17
it's like when you try to convince someone I'm smart damn it you know you're like okay cool also had a lot of dealerships get rid of
22:24
their current business just to solve the Edsel we ended up being bad for a lot of folks you know just just to sell it
22:29
September 4th 1957 was the launch and it was called e day which feels like too
22:36
soon does it mean like just have a D-Day it's a little yeah yeah
22:41
so a little bit too soon F by uh the end of the day three million people had seen
22:46
them in dealerships so people were like going to like go look at that so not a lot of people were buying them three days later the first Edsel was stolen
22:53
guess where it was stolen Detroit Philly oh well that makes sense
22:58
too they also did this thing on October 13th 1957 and this is wild they did an
23:03
hour-long special on CBS hosted by Bing Crosby who was a shareholder in Ford so
23:10
it was like disadvantaged hosted by Bing Crosby included Frank Sinatra Rosemary
23:15
Clooney Louis Armstrong and also Bob Hope like that's pretty impressive I mean
23:21
they kind of still do that so I still follow cars like pretty closely and like when yeah when GM so GM was the biggest
23:28
brand that came out like I don't know like three years ago they turned over
23:33
like a new female CEO who came out and said 80 of our vehicles and products are going to be electric and so they would
23:39
have these huge launches the Apple launch where like she'd be talking I mean it had like a celebrity come on and
23:46
sing and then they drive the cars on say it's super dorky super nerdy like I like
23:51
it even exactly the same what I want what I've I've seen it because I'm just curious like okay so what's the
23:56
direction where y'all going with this and it's good for just in information
24:01
purposes but it's super nerdy oh yeah and I think well we didn't like it was like a musical show so then and then
24:08
they like had the car like in the middle of it you know and these people I mean are like the height of this type of like
24:15
musical person yeah yeah and uh it was nominated for an Emmy but did not win but it was like the most successful
24:21
thing uh I would like to watch it today I'm sure it's on YouTube I watched a little
24:27
bit of it it has like dancing and stuff so it seems super fun I don't know if I maybe buy a Nestle but
24:32
it seems fun so here's what it actually looked like and some of the things that were like a little bit weird about it
24:37
because people were like this is like obviously the 50s so like they want things to be futuristic but it's kind of on the tail end of 50s styling and we're
24:43
like turning it's turning into the 60s but one thing that happened that they had like on the steering wheel like the
24:49
the um like the shifting and all that was on the steering wheel yeah and you press the buttons but it was like hard to do
24:56
that because you had to look at them to like know where they were and you could accidentally hit like drive and it would go really fast
25:02
it's like people were doing that and it was like I see it you know what I mean and also had like a ton of buttons on
25:09
the inside you know like a button turn this off a button to turn it on a button to do this to do this do this so it was like somebody in the market research was
25:15
like I love buttons and it ended up being like too much seat belts were optional just saying because they're
25:21
optional and the outside of it I know you're looking at it it looks like a 50s car it's almost as long and as wide as
25:28
cars ever get like that it's it's really it's kind of short wide long
25:33
um the most distinct feature is the grill in the front so they had like another part of the research group that
25:39
was like we wanted to look like a classic like 1920s car so they made that like oval Grill on the front
25:45
it says Edsel but it looks like a egg and also potentially like a vagina
25:51
you can see it yeah it it almost is very similar to like a Maserati or not an
25:57
Maserati um a Alfa Romeo so their Grill is kind of like the centerpiece of their design philosophy and it's very similar
26:03
to that or it's like this is gonna be so cool looking and you're like no it didn't
26:09
turn out cool working you know we tried to look be nostalgic about the way cars used to look but it didn't work you know
26:15
what's funny is my parents first car when we moved to America it was a 1998 or 1988 Honda Civic and it was an option
26:21
to get seat belts for anybody but the driver and it was an option to have a side view mirror on the passenger side
26:27
and so my parents didn't pay for that and so only the driver had a seat belt oh my God that's so funny I I Rely a lot
26:33
on my mirrors as well yeah yeah that's really funny there was a lot of chrome
26:39
obviously like you know you see that as a 50s car of course there's Chrome the thing that I think is the most fun is in
26:44
the back the uh there's like a like a wing the tail of the back and then there's the the blinkers and the
26:51
blinkers are like little triangles and they point in so they look kind of cool
26:56
but the arrow is the one go the wrong way yeah exactly so when you're turning
27:01
left the arrow is blinking right even on the left side of the car and it's like very confusing Mini Coopers do that now
27:07
many kids literally do that now yeah so funny so so it's like you know like I
27:13
said you take everyone's dream car and you get a mess you know Ford also didn't make a plant specifically for the
27:18
insulin Edsel models so people had to stop making the cars around the line they would like stop the line and then
27:24
make a few essels but they wouldn't always have the right stuff so they would send them dealerships like incomplete be like hey you guys put this
27:30
on like you guys finish this or whatever so things would like fall off the car and like it just like wasn't ready which
27:36
like they they tried to say like you know that happens with a brand new car like things aren't perfect on day one but they like really were like this is
27:41
gonna be perfect on day one you know and then it wasn't so that people saw that and were like really disappointed
27:46
they did a lot of weird things at dealerships they would do like a raffle for someone to like win a car if they
27:52
took a test drive at one point every single test drive you got a free mini
27:57
Edsel like a mini car for like your kids like that that's right I didn't book a toy right they also had one where every
28:03
time every person who bought got a literal Pony what because somebody was
28:09
like so irresponsible they sent to four Cent ponies to thousands of dealerships
28:14
around America and the dealers were pissed because they're like I have to take care of [ __ ] Pony that's so irresponsible
28:22
like feed them and build a pony corral and like do all these things and eventually they were like so mad that
28:28
Ford had them all taken back and took him back to Detroit and Lord knows they must must be glue I know the interesting
28:33
thing about those was that usually it's up to the dealer to sell the car so when you go to a dealership and there's like free coffee and hot dogs and like you
28:39
get a deal like that's all the dealer trying to get you to sell the car but this was like literally Ford being like
28:46
we need to do something we are not selling enough of these they needed to sell 200 000 edsels a year to make it
28:54
profitable and in 1958 they sold 34 481. geez yeah that's good not even close
29:01
eventually Edsel was merged with uh Mercury and Lincoln for a division called the Mel division but it was the
29:09
ezel didn't last past like 1960. eventually they had a net loss of 350 million dollars which is about 3.5
29:15
billion dollars today um and if the the book The Business
29:21
adventures book if in 1965 they decided not to do it at all and they just gave
29:27
away 100 000 10 110 810 mercuries that would have
29:32
lost less money you know like there's not bad so there's a couple quotes that I have highlighted
29:37
in the book that are like who's to blame one person oh crafty who was like in
29:43
charge of the department said that this is I said the Edsel is a success this is a new idea it's a you idea on the
29:49
American Road the Edsel is a success which sounds like you know who you're trying to convince me or or you yeah no
29:55
kidding another guy said Doyle who I think is uh one of the other people who
30:01
was like involved but he said it was a buyer's strike quote people weren't met in the mood for the Edsel why not as a
30:07
mystery to me what they'd been buying for several years encouraged the industry to build exactly this kind of
30:13
car we gave it to them and they wouldn't take it well they should have acted like that you can't just wake up somebody one
30:18
day and say that's enough you've been running in the wrong direction anyway why did they do it golly how the
30:24
industry worked and worked over the years getting rid of gear shifting providing interior Comfort providing plus performance for use and emergencies
30:29
and now the public wants these little beetles I don't get it I mean I I can understand the sentiment
30:36
of like we tried to give you all this you know one one thing that inspires you of is remember what this I mean we were
30:41
really small kids when the Segway was coming out but remember yeah the guy who invented it was like this revolutionary
30:48
inventor who like created all this like medical devices he was like this thing is going to literally change the way the
30:53
world works and so by the time he released the Segway we were all like picturing flying cars and this stupid
31:01
scooter comes out it's like what the hell is it's like you build up this anticipation it's almost live up to it
31:07
totally he was like yeah the second guy I remember this is gonna change everything you're like how do I carry my
31:13
groceries what are you doing the best one was like the founder of it like wrote it off a cliff and died I know oh
31:19
my God I am I did do a Segway tour of Chicago with my with my alien and it was
31:25
so fun would you ever like like human would you spend eight thousand dollars okay there you go of
31:32
course not but yeah just like you're saying it's timing it was time for smaller cars like it was we they moved on like they didn't want these like big
31:38
boat cars anymore um and it really wasn't anything special after all you know like whatever So
31:44
eventually in 1959 they stopped the production the last edsels were the 1960 version of them Ford as you may notice
31:51
is fine as a company they were fine the shares went up they still had other money they still had other things going
31:57
on people who got screwed were the dealers and thousands of regular people who worked in the factories got laid off
32:04
because they weren't making that car anymore but the shareholders were fine and they and they moved on yeah there
32:12
was just like an experiment in cars that was wildly unsuccessful so that's another thing that Tesla did that was
32:19
actually really really revolutionary to the industry was because there were rules uh legally regulatory that
32:26
required for you to have a dealership to sell vehicles so you could never buy direct you had to run through a
32:32
middleman and I mean you bought cars from dealerships I bought cars from dealerships I'm sure a lot of listeners
32:38
have as well it is never a good experience like almost universally never there's you got to talk about Finance
32:43
this guy who's going to tell you how you got to do this then the guy comes in and tries to sell you some guard material
32:49
for the grill it's just like it's a horrible horrible experience and I mean my my theory on this is that
32:55
direct from manufacturer online ordering of cars that's gonna be like the thing and then because it's just a bad
33:02
experience so totally totally and it's partially for that reason too is because they also get shafted so they shaft the
33:10
customer because the manufacturer shafts them by sending a thousand horses or because well because they'll send them
33:16
like seven versions of a card that 50 000 people want and still deliberately
33:22
underproduce them then over charge for it's it's a mess it's a horrible whole mess so hopefully that that entire business model goes away totally
33:29
hear it I also think I think that this is the reason why
33:35
they change car production to share major components with each other totally
33:41
makes sense because it they had to like stop the line to make the Edsall which was like part of so expensive it's gonna
33:48
be so expensive and also you gotta like create all the individual components by like Lincoln's or just rebranded Fords
33:54
and Lexus it's just way cheaper just like change the brands and some of the materials that it is to redesign the
34:00
entire thing and four is the one pretending to have invented the assembly line this whole freaking time so like Type 4 did this I meant this assembly
34:06
line he's the first one who used it but I told you who invented it at the beginning of this episode
34:11
you did and I I well let me look at this real quick Ransom Ransom eat olds which
34:16
is a great name Ransom is he the guy who created Oldsmobile I don't know let's find out the solid
34:22
portion of the end podcast yes he was yes he was Ransom Eli old is
34:30
a pioneer of the American automotive industry after whom the Oldsmobile and REO Brands were named he claimed to have
34:35
had built the first team car as early as 1887 and this first gasoline-powered car in 1896. so it was when I'm born on June
34:42
3rd Gemini just like me um
34:48
um yeah so if you learned anything from this he's just don't quote Henry Ford like I
34:53
know it's it's I don't know it seems like it would be a good idea because he like said some like
34:59
fun little Snippets but did he really even write those things I don't know yeah we can I think like again I think
35:05
you can hold two ideas to be true simultaneously you can but then also like candy also [ __ ] a bunch of like
35:13
12 year olds that's what I'm saying there is no greatness definitely cheated on Coretta
35:21
there's no great man there's no like one person who is perfect besides Abraham Lincoln because he changed his mind and
35:27
he is is awesome so I actually I'm gonna I don't have the facts on me so I'm not gonna push back right now but I do
35:33
recall reading that slavery actually wasn't the reason why he pushed so hard during the Civil War it had to do with
35:40
something else that was I can't remember the exact reasoning behind it I do remember the movie Lincoln does touch on
35:46
it had something to do with uniting the Republican party and I don't remember what exactly it's super nuanced like I'm
35:54
not gonna get into this that's the number one thing but it was like in there and ended up being the thing that he did I'm not gonna get into like this the Civil War like the entire Civil War
36:01
right now but like all I'm saying is like you know I I take it in the in the spirit of like people are a byproduct of
36:09
the times that they're in yeah it's easy it's easy when you're in modern times to
36:16
look at past behavior and say well I would have been that way but you don't know like maybe the things that I'm
36:23
doing right now the fact that you know maybe in like maybe in like 500 years dogs can vote dogs can you know uh own
36:31
property and here I am owning a dog and putting on a crate you don't I don't know what the future holds
36:37
well I also said at the beginning of this that John Adams and not one slaves so it wasn't like everybody was doing it
36:43
that's true that's true I get it I get it I do think context is important though I do too
36:50
marriage exactly and he changed his mind and this is my context for not quoting Henry Ford anymore is that Hitler like
36:57
them I know I did read that actually when you were talking I did go back and look up Henry Ford and it was like she like had like a full-size picture of
37:04
Henry Ford in his office but he really loved him
37:13
I hope somebody at some point loves me as much as Hitler loved Henry Ford
37:21
thank you that's it that's all I wanted you to get out of this story is exactly
37:26
that and then do with it what you will so since we're splitting the podcast up
37:31
this is kind of our conclusion I know so I think I have two listener emails so
37:36
I'll do one today right now this is our first email I was so freaking excited and as far as I
37:44
like jumped up and like I was reading it in bed and I jumped up and like randomized and I was like wait I don't even know I texted you and I was like we
37:50
got an email oh my God I definitely got a text at like midnight I was so excited but um Kiara from uh she's from Maryland
37:59
she was so fun showed us an email and she said dude before podcast I thought DOT
38:05
first email question mark because she's been listening and knows that we've been like dying for an email from a stranger so thank you so much and she had a
38:12
couple great suggestions for some episodes that I forwarded along to you far as I think they fall into the True Crime so we'll definitely uh look for
38:18
those later but I did I did yeah so I actually researched I researched both of them quite a bit and it just it I didn't
38:25
use I might use it as a topic later on but the only reason I didn't use it as a topic now is because there's just not much material out there to actually
38:32
research for it and one of them is unsolved entirely so there's um it would
38:38
basically be liable if I reach conclusions on what happens but we'll keep looking at it and please let us
38:43
ideas and just thank you so much it's so exciting we felt we feel very excited I wrote
38:48
back immediately and said this is our first email in all caps so she knows how excited we are yeah and
38:54
guys like we are our listenership our downloads and all that stuff has really like taken off really in the past like
39:01
last episode or two the one thing I would we would love I think generally speaking is if you have a friend who's
39:09
even has any remote interest in this topic just ask them to download and
39:14
maybe check out one of the smaller episodes that we have so we're gonna cut these out we're gonna cut these segments in the uh half episodes and they'll be
39:21
easier to digest easier to listen to on a quick drive or whatever but we really really appreciate it if you're able to kind of get one or two folks in your
39:28
life to to listen um as well it'll be fantastic all the socials that Doom to fail pod so
39:35
Twitter reluctantly Instagram Facebook also like okay wait hold on did you hear
39:40
that Elon Musk and Marcus Zuckerberg and have a cage match okay there's zero chances happening yeah I heard that and
39:47
I'm like I'm like how many board members are just pulling their hair out like you
39:53
guys are the CEOs of like three trillion dollars worth of business you can't do this
39:58
um it would be fun though I got my money on uh Zuck yeah I think so too yeah you
40:03
got youth I think audience I think when it comes when the when the rubber hits the road I think I think he's gonna I
40:09
think he'd like go in low and dirty and Elon can handle it although yellow looks huge he almost looks like he's like a
40:14
250 pound but I think it's all it's all like not I don't know did you see there was one thing that my my brother sent me
40:21
and it was like a woman being like I don't see Elon in the submersible going through the Titanic I think it's he's a
40:27
chicken chicken that's so funny because you're like because that's something he's respond to
40:33
anyway anyway I did I did read that there are other billionaires who literally have submersible as they can
40:39
go down there because when they were trying to bring back the Ocean Gate one one of these billionaires I forgot he
40:45
owns he like he like created some company and still like it's a company we would all know the brand he's like oh oh
40:50
you need to go how far do you got to go 12 000 I have some more so I'm gonna do twelve thousand five I'm like what how
40:55
do you all have these things there's so many there's like a bunch of millionaires that we've never heard of
41:01
because they don't have cage matches with Mark Zuckerberg they're just busy cowards chickens
41:09
so we thank you please do join us on all the socials we'll go ahead and cut this
41:15
off here and we'll see you in a few days in three days you can join us again all
41:21
right okay foreign