This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

ANNOUNCER: "They'll know you've arrived, when you drive up in the nineteen fifty-eight Edsel -- the car that's truly new, from nameplate to taillight."

The Ford Motor Company built several versions of the Edsel from nineteen fifty-eight to nineteen sixty. Ford ended production of the car after just three model years because of weak sales.

The Edsel has been described as both a "colossal failure" and "a car ahead of its time."

John Heitmann is a history professor at the University of Dayton in Ohio and vice president of the Society for Automotive Historians.

JOHN HEITMANN: "It was a car that was controversial in styling. Its horseshoe-shaped grill is still remembered today. The Edsel is kind of the example of the car that never caught on. It's known as the 'disaster from Dearborn.'"

Dearborn, Michigan is Ford's headquarters.

Professor Heitmann says the biggest problem was that the Edsel arrived around the same time as a recession. He says Americans were beginning to question their values.

JOHN HEITMANN: "It's a really curious kind of economic episode. It was actually quite severe but also rather short. But it was at a time when many Americans were reacting to the dinosaur in the driveway. These very heavy, chrome-laden Buicks and other cars -- the fifty-eight Buick had fifty-eight pounds of chrome on it. The Edsel was also a very heavy, very fuel-inefficient vehicle."