Title: 14 Defunct Car Brands and Why they Failed
Headings: Defunct Car Brands
Defunct Car Brands
Studebaker (1852-1966)
Oldsmobile (1897-2004)
Packard (1899-1958)
Pontiac (1926-2010)
DeSoto (1928-1961)
Plymouth (1928-2001)
Mercury (1938-2011)
Tucker (1944-1950)
Kaiser-Frazer (1945-1951)
American Motors Corporation (AMC) (1954-1988)
Edsel (1957-1959)
DeLorean (1975-1982)
Saturn (1985-2010)
Hummer (1992-2010)
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Content: Worse – it wound up being priced as a luxury car despite attempts to compete in the mid-priced market. In 2017 dollars, Ford lost $2.9 billion on the Edsel adventure. DeLorean (1975-1982)
John DeLorean is best known for designing the striking GTO, among other cars, and for being the youngest GM executive in history. Using seed capital from Hollywood stars and the British government, DeLorean built a manufacturing plant in Northern Ireland to produce the DMC-12. Initial vehicles suffered from poor quality control and testing, and the features, cost, and design of the car met with mixed enthusiasm in the States. Struggling to break even, DeLorean was caught in an FBI sting and accused of being a drug trafficker in 1982. He was later acquitted of all charges – but the trial ruined his reputation. The cars gained a cult following, and a new DeLorean Motor Company opened in 2016, promising to build new DMC-12 models in the future. Saturn (1985-2010)
When Saturn was founded in Spring Hill, Tennessee, it was called “a new kind of car company.” It was a private, employee-owned company that operated separately from GM and enjoyed much more freedom than GM’s other divisions.