Self-fulfilling prophecy
03/11/2022
Sometimes advertising promises and reality are surprisingly close - even if for all the wrong reasons.
The Edsel brochure for 1958 promised a car that would be recognizable as something special from a block away.
The closer you got, however, the clearer it became that it was little more than a Ford Fairlane with a vertical radiator grille and automatic buttons in the steering wheel hub. It was too ordinary for the disappointed customers, whose expectations had been raised by the advertising, so they left it unimpressed. Only 63,110 Edsel left the improvised assembly lines in 1958, while 950,052 Fords of the same year were produced at the same time. So the broken promise of being something very special did indeed make the Edsel something special in the end - albeit a fateful year late.
