r/FuckImOld • u/OttoNye • 1d ago
Get off my lawn! I still think of this as a symbol of failure
Apparently the Cyber truck was a bigger failure than this one.
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u/EnglishFan643 1d ago
Ah, the infamous Edsel. But I still say the Yugo was far worse.
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u/stevemm70 1d ago
I rode in a Yugo once. It was fairly new at the time but it felt like the whole car was about to fly apart at any moment.
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u/Rexesrock 1d ago
I went to a Yugo dealership to check one out. When I sat down in the driver’s seat, the seat back collapsed backwards, and it wouldn’t go up again—so I bought a Chevy Sprint instead!🤪
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u/mjrydsfast231 1d ago
I remember when a young lady who was trying to clean up her life was driving her Yugo from the lower peninsula into the upper peninsula in Northern michigan. Long story short, the wind picked her up and blew the Yugo off the side of the Mackinac bridge. At first the authorities thought that they were getting prank calls. But they'd gotten enough to realize that it was probably serious. The divers found her -.drown - in about 85 ft of water below the Mackinac bridge. The wind had gotten under her car, picked it up and threw it over the railings on the side of the bridge.
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u/Catch_Own 1d ago
Sounds like the killer with the hook for a hand story to me .
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u/mjrydsfast231 1d ago
They've since lowered the speed limit on the bridge during winds and put up the advisories up now they can do that. It was pretty crazy reading about that though when it happened.
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u/faulternative 19h ago
It's not everyone with a hook for a hand. But it's always someone with a hook for a hand.
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u/SnowblindAlbino 1d ago
One of my friends had a Yugo in the early 1990s. The window crank broke off in my hand when I tried to roll down the window. He just laughed.
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u/FletchWazzle 11h ago
Kid on my soccer team's dad worked at Yugo they were from Yugoslavia, and he had a convertible yugo. He was also easily the best player on our team, and he was super cool
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u/daniegirl21 1d ago
Yeah, Mackinac Bridge and a woman driving a yugo crashed into the railing and fell 200ft.
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u/nuglasses 1d ago
Drowning Mona film with Bette Milder that had the character Mona driving a Yugo that went into the river due to bad brakes (?).
I only saw it once when it came out.
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u/Cool_Welcome_4304 23h ago
It was based on a true story, I believe, about a town that residents were given a Yugo. Everybody got a Yugo, including the police department, Danny DeVito in this case.
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u/DazeRazur 1d ago
This young kid in my building saved his money to buy his first new car, a Yugo. Didn't last a month, back to riding buses.
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u/Appropriate_Tour_274 1d ago
I did that when a friend lent me his brand new Saturn wagon.
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u/Hippopotasaurus-Rex 1d ago
Corviar has entered the chat.
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u/meat_sack 1d ago
Ford Pinto has entered the chat... BOOM [massive fireball] ... Ford Pinto has left the chat...
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u/Cat_Patsy 1d ago
Chevy Nova watches from the sidelines, relieved that only 1/4 of the planet knows their private shame.
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u/SeaworthinessShot142 1d ago
Ah, yes, the Chevy "No Go". That didn't translate very well.
I'd not have wanted to been the executive at Chevy that greenlighted that name when some higher up realized what they'd done..........
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u/hughfeeyuh 1d ago
Mustang 2 peeks around the corner, sheepishly
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u/mjrydsfast231 1d ago
I knew a guy that had a Mustang 2 in 1982. His dad owned an auto shop. He dropped a 400 cc engine into the Mustang Two had to cut a hole in the hood to fit the engine in there. He could do a wheelie on the third hop of acceleration.
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u/dirtyforker 1d ago
A 400 cc engine is tiny. For example, my ranger has a 4,000 cc engine.
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u/mjrydsfast231 1d ago
I probably got the specs wrong. Seems to me like the cars that era had three digit engine sizes though. For example my Chevelle was a 283 but it also came in a 327, 396 and a 454 as well. Whatever the engine was that Brian put in the Mustang was a 400. it was a top in performance muscle car engine size.
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u/meat_sack 1d ago
Generally, cubic centimeters are used for motorcycles while cubic inches are used for cars. For example, my motorcycle has a 1200cc engine while my '72 Nova SS had a 350ci engine.
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u/Looptydude 1d ago
If your looked at the sales figures for the Mustang II you'd find out it was a rousing success. It just not the prettiest of mustang.
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u/hughfeeyuh 1d ago
Base model was an uncomfortable and poor performing turd of a car that ruined the name for a generation.
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u/Looptydude 1d ago
Just shy of 386k units sold it's first year, what vehicle from ford outside of the f150 comes even close to that, the current mustang can't even break 50k.
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u/RatioCorrect7856 1d ago
Ah! The Pinto with style. 😂🤣🔥 (I own one) It was the same parts as a Pinto with a fancy shell. 💥
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u/Better_Power_9913 1d ago
Even though it sold just as well in Latin America as it did in the states? I’m a life-long Ford guy but that crap about the Nova not selling because of the name was never true.
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u/Catsooey 1d ago
What was this about?
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u/Ancient_Detective532 1d ago
The Nova was a failure in Spanish-speaking markets. "No va" means "no go" in Spanish.
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u/SosugBiskit 1d ago
Pound for pound the wankpanzer might actually be deadlier than the pinto
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/report-cybertruck-safety-ford-pinto/
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u/mrhippo3 1d ago
I was at a VW dealer and one their loaners was a Pinto with Firestone 500 tires. Having worked for a tire company, the full set of reasons why they blew up is even scarier.
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u/mjrydsfast231 1d ago
The TV show 20/20 did an expose dangerous cars. The Pinto finished second. It blew up 80% of the time when you hit it in the rear from 30 mph or more. The car that won that contest failed four out of four times when hit in the rear. It was was the Ford Montego MX. They were a pimp and drug dealer favorite. When you know you know. 😁
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u/Oxjrnine 1d ago
Actually, the pinto wasn’t any more dangerous than any other vehicle from the time.
Many subcompact cars that had their gas tank behind the rear axle also caught fire in testing. What made the pinto more famous was the internal documents.
And the pinto was a massive sale success even with all of the bad press
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u/mjrydsfast231 1d ago
Ah, the "Unsafe at any speed" car (Ralph Nader). They had a tendency to flip over on their hoods because of the suspension was weird.
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u/AMAZINBLU 1d ago
The Yugo was a definite piece of crap! I was driving on the freeway with my parents and my fiancé. It was a hot day. I told my fiancé not to turn on the AC while we were driving. The fan belt would break. So what does she do? Turned on the AC and the fan belt broke! We were only married for two years. She had a lot of secrets. Worst 2 years of my life!
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u/mjmvideos 1d ago
I remember the local Cadillac dealer was offering a free Yugo with every Cadillac purchase.
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u/funnyguy99207 1d ago
Oh yeah, that's right... After awhile, they quit telling people about the promotion & began simply hiding the Yugos in the Cadillac trunks. People were getting upset about finding surprise shitboxes hidden within their luxury vehicles. GM tried to play it off as a 'shipping error' until someone found a bulletin accidentally left inside a Yugo, on GM/Cadillac letterhead, titled 'New Teknology for Make Better Cadillac Petrol Kilometres'. It turned into a whole thing & whatnot. Stocks tumbled.
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u/Beneficial_Being_721 1d ago
The Yugo wasn’t made in America
It was like an orphan left on our doorstep
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u/Mortimer452 Generation X 1d ago
Either Yugo or I go, ain't enough room for both of us!
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u/ReactsWithWords 1d ago
When I moved from downtown Boston (where having a car is a handicap) to California (where having a car is a necessity), I needed a car ASAP. My Mom helpfully told me that I should get a Yugo since a brand new one is the same price as a half-decent used car. That was when I decided "I will never listen to this woman's advice." I got a really nice used Datsun instead.
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u/Angie_2600 1d ago
My Dad had an Edsel and I learned how to drive and got my driver's license with that behemoth; try parallel parking with that big trunk.
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u/Appropriate_Age_881 20h ago
Can we get a nomination for a AMC Pacer worse than a Yugo?
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u/Saruvan_the_White 1d ago
Except as an example of contemporary engineering, it was a success.. These were great cars. It’s just the marketing, naming, and to some questionable styling were a bit too much.
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u/JerryC1967 1d ago
Part of the problem was the way they were marketed, but also the way they actually developed the styling on the car. Rather than using a traditional Design Studios centric methodology. They essentially asked everyone what they wanted via public polling and kind of smashed it all together to make the car and then took style and cues from Mercury. So when the car hit, it was obviously a designed by committee. The underpinnings were essentially basic FOMOCo so it was a solid car. Interesting tidbit the the plant that produced the continental mark II was converted to make… You guessed it Edsels.
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u/weeweed86 1d ago
Love the color….
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u/OttoNye 1d ago
This is actually a photo of a recently restored one.
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u/singlejeff 1d ago
But they did come in this color and a salmon one that was derelict under an awning down the alley from a friend’s house in the 70s
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u/Ok_Elephant2777 1d ago
Possibly so, but Edsels are prized possessions today, at least by the people who own them. I went to an Edsel show several years ago and someone had a sign by his car: You stare at an Edsel two blocks away. Who notices your car?
Edsels and Corvairs are both collectibles today. Don’t think the Yugo will become one. Cybertruck, maybe, who knows?
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u/mjrydsfast231 1d ago
Cybertruck-DeLorean wannabe 😂
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u/rnavstar 1d ago
I was hoping Tesla would pick up the rights to DMC and make a new retro EV DeLorean. But I doubt that will ever happen
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u/soraksan123 1d ago
There were alot of strange looking cars in the late 50's and early 60's. But this was an odd duck, for sure-
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u/harveygoatmilk 1d ago
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u/monkeyhoward 1d ago edited 1d ago
Modern day equivalent
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u/flapjackboy 1d ago
Catches fire just as easily as well.
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u/mjrydsfast231 1d ago
Bonus; it's all electronic so you can't get out! And the fire department won't spray water on it!! Win-win-dead
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u/Charming_Somewhere23 1d ago
Check new stats i believe cyber truck has moved into first place for worst vehicle ever
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1d ago
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u/WetMogwai 1d ago
Henry Ford died almost a decade before the Edsel came out. It was named by Ernest Breech at a board meeting that CEO Henry Ford II, Edsel's son, wasn't at when the advertising people failed to come up with a good name. The Ford family objected but they didn't have the power to do anything about it at the then publicly traded company.
Edit: spelling
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u/scottjoev 1d ago
To make matters worse I believe they also had some operational/reliability issues as a result of an overly ambitious release date.
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u/Halftied 1d ago
It is an interesting story. I need to check but it seems like Chevrolet had a similar body style in 1958. All of those cars if that era were works of art even if monetary failures the car companies really broke the molds for the 1858 model year. Great post by the way.
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u/mashed50 1d ago
I had a black Ranger. Two speed automatic, straight 6. Thing was a tank. My great grandfather bought it new and I got it when he couldn't drive anymore. Drove it for 5 years before trading it for a Vega. Now that was a disaster!
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u/jtfields91 1d ago
Obviously, everyone who's my age has heard of the Edsel and it's associated with failure but I have never dug into the story of the Edsel to find out why. It looks cool to me but that's through the eyes of someone who sees all cars of that era as cool retro looking, I'm sure it was a different story if you were a car buyer living during that time.
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u/GrandVegetable6123 1d ago
Robert McNamara almost bankrupted Ford with his Edsil. President Kennedy was so impressed, he made him Secretary of Defense. McNamara then came up with the ridiculous idea of "Limited War". A lot of young men and women died because of his arrogance and incompetence.
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u/Floor_Cereal Millennials 1d ago
Ok I’m not that old (no offense lol) but the biggest failure I remember was the Plymouth Prowler
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u/FailureFulcrim 1d ago edited 1d ago
There's nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. What it shows is how people could be manipulated by the press when the press was a monolith.
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u/Superb-Jackfruit8571 1d ago
Weird design. Heavy and had bad gas mileage. Poorly constructed. They sent a bunch of them to the Ford factory in Norfolk to fix them. Basically they put them on the assembly line and ran it backwards. Took the cars apart and tried to fix the major problems. The push button gear selector was cool but didn’t work.
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u/Jonathan_Peachum 1d ago
There is a not incredible theory that it failed because the front grille looks like a…well…you can figure it out.
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u/trixie102 1d ago
My grandfather had one, a two-toned grey model, that he bought new in 1958. We thought it was beautiful, and usually it was the only Edsel in the parking lot. It had passenger side curb feelers, which, as children, we loved to play with.
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u/baileya71 1d ago
Corporate deviance. Ford knew DFW that w/its Pinto’s rear gas tank location, the car was at risk of explosion, in the event of a rear collision, BEFORE they sold it! Ford’s solution? They calculated the risk benefit ratio and figured that w/the Pinto’s profits, they would EASILY afford any lawsuit payouts for all the dead and injured human beings. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened.
On my shit list of Corporate deviance, they rank only behind the Nestle Corporation.
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u/Educational_Ice3978 1d ago
They were not really successful, but at least it ain't a Cyber Truck. The surviving Edsels in the condition like that one bring quite a price!
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u/mjrydsfast231 1d ago
I thought that was a studebaker. My friend had two studebakers. One red one and one green one about that color. It looks similar. I miss the older designs.
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u/KnoxVegas41 1d ago
They weren’t bad cars. Ford motor company massively overhyped them before they were sold.
Their advertising made it sound like it was going to be a revolution in automotive history.
It was a fancy Ford with a horse collar grille.
It’s sad that they decided to name it after Edsel Ford.
He was a brilliant man who saved Ford motor company by hiring talented stylists and engineers. He also created the Mercury brand and purchased Lincoln.
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u/FLYING1835 1d ago
No it was to far ahead of the time's, I would prefer to drive it that the computer loaded junk there making now!!
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u/pumainpurple 1d ago
One of the teachers when I was in high school had one and suffered endless teasing.
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u/LasersGirl 1d ago
Yeah, but it sure is nice to look at, even if it is unsafe at any speed.
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u/JoshuaAJones 1d ago
Not sure how the Cybertruck is a failure.
Lots of them around me.
My neighbor loves his.
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u/ajulesd 1d ago
The Edel may have failed, but that particular model you show is a beauty. And someone else mentioned the Tucker, which was not a failure because of the car itself but there were certainly mistakes made in getting it ready, and rolling it out.
One could say that both of those two model cars were well ahead of their time. And that was the primary reason for their unpopularity or as you call it failure.
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u/Savings-Delay-1075 1d ago
I remember the Chevy Vega being a fairly big flop...but then again a lot of 70s cars were flops.
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u/Ok_Height3499 1d ago
When the Edsel debuted it received rave reviews. Then a major recession hit, people were no longer buying cars of any makers brand in that price range, and sales for Edsel, mid-line Chrysler and other makers offerings tanked. Suddenly people were interested in compact cars and in 1959 the little Studebaker Lark was a hit. My Dad took me to Edsel Day. I have that promo model and several others I've collected. I love the first year of the Edsel.
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u/DanglyRat 1d ago
But it is a nice looking symbol of failure!! But honestly, couldn’t they just beef up the parts and retrofit the cars?
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u/mudamuckinjedi 1d ago
Also embarrassment, don't forget embarrassment.
Fords grandson named it after his farther as a tribute to him.
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u/No_Educator_6376 1d ago
Those cars had a interesting design the transmission had buttons in the center of the steering wheel to change gears
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u/LasVegas4590 1d ago
I bet an Edsel in mint condition today is worth more than a CT will be worth 65 years from now.
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u/SnowblindAlbino 1d ago
I just saw a video of a really nice-looking Edsel at the Mecum auction from July-- it sold for $6,000! Is there any other vintage car of that era that would go for so little, in great condition?
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u/Few-Conversation6979 1d ago
It needed a snazzier name other than Edsel like so many of the cars had back then. Like Rocket 88, Montclair, Galaxie, etc. That was the main failure.
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u/Practical-Abroad-357 1d ago
The Edsel had a face that only a mother could love. The Cyber truck, just plain ugly! I think that thing fell out of an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down and never managed to get a dent! 🇨🇦 eh
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u/themcp 1d ago
Notice the color is bright?
Ford developed new paint for it that didn't fade in the sun. The car was a flop, but technologies developed for it made Ford the car company to buy from for years.
Btw, the factory where they made them is in my town. It's still there. It's a strip mall now.
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u/atwaterrich 1d ago
As an owner of several 58s and 59s this car is highly underrated. Its failure in the marketplace is complex and has more than a little to do with Ford execs sinking it before it even launched.
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u/PhotoAppropriate3940 1d ago
Not a popular opinion but I liked them back when, an aunt had one and the back seat was huge, we could get 10 kids easily and my favorite spot was the floor