@Mustangman. I often wonder if the Edsel had come on the market on 1955 when the marketing survey was done if the Edsel might have been a success. 1955 was a very prosperous time. By the time Edsel hit the showrooms in the fall of 1957 as a.1958 model, the country was in a recession and buying tastes has changed. American Motors revived the original Rambler and the pricing began at about $1750. The VW Beetle became.popular. The Buick division of GM imported the Opel, the Pontiac division imported the Vauxhall and Ford imported the Ford Anglica and Prefect from Ford of England. However, I’m not sure the Edsel would have caught on even if the nation had not been in a recession. I have no idea why Ford redesigned the Taurus for the flounder look or what the excuse was for the Pontiac Aztek.
I think the Edsel might have been a success if it wasn’t for the grill. The car has good lines everywhere but the head-on view. They were pretty good cars, not technology stretch, equal to the competition. Timing may have entered into it, too. Tough to sell an upmarket car in a recession.
As for the flounder Taurus… they were trying to make a bold design statement about “ovoid” design language, that’s what I read at the time. The language translated into Uggg.
The Aztek, I believe, was styled first (Wayne Cherry’s last hurrah) and market surveyed after it was too late to change but did well in market studies anyway. Maybe those were fudged a bit…
That Taurus . . .
If you look at other Fords from the time, including european models, you can see some similar styling. And some of the other Fords with similar styling didn’t look bad
So it’s not as if it came out of nowhere
but I agree in the case of the Taurus, the complete package didn’t really look aethetically pleasing
About 55 years ago I drove an MG 1100 and was impressed by the interior room and handling and couldn’t believe the sewing machine engine under the hood was actually used in a car. It seemed quicker than a VW or a Ford Falcon and certainly out cornered both. And while I never worked on one of those early FWD British cars it seemed they were somewhat simple mechanically and were quite popular in England where roads were narrow and open highways rare. The OPEC gas crisis of the early 70s resulted in US automakers offering some strange vehicles with some resemblance to the BLMC cars using cobbled up components from various sources.
The few that were sold didn’t seem to last long and they all developed terrible reputations, deserved or not.
Most Americans seem to be determined to live the good life and if they can’t afford it they’re happy to go into debt to have the appearance of doing so.
I think that’s a symptom of whatever disease you get when you become a car company executive.
You know, the one that turns you into a Genie, who will grant people’s wishes, but there’s always a catch so that the results are terrible and make everyone miserable. 
Honda just did a similar thing. Honda guys have been begging for 20 years, please give us the Civic Type R in the US. “OK,” said Honda, finally, this year. “Here you go, the Civic Type R. By the way, I stuck a bunch of boy-racer crap on it so that you look absolutely ridiculous in it, but underneath all that it’s exactly what you’ve been asking for!”
Or the new Hyundai small truck they’re working on. People have been wanting a good small truck in this country ever since the Chicken Tax killed off all the awesome Japanimport ones. So Hyundai gives us one. Only they give us this hunk of stupid:
Now, how am I supposed to have the landscape supply guy drop a bobcat scoop of mulch in that? It’s got dumb bed-wing things on it that immediately turn it into a roofless station wagon instead of a real truck, and the length of the bed is barely longer than the wheel width, which means if you get 2 feet of usable length out of it I’ll be astonished.
.
And people who wanted a small, useful truck won’t buy it, and car execs will smoke their cigars made of $100 bills and mutter that, see, Americans didn’t really want a small truck after all.
Just my take from back then but I think the Edsel was just too close to the Mercury. That plus the grill squeezed the sales. Don’t I remember though that the marketing folks actually said it would not sell but Ford went ahead anyway?
I had one also, and really liked it. Floor rusted through and CV joints gave out, however.
Despite looking essentially similar, there were 4 models of the Edsel, with the “bottom” two being essentially Fords, and the “upper” two being essentially Mercurys. The more expensive models got the pushbutton transmission controls, while the cheaper ones used the same shift lever as most other cars of the day. Of course, the more expensive models also had a longer wheelbase and a larger engine.
But, to say that it didn’t sell because it was “just to (sic) close to the Mercury” ignores the fact that Dodges were mechanically identical to Plymouths, yet Dodge still managed to attract sufficient customers. And, even though GM was better at masking similarities–e.g. Pontiacs were closely-related to Chevrolets, and the Olds 98 and the Buick Roadmaster/Electra 225 were essentially Cadillacs with a different engine–Pontiacs sold in large numbers, and Cadillac led the luxury car field in sales.
I doubt if the target market includes professional landscapers.
There are a lot of folks, like myself, that owned small pickups (in my case for 24 years) and loved them. IMHO the biggest determinant will be the cost. One of the things I loved about my small Toyota pickups is that they’d do whatever I needed and were still dirt-cheap to buy and own. And they were bulletproof. The old Toyota pickups are still common and in use in third world countries across the globe.
I thought the Honda Ridgeline would be a bomb because it had the sloped sides and no separation between the bed and the cab (the new version has that separation), but it was a success. I guess there are also still a lot of people who want car comfort in a small pickup. The Chevys and Ford and Dodges are just too doggoned big for many like myself. I rode in a buddy’s and had all I could do to climb up into it. Except for those doing hard work with them or towing a large boat or trailer, I still call them the “mine’s bigger than yours” pickups.
I hope Hyundai didn’t compromise low price for styling. From the image posted, it looks like they may have.
Nope. It targets, or at least should target, homeowners who need a truck for hauling home and yard supplies, but don’t need a 19 foot behemoth.
We got our small truck because every time we got a load of mulch we were either paying a big delivery fee, or paying $100 to Uhaul to rent their pickup. They also make great trucks for people who need to haul things for work, but not haul lots of things. Pool cleaners, handymen, etc. That’s who they should be aiming this El Cahyundaio at, but instead they’re aiming it at people who want a ute… And utes are only popular in Australia, so I don’t think that’s gonna work all that well for them.
Sounds like you want a Heathkit.
Gasoline costs $5 per gallon in Australia, Americans that drive large vehicles care little about fuel costs. The compact truck fad ended years ago, customers stopped buying them in favor of larger more comfortable trucks. When was the last time one of these regulars purchased a new compact truck?
And it’s so ugly that I would be ashamed to be seen in it.
I like the styling.
Now, an F150… THAT’s ugly! Like a prehistoric behemoth!
I think it is important to remember that this is a concept vehicle, and concept vehicles almost always tend to be a bit…over the top. By the time that this vehicle gets to the consumer marketplace, I can almost guarantee that the styling will have been made more mainstream, and that it will almost surely look a LOT less radical.
When was the last time new compact trucks were on the market? When the manufacturers stop offering them the public mysteriously stops buying them it seems. And while fuel mileage has become a somewhat insignificant priority for American pickup buyers there are a great many advantages for smaller models compared to today’s land yachts. Maneuvering on city streets and parking lots and getting them parked and getting in and out of them come high on my list of pluses.
I’m still waiting!
Castrol is/was trying to make oil changes and filter replacements easier, neater, and quicker. I keep waiting and waiting for cars to be designed to accept their Nexcel system with oil and filter in one snap-in unit, but I’m not seeing any news.
Somebody who can’t chew gum and walk at the same time and who doesn’t know a carburetor pin from a muffler bearing could change their own oil & filter in 90 seconds without getting dirty. 
When their car’s display tells them to change the oil they can just stop at the store and ask for that “oil thingy-poo” and plug it in, once they figure out how to open the hood! 
How’s that for DIY innovation?
CSA
A similar idea is windshield washer fluid. Instead of having to pour from a 1 gallon jug into a 1 gallon (more or less) container in the car, have a location for the 1 gallon jug to drop into and a hose to attach to the spout.
Minor improvement, but no one has implemented it.
At what cost?
I’m not looking for a single cartridge oil and filter replacement method to make the diy’er job easier. NOt saying that wouldn’t be easier but I think most diy’ers prefer to buy their own oil in jugs, and their own filters independent of the oil, and can change their own oil and filter themselves the normal way. As long as the place you pour the oil in is easily accessible, the oil filter is located so it is easy to see & to change without having to do any gymnastics to get at it. And the process of removing the old one and installing the new one is a simple screw off, screw on operation, or similar. Likewise with the oil drain plug. One figure of merit might be the oil and filter can be changed start to finish in 20 minutes using only car ramps and no special tools.