On Sept. 4, 2007, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the most famous disasters in automotive history: the Edsel. Even 50 years later people still recognize the name Edsel and associate it with failure.

In the summer of 1957, a big ad campaign really captured the imagination of the American public. The Ford motor company decided to create a brand new division and they were advertising the new cars heavily. {M3

The Edsel division of the Ford Motor company was going to be something special, the automaker promised. The cars would be new, exciting. The ad campaign teased people by showing them nothing about this new line of cars. In an ad you might see a hood ornament, or a car under a tarp. And the ad campaign worked. People were excited and curious about the new line of Edsel cars that was to come.

Sept. 4, 1957, was the unveiling. People could go to the new Edsel dealership in their neighborhood to see the new car. And people did go in droves. The problem was, nobody was buying. That was the beginning of the end for the Edsel.

How could an ad campaign work so well, while yielding no buyers? The Edsel didn't live up to the hype.{M3

The Edsel did have some interesting features, but each one was a little kooky. The look of the car was definitely unique, with a huge grill shaped like the letter "O." And the automatic transmission was controlled by buttons located in the center of the steering wheel. Also, people were expecting something completely new, while in reality the Edsels were built on top of an existing Ford chassis.

The Edsel also had lots of manufacturing problems. Ford decided it would not build dedicated Edsel factories. Instead, Edsels were put together on normal Ford and Mercury assembly lines at the end of the day. The problem was, switching over from one car line to another did not work very well, and Edsels would often have the wrong parts, or things would not be adjusted right. Some people said Edsel stood for "Every Day Something Else Leaks."{M3

By the Edsel's third model year Ford was ready to throw in the towel. At that point the company had spent more than $2 billion (in today's dollars) on a car division that completely disappeared.

People have all sorts of theories for why the Edsel was such a spectacular failure. Some blame the name. Some blame the styling of the car in its first year. Some blame the September launch date -- the new model year typically was announced in November, so the Edsel looked expensive. Some blame the size of the car. Some blame timing -- a big recession started at the end of 1957.

Maybe it was a combination of all these things, the hype/product mismatch, the kookiness and the quality problems. Whatever it was, we now know that the Edsel did not work. Today, we still honor this fact by making the word Edsel synonymous with failure.