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TLDR:If Doomsday truly has to be killed by Kryptonite, this is a 7/10 win for the Avengers through BFR. (IF Thor has access to the Bi-Frost, it’s a 10/10 win through BFR)If he actually can be killed somehow, but the movie didn’t bother to explore it due to that being less dramatic than needing the kryptonite spear, it’s more like a 8–9/10 times that The Avengers win through either beating him to death or BFR. Again, 10/10 if Thor wants to use the bi-frost for bfr.Fighting out of the Red corner, we have the monstrosity from Batman Vs Superman, the butchery of a famous comic book villain, Doomsday!Assuming Superman is 6′1″ (185 cm) in the DCEU, Doomsday is roughly 12′ (365.76 cm) tall. This was merely his starting height. Following the Nuke, he became much larger. We have no idea of a weight for him.And fighting out out of the Blue corner, we have the Mighty Avengers! (Keep in mind, I’m only counting “official” Avengers. Meaning, if they were part of the Avenger’s initiative, they count.)War Machine. Col. James Rhodes. He has strength at least equivalent to Tony’s Mark 45 armor from the end of Age of Ultron while utilizing this suit which was created for him for Infinity War. (Thanks for the heads up Blake Horner )The Vision. An A.I. in an Android’s body. He has the mind stone which can shoot an energy blast. He can also change his density to either become more dense, or less dense at will.The Falcon. A military veteran sporting some high tech wings that allow him to fly. He has a drone that is outfitted with explosive ordinance attached to the wing’s center. He also has some martial arts training and some SMGs.Scarlet Witch. A powerful mystic given powers from the Mind Stone. She can assault a person’s mind with powerful hallucinations, and is a powerful telekinetic.Black Widow, a highly trained spy and expert martial artist. She has stun guns/stun bracelets, stun batons, and handguns.Hawkeye, a highly trained spy and expert martial artist. A tactical genius as well. He has a specialized quiver and bow that allow him to switch out his arrow heads on the fly to deal with various situations.Captain America, a super soldier with superhuman physicality. He is also outfitted with a vibranium shield, capable of tanking a hit from Mjolnir while imparting no damage to the wielder.Iron Man. A genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist in a suit of armor. He’s got reuplsars, explosive ordinance, and a whole slew of other gadgets come along with this suit.The Incredible Hulk. A walking force of nature. He’s big, he’s angry and he’s strong. He’s also durable.The Mighty Thor. The Asgardian God of Thunder (lightning). He wields the mighty Mjolnir (now Storm Breaker). Capable of throwing lightning, and flight, he’s also extremely strong and durable.We all know the general powers of the Avengers, and if you don’t, well, Google is your friend. I however, am trying not to write the worlds longest answer.DCEU Doomsday though, I will highlight his powers for you.Extreme Superhuman Strength. Capable of tossing Superman around like a rag doll.Superhuman leaping. Can leap well over tall buildings, and quite a long distance. Perhaps even miles.Extreme Superhuman Durability. Survived a point blank Nuclear Missile. As well as many punches from Superman and Wonder Woman. Explosions appeared to have no effect on him.Rapid Evolution. Developed the ability to absorb explosions and release energy in an explosion.Following the Nuke strike he began emitting electricity and grew bones on the outside of his skin. He also developed the ability to shoot energy beamsSuperHuman speed. Capable of keeping up with the Bat-plane? (batman calls all his vehicles bat somethings, I just don’t know if that thing is technically a plane.)Energy AbsorptionThis is coupled with energy release.Has an aoe dome releasea beam releasesomething that looks like Superman’s heat visionHe’s capable of leveling buildings with his energy release, assuming he’s been absorbed enough energy.Superhuman reaction speed. Was capable of catching superman while he was flying past.Nigh invulnerabilityIt is said in the movie that the only thing that can kill him is kryptonite. That may be true, it might also just be that they didn’t have any other ideas that might work.So, here’s the issue. Assuming that the movie was correct and kryptonite is the only way to kill Doomsday, the Avengers can only win through Battlefield Removal(BFR).Doomsday, as the DCEU presents him, is an incredibly challenging foe, even for all 10 Avengers while they’re working as a team. Falcon, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and even Captain America are next to useless for this fight. That’s roughly half the team that has to sit on the bench.Hulk, Thor, Vision and Scarlet Witch will be extremely useful and will likely be the only heroes that can enter the battle.Iron Man might just have the most important role though, he’s the primary BFR tool. He’ll be aided by War Machine in this endeavor.Now, if Thor has Stormbreaker, he just uses the Bi-frost to drop Doomsday off in some distant star where he’ll go on absorbing energy nearly infinitely, but will not be able to cause any damage with said energy. However, if he only has Mjolnir, we need Iron Man.Hulk and Thor are the tanks, they’ll be getting up in Doomsday’s face, hitting him and making sure he’s not trying to hit anyone else. Vision will by flying around Doomsday, also keeping his attention, but staying intangible as much as possible. His mind stone will only power up Doomsday and that’s not good for anyone. Wanda will sit in the back lines but she’ll need to be using her power to keep him pinned down, or trying to get into his head with hallucinations to calm him down.Once he’s calmed down to a degree, or Hulk and Thor have disabled his limbs (either by ripping them off or otherwise destroying them) Iron Man comes in and flies him up and into outer space where he’s launched off into the void.I’d say the Avengers take this 7/10 times. There are enough of them that they can handle him relatively easily, and as soon as they realize he absorbs energy, they’ll knock all of that off real quick, moving into the realm of purely physical combat.Now, if we assume there is a way to kill him and Batman VS Superman just didn’t explore it because needing the kryptonite spear was more dramatic, this changes.The previous 5 benchwarmers still remain benchwarmers (even though Cap would probably force his way onto the battlefield regardless).Everything still plays out similar to the previous scenario, except Hulk and Thor are now bruisers more than tanks. They’re still taking hits, but they’re much more focused on dishing out the damage as well. Eventually they beat him into submission while Iron Man uses his special sword arms to help cut up Doomsday.It’ll be a long fight, but assuming they stay away from hitting him with energy blasts and keeping him away from explosions, eventually they tear him apart and he has no regenerative power to bring himself back.Likely 8–9/10 times the Avengers take this one.(BTWs, thanks for making me watch bvs again. Appreciate it./sarcasm)

Let’s start with the Elefant/Ferdinand’s birth:The Beginning^Porsche’s VK 45.01 (P)During the stages of accepting the design that would eventually become the Tiger I tank, two companies competed, Henschel with their VK 45.01 (H) and Porsche with their VK 45.01 (P) designs. The VK 45.01 (P) had an interesting design. It had two gasoline engines powering separate electrical engines to propel the tracks. Innovative, but this was prone to mechanical failures and was overly complex for a war machine. Plus it also used valuable minerals like copper and was very maintenance-extensive. Despite that, Ferdinand Porsche believed the tank would be the winner and as the evaluation was going on, the company produced up to 100 chassis of the vehicle in anticipation for the order.However, this was not meant to be as Henschel’s design was far simpler and easier to produce, so they adopted that as Tiger I.A New PurposeHowever, Porsche were already building the chassis of the vehicle. Rather than nix the whole thing and scrap the designs, it was decided to use the chassis as the basis of a new tank destroyer. Mating the chassis with a superstructure mounting the infamous 88 mm PaK 43 gun, we have ourselves the Ferdinand.^Ferdinand Tank Destroyer, named after Ferdinand Porsche.Its combat debut was in 1943 at Kursk. It is there when the full list of pros and cons were laid out for the world to see.Pros:The Ferdinand was a deadly tank killer. On the vast Russian landscape that the Kursk battlefield presented, the 88 mm could express its full range of lethality. There are reports of kill claims up to 3 kilometers away with the 88 mm against T-34s. In the entirety of the Battle of Kursk, the 653rd Tank Destryer battalion claimed a kill of 320 enemy tanks for a loss of 13 Ferdinands (The key word here is “claim”, however even dividing by two is still a considerable amount of tanks killed per Ferdinand. The Ferdinand served well as an 88 mm carrier in a sense.Armor was also no joke. Front armor on the hull and the superstructure was 200 mm thick. Pretty much impenetrable to all but the heaviest of Soviet guns. Side armor is ~80 mm, which is more defeatable. In a long range contest, the Ferdinand had an upperhand in firepower while also being tough enough to shrug off accurate fire from the distance.Cons:The Ferdinand was heavy, 65 tons of heavy. In perspective, the Tiger I tank was only about 57 tons and the Tiger II 68 tons. This was a problem not just in mobility, but everything related to logistics with this tank destroyer. Mine damages, mechanical failures, knocked out, and all the attacks needed to affect the tracks and suspension of this vehicle was probably the biggest horror next to the enemy. If the suspension was damaged, the crew would have to leave their safe armor into the open for repairs. If they can’t conduct field repairs, they need to use an armored recover vehicle, the Bergepanzer IV, to tow it back, which is a very big problem when the standard ARV can’t pull the tank destroyer. FIVE Bergepanzer was needed to budge the Ferdinand. This caused many abandoned Ferdinands to be unrecoverable, and many more simply destroyed by the crew to avoid capture by the enemy. A majority of Ferdinands lost at Kursk was due to mechanical failures than enemy damages.The enemy however soon found even more weaknesses on the Ferdinand. The Ferdinand had no machine guns on it… at all, like none. It only had the 88 mm cannon, and its anti-infantry capabilities was, as quote by Heinz Guderian, “Quail shooting with cannons”. Russian infantry learned that when a Ferdinand was passing by, simply hide away from its vision ports (Ferdinand also didn’t have a commander’s cupola for better viewing) and then attack the semi-blind vehicle from the blindspots with anti-tank weapons like the molotov cocktails.Not to mention, as stated earlier, the Ferdinand was only based off the 100 extra chassis that were built, and total conversion was 91 units. There were 2,800 tanks and assault guns available for the Germans when Operation Citadel started. What kind of difference can 91 heavy and rather unreliable tank destroyers gonna do in the large Kursk offensive? It had very little impact in the overall battle, even less so than the Tiger Is present.Mistakes were made^Elefant Tank Destroyer. Note front hull machine gun and a cupola on top.The 50 surviving Ferdinands from Kursk were sent to be refitted, based off the combat experience. A machine gun was added to the front hull, the commander had a cupola, and some other changes like increased front armor and the application of Zimmerit paste. These modifications renamed the Ferdinand as the Elefant. The unfortunate downside is that the tank destroyer is now up to 70 tons, compared to the Jagdtiger’s 75 ton weight.However, like I said, with insufficient number of vehicle for an entire front, the impact of these new Elefant tank destroyers was quite negligible in the course of the war. They were sent to Italy, where small mountain roads and bridges inhibited the Elefant’s utility. Some Elefants in Europe remained available that a company of Elefants saw action in the January 1945 Soviet Vistula offensive, and some lasting all the way until the Battle of Berlin.Conclusion:Too heavy for long term battlefield survival, too few for practical impact, and all based on a rather unreliable chassis, the Ferdinand’s only saving grace was its huge amount of armor and its gun. The Ferdinand may cause havoc on anything down its firing arc, but it had a rather negligible impact on the overall course of the front and the war.But hey, they make nice museum pieces.^Ferdinand Tank Destroyer at Kubinka Museum, one of remaining two left in the world.

Was there a GM car that flopped just like the Ford Edsel? I believe that’s a no. Let me explain.Answer:I have a better than average knowledge of the US auto industry, particularly its history as I’m more of a car historian and analyst. But you stumped me on this excellent question. I had to sit on this for a few days. And I needed for you to know that.So I went mad researching on the internet and the closest I could find were these GM vehicles but they were sold in the European particularly the U.K. market not the USA: The cars with the shortest production runs: cut down in their prime.The Uniqueness of the Edsel FailureWhat makes the Edsel failure unique that makes it difficult to answer your question for GM, is that not only did the car fail, but it was supposed to be the launch vehicle for an entirely new separate division of the Ford Motor Company. At the time in the late 1950’s General Motors and Chrysler each had 5 car divisions with different price points. Ford only had two, three if you count Continental a few years prior but it had to drop Continental back into the Lincoln brand back in 1958, that Chrysler had to do the same with Imperial back into the Chrysler brand years later in 1975. I explain Imperial below.The Ford Edsel was the launch of a car that had 7 different trims or variants in two and four door hard tops and sedans, two wagons, and two convertibles, in a total four year run from 1956–1959, that’s three model years, plus an additional 2,800 cars in post production for the 1960 model year. Of the seven variants, half had a longer wheelbase that was based on a Mercury platform, the other half had a shorter wheelbase based on a Ford platform. Eventually as production continued only the Ford platform was used.After three production years Ford shuttered the car and the brand after making a total of about 118,000 units over three years, industrially considered low output, and losing about $350 million 1959 USD. That would be about $2.4 billion in today’s money. Today it takes from drawing board to showroom about $1 billion USD to bring a car to market. I can only imagine what the fiscal and collateral costs to launch then fold a car division and what those costs mean today and meant back in the day.The feeling was at the time that perhaps Ford could open up consumer markets and sales by having a bridge division between mainstream Ford core branded, and luxurious Mercury branded vehicles before the step up to Lincoln. By adding an Edsel line, Ford could expand to three divisions, increase the dealership numbers nationwide to thebsizeof Chrysler’s at 10,000, and have a new brand that would delineate the core Ford brand from the luxurious Mercury brand that would add more prestige to the Lincoln brand.So by the Edsel failing to meet sales, the car folded and so did the division. In these two events happening it is considered one of the most expensive product failures in US auto history. But I believe Edsel did Ford a solid benefit that would help them post production back in the early 1960s and decades later: I'll explain at the end.The GM Product Failures and the GM Division Shut DownsWhen GM cancels a car or shuts a brand, it’s usually because either the vehicle was deficient in some way, and/or the brand just wasn’t as popular anymore to help the product line sell, so the brand had its day. To my recollection, knowledge, and research, GM never had this kind of similar Edsel experience where they lost a product, a product line, and a whole subsidiary division all at the same time by cancelling the launch or flagship product, costing millions or billions like it did at Ford because customers got turned off toward both the product and brand.Oh we all know from time to time over the years, that GM made crap cars that never should have made it to production. And GM customers exercise patience when GM wears out a brand or sells another crap car, but they haven’t taken it out on GM for both at the same time. Yet. The reason for cancellation is usually about the car, not necessarily the brand, unless history repeats itself with GM brand fatigue. But the Edsel failure was too early for people to be getting sick and tired of the Edsel brand. That was about lack of Edsel brand identity, with no connection with a new brand compounded by vehicles style branded a certain way that customers couldn’t connect, understand, or relate to, so they shunned both the car and the brand. This has never happened to Ford before and since Edsel, and it hasn’t happened to GM ever at all, at least not yet.Over the decades through the past 100 years of their existence, GM had to close divisions due to poor performance: La Salle and Oakland to name some. Some of them were painful as they lost their standing with their customers or eventually lost their brand distinction in a crowded gas car market with new Japanese luxury brands. This was probably the reason why we lost Olds. . .Years before the bankruptcy, there was the serene outrage of the shuttering of America’s oldest car company: Oldsmobile, a luxury brand right under or near Cadillac, which would be the equivalent of Daimler shutting down the Mercedes Benz brand globally from Germany, an outrage some would take it, although some understandably may not see it that way.A few of these GM brands lasted well into the 20th century and started into the 21st: Pontiac was a big hit for some, as it seemed the brand lost its sensation and hype of ”we build excitement!” with persistent slow sales, and increasing and unwanted competition with sister lead core brand Chevrolet. What was the difference between a Pontiac and a Chevy was a question being increasingly asked. To get the bailout money the Feds made GM contract from six to just four brands. Pontiac and Saturn had to go.Some GM brands are relieved they’re being put out of their misery, other GM brands just refuse to die after the electric chair. Hummer recently rose from the dead to become electromobile. Rumors always persistently circulate that Saab is becoming a zombie electromobile brand. There was a failed last minute rescue attempt made by the dealership network to save the Saturn brand as it was probably the only shuttered GM brand that was still well liked and respected by its customer base, right up to the end. No one since has checked on the corpses of Pontiac and Oldsmobile . . .So GM never had to shut a car and a brand at the same time for poor sales because no one understood the car and/or the brand.Notable GM Product Failure Cancellation: Pontiac Aztec CUVOne of the more famous GM product failures was the 2001–2005 Pontiac Aztec, Pontiac’s first utility vehicle, their first crossover, and perhaps their most controversial vehicle due to its “aggressive” styling. Aztec’s design was so polarizing that it has often been named things like the ugliest car ever made by the industry, ugliest in the 21st century, the 2000’s, or the biggest sales disaster in the history of the industry, sometimes perhaps to hype or sensationalism: Why The Pontiac Aztec Was The Biggest Failure In Automotive History.Aztec was based upon a modular GM platform that was used for both GM’s minivans (Pontiac Montana) and SUVs, also for the Pontiac Grand Prix sedan that the brand was making at the time, and shared underpinnings with its industrial production stablemate, the Buick Rendezvous, a vehicle that was somewhat more pleasing to the eye.When it came to Aztec and product development, Pontiac was willing to try something different to help GM get out of its stodginess reputation at the time, and then developers actually followed suggestions by people who wanted something different from GM for a vehicle that was targeted to a demographic that normally isn’t GM clientele, younger buyers in the $25,000 MSRP vehicle price point. The problem was that the end result wasn’t the car those people who wanted something different had in mind. Some say the car was overdeveloped, and in doing that, the car grew even uglier as it went along through its process toward production assembly.For such an ugly car it seems that Aztec owners loved it, or were at least satisfied owning and driving it: the Pontiac Aztec has the highest customer satisfaction index rating in 2001 by JD Powers and Associates. "The Aztek scores highest or second highest in every APEAL component measure except exterior styling." In the end Pontiac made a total of about 120,000 units, about the same number of Edsels that Ford had made decades previous, and in GM’s case, sold about 28,000 Aztecs in its best year of 2002, but GM needed to sell at least 30,000 to break even. They decided to end production in 2005 and it took the dealers about two years to get rid of the remaining lingering inventory. The Aztec was a disaster perhaps not as epic as Edsel, as Pontiac didn’t shutter as a result of this. But it was a lesson learned. Then. But you’d figure GM would have learned its lesson beforehand:Is this a Chevy or a Cadillac?"Ed, you don't have time to turn the J-car into a Cadillac:” The Cadillac Cimarron Sales DebacleAztec certainly didn’t fold the Pontiac brand but if there ever was a GM car that came close to folding a division because of a car and for other reasons resulting from it Edsel style, it was the 1982 Chevy Cavalier J-bodied Cadillac Cimarron that did it, and the Cadillac brand whose customers were already leaving in droves.The late 1970’s were not a good time for the car makers, for the economy and the country in general. Inflation skyrocketed, making car ownership difficult with a staggering 20% interest loan rate to the best customers on car loans. The 1979 Iran hostage crisis created a “malaise” in the national mood that was the basis of uncertainty for the country and the economy. The Chrysler Corporation did its foray into bankruptcy in 1979 with loan guarantees the Carter Administration gave them that Chrysler repaid, that actually helped them to start the Minivan Revolution.Air pollution was worsening and car emission standards were intensifying, as tightening regulations were choking car performance even in cars with massive 500 cu in V8’s getting only 190 horsepower. And these impotent power plants were being packed into shrinking cars that were once considered full sized, now castrated to the size of what was then mid sized or compact cars in the 1960’s. A Chevrolet Caprice or a Cadillac Sedan D’Ville surely still has an ultra smooth engineered boulevard ride of the big cars they once were in 1976, but they became the size of a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere in 1977.It also didn’t help that GM’s foray into supplanting Diesel engines into their passenger cars turned out to be a disaster. And Cadillac’s “V8–6–4” bombed as well. In spite of skyrocketing sales of their new Seville, Cadillac was seeing their customer base leaving in droves by the end of the 1970’s. The glory years of being the pinnacle luxury brand matched to Rolls Royce were definitely over.But here came the GM J body in 1980, and it seemed to be a sure thing for Cadillac General Manager Ed Kennard, a compact car smaller than the new Nova sized Seville that the Chevy Nova done Cadillac style was a smash success. What could be the harm of taking an even smaller car and doing the same? With a smaller car he’d now have something to take on that new German car called a BMW 3 Series that was ripping through all the global luxury car markets by storm like a WW 2 Blitzkrieg.I guess Kennard didn’t take performance luxury into the equation, that it took the American luxury car makers almost 30 years to figure out that performance is also a part of luxury and it’s not just about horsepower. It made no difference because the Cadillac Cimarron lacked both. And if you’re still doing front wheel drive then you’re not serious about luxury performance to match the Germans. Cimarron was front wheel drive and how anyone who knows cars could think a Cimarron could outperform a RWD 3 Series is someone who doesn’t understand German engineering to not be able to seriously compete against them.Between the cheapened re-badged engineering that GM was doing with new downsized platforms A,B,X,C, cars, and the new at the time J bodies from which the mainstream Chevy branded Cavalier (and I’m sure no pun was intended with the meaning of the name), and compounded with volume sales of selling fleets to just about anyone, starting with rental companies, all done through the 1970’s, whatever accomplishments Cadillac achieved through 1976 when the last big Cadillac Sixty Special rolled off an assembly line, it was downhill from there. Rolls Royce could only go up in status as Cadillac went down. This was the beginning of the end of Cadillac's “American Standard for the World” and its transformation into a “discount luxury brand.”GM's president, Pete Estes, warned Kennard: https://web.archive.org/web/20010118205200/http://www.rideanddrive.com/disasters/cimarron.html, "’Ed, you don't have time to turn the J-car into a Cadillac.’ Estes was right: Simply put, the Cimarron was a Cavalier with a Cadillac grille insert and Cadillac badges. Even car "nuts" had to get close enough to read the badges to tell the two cars apart. True, the Cimarron featured some minor suspension tweaks, leather upholstery, and every available J-car option as standard equipment, but the $12,000 asking price didn't buy much in the way of Cadillac distinction.”Changing a Chevy Nova into a Cadillac is one thing, as customers wanted a mid-sized car slightly smaller than the D’Villes but with the same driving dynamics. It’s another thing to take an economy car platform and transform it into a Cadillac, a feat Kennard grossly underestimated. In one of the shortest GM development times that ironically could be compared to the 1998 Cadillac Escalade rollout that took less than a year for Escalade to debut and eventually become one of the most successful iconic vehicles of the Cadillac portfolio, and for Cimarron to be a complete sales disaster in the same timeframe. Cimarron was launched from its development from 1980 in 1981 as a 1982 Cadillac:Noted automotive journalist Dan Neilincluded the Cimarron in his 2007 list of Worst Cars of all Time, saying "everything that was wrong, venal, lazy, and mendacious about GM in the 1980s was crystallized in this flagrant insult to the good name and fine customers of Cadillac." He added that the Cimarron "nearly killed Cadillac and remains its biggest shame."Forbes placed the Cimarron on its list of "Legendary Car Flops," citing low sales, poor performance and the fact the car "didn't work, coming from a luxury brand."CarBuzz called the Cimarron a "textbook example of what goes wrong when a carmaker tries to badge engineer an economy car into a luxury car."From 1982 to 1988 Cadillac sold 122,000 pieces, that’s in the Edsel production range but this was over an 8 year period and somewhat miraculously, Cadillac and GM survived. But some say this is where GM began its at first slow then in the ensuing later years into the 2000’s of its quickening death spiral that led them to bankruptcy in 2009. Through that debacle Cadillac saw its market share cut in half from almost 4% in 1979 down to 2.2% right through 1997, a year before launch of the Cadillac Escalade. Customers not only were turned off by Cimarron but by Cadillac as well, and besides, what was the uniqueness of owning a Cadillac if you can rent one at the airport?The good thing that came out of the Cimarron debacle was the first reboot of the Cadillac brand of the 2000’s: the 21st century “Arts and Science” design language of a modern more sharply angular Cadillac design: “The fusion of design and technology from the makers of Cadillac.” Whatever it is that Cadillac ATS now CT4 represents, she is mindful of her ancestor the Cadillac Cimarron was attempting to do. And she tries to emulate it a little better in her honor.The irony here is that Cimarron is now a collector’s item in the classic car market, especially if you have a stick shift one as manual transmissioned Cadillacs are extremely rare in its history. But Cimarron did not bring down the house of cars like Edsel did for its own division. Let’s move onto Chrysler.Imperial by Chrysler Goes Back to the Chrysler BrandChrysler may have had a similar Edsel experience but with not as epic proportions when they had to drop Imperial from division status back to being a Chrysler upper luxury branded car after a 20 year run, some would say that’s not bad, as the sole Imperial was the top of the line division, the top of the line pinnacle car, and the only car in that division for the entire corporate portfolio range of the then five until 1961 when DeSoto folded, then four Chrysler car brands into the 1960’s and 70’s. This was between 1955 and 1975, the last year Imperial was on its own.Although it came over the years in its own body styles, trims, and wheelbases it ended production only as a standard wheelbase saloon in 1975, the same size as the top line Chrysler New Yorker. The car was often referred as the Chrysler Imperial but its proper name was Imperial by Chrysler, if that makes sense. This was the last Imperial of the Imperial line in 1975, still, a gigantic car:In the order of price point the Chrysler divisions were: Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler, then Imperial. This also may have motivated Ford to create an Edsel division but in Ford’s case a division between Ford and Mercury and not over Mercury or Lincoln.Fords Loss of Edsel Later Would be a GainSo I believe GM never had a closely similar issue that Ford has with Edsel. And in the end Edsel served Ford well, maybe not at the time it happened. Because Ford didn’t have a dedicated factory making Edsels, it had to retool and stamp current facilities to make Edsel cars. And in doing this, Ford’s production process became more flexible for different types of vehicles. After Edsel, this made it easier to make the soon coming Ford Falcon, which gave way to the Ford Mustang, the Ford Fairlane, the Mercury Comet, and Meteor. After Edsel, Ford became much better at making smaller vehicles to even foray into making muscle and pony cars. Ford can thank Edsel for that. The aforementioned vehicles were all successful that made Ford a lot of money, and Edsel eventually helped that process along.A few decades later because of the economy and car markets, Ford and GM had to restructure and downsize. Both lost significant market share in a constantly still rapidly changing auto industry. Lexus, Acura, and Infiniti replaced all those luxurious Buick’s, Olds, Mercury’s, and sporty Pontiacs people were driving.During the Great Recession of 2008, GM and Chrysler were on a death spiral that by the time of the crash both had to receive bailout money after both filed for bankruptcy in 2009. Then Ford CEO Alan Mulally had the vision years prior to see this coming. He spent years drastically restructuring and downsizing Ford into a lean mean fighting machine to brace for an aircraft impact crash of the financial markets, as he was once the CEO of Boeing. Ford never had to take bailout money because of this, and he was widely credited and praised. Ford even had extra cash on hand.Many angry Americans, and rightfully so at the bailouts, chose to show their displeasure against Chrysler and GM by buying Ford vehicles during the crisis to show Ford their support. Had Ford been bigger with another division like Edsel, this would have been harder to do. So maybe it was better for whatever reason that the Edsel seeds that were planted quickly died, and died when and the way they did.Folding a Ford Brand v. a GM BrandTo give you an idea of how folding a Ford brand affects the company and the Ford family, there was the folding of Mercury. The Ford family shedding Mercury, a brand founded by Henry Ford’s son Edsel, was a painful process that Mullally had to take the family through. One of the things that I keenly notice about the differences between GM and Ford, is how GM so coldly cancels cars and shuts factories and divisions down. In contrast I also keenly notice that if a Ford employee is seriously injured or dies while working, a senior ranking Ford family member if not Bill Ford the Chairman, is immediately summonsed to the scene or the hospital for the affected employee and their family. It is these personal touches that reminds everyone that a family, and yes a caring American family as many of us have but as wealthy and powerful as they are, still runs this car company.When it comes to Ford there are certain emotional decisions that whoever is the CEO, he is required to diplomatically approach the family and seek key members to ask for their support. If Edsel had taken off as a full fledged division with a complete product line, I could only imagine what that process might have been like for the family to eventually shut it down decades later. Remember, GM isn’t run by a blood family, it is comprised of institutional and foreign investors, Ford still is still family owned by majority share, although with a lower profile nowadays.Brands: Be Careful With the Name Calling!But could you imagine what it might be like to have a car that was called an Edsel? Remember that 100 years ago, the car invention took off that more of us were driving them, and we still didn’t know what to name it. Inventors with key patents tried to give the car a silly name. Meantime, while the New York Times finally settled on using a combination of two words together to name what a car is and does, an “automobile,” a combination of Greek and Latin, the rest were calling cars by their brand names. Who wants a car branded with the name Edsel? Edsel is a fine name for a Ford family member, but probably not for a car or brand. “This is my Edsel.” “Want to take a ride on my Edsel?” “I have a scratch on my Edsel.” “I just waxed my Edsel.” “I’m going to have my Edsel serviced.” I could go on. See what I mean?That don't sound like a car, that sounds like something else to me! Maybe that was the problem. They say the car was ugly then, but nowadays I don’t see how the car’s styling was any different from other period vehicles. I actually think for a period car it was nicely styled, especially the droptop as I illustrated above. I suspect the name may have had something as well, but Ford definitely didn’t do their market research when they rolled the brand out. But what do I know? This was way before JD Powers and focus groups.Too Many Brands Mean too Many ProblemsThe GM bankruptcy taught us that too many brands might cause too many problems. Saturn’s shut down was also a painful one as there was a last minute attempt to save the brand by the auto retail Penske family, but in the end it died, to leave us wondering maybe there was a lesson to be learned about a car company having too much to chew.Over the last few years Lincoln and Cadillac experienced reboots to some success and mostly failures for consumers to wonder if either brand is still relevant and worth saving. Personally I think Ford should get rid of Lincoln too. Lincoln does not have the prestige of a luxury brand it once was. But the Ford family’s Great Great Grandfather, yes I’m talking about the original old man himself, Henry, went through great expense and grief to put that brand together.Between you and me, I believe this was a sticking point to the VW Ford merger talks that dropped to the alliance deal instead, supposedly. VW Group is now considering a serious restructuring which they might consider folding Bentley after the great expense they went through the last 20 years and billions of dollars to elevate the brand. Bugatti too. This could easily be about a brand that sells to the working class and poor. Regardless of a brand’s customer demographics, brand establishment and maintenance is expensive business.I can only imagine what VW thinks about Lincoln, having Audi and Porsche as their luxury brands. Neither Ford nor VW needs Lincoln, but if VW could contemplate eliminating Bentley, Ford could do the same with Lincoln. Ford could also on the other hand, not only save their storied luxury brand, but they could also nurse it back to greatness. This would cost a lot of money that in the end after several years ahead, Ford would wind up putting them back at airport rental counters which was what got them into trouble, it now being a crap brand.Ironically to turn another leaf, a fit between Bentley and Ford would make better sense than VW and Bentley lately. VW wants to get lean to get to similar size to fight Tesla, and they recently realized perhaps they have too many luxury brands, actually in total they have 12 brands in the House of VW, and that’s too many for electromobility. If Ford is to stay single and married to VW, if that makes sense, while doing electromobility with VW, then they desperately need a serious luxury brand at the pinnacle of their corporate portfolio. With electric cars, less brands are needed. The makers just need to be sure each of their brands pull their own weight!But now do you all see how having an additional Edsel brand would have complicated things here with the Ford turn of the century restructuring that inevitably saves them from the Great Recession? The irony is if something similar had happened to GM in the same timeline by losing one of its divisions that same way, that certainly would have made things easier for GM to get to where they are now with one less brand in the way, post bankruptcy. That was an amazing turnaround for GM to come back, and once again, on top so quickly. GM may not know how to make a quality troubleless prone vehicle, but they do know how to make a lot of cars en masse for the global market, and thus, how to get rich fast as well!And as Walter Cronkite would say, “and that’s the way it is!”Was there a GM car that flopped just like the Ford Edsel? The answer is no, GM never did have a car that failed in that way.Thank you for the privilege of trying to answer. I am humbled.EDIT NOTE 2/13/2020: 1330 hrs Los Angeles: A thoughtful reader inquired about Saturn as you see below and after second thought I put in a blurb about it. Saturn did help us to learn that perhaps at the turn of the century there were too many GM brands. I’ll let the comments section decide that if you folks want.Another gracious and thoughtful reader below reminded me that Chrysler Corporation once had not four, but five car divisions like GM. From about 1928 to 1961, Walter P. Chrysler founded the DeSoto brand to take on Buick, Oldsmobile, LaSalle, etc. It was the step up brand from either Plymouth or Dodge, and sat under the Chrysler brand, as Chrysler’s Newport’s and New Yorkers were super luxury cars competing with Cadillac and Lincoln.EDIT NOTE:(3/3/2020 Los Angeles): Folks: some of you are taking this question a little too literally and emotionally to not understand the history and the context of what the question is asking that I recognized it immediately and so did a few of you in the comments section.Because of its size, scope, and scale, GM over the years has had scores of car cancellations for God knows how many reasons. Too many to count is how many when you think of it. Recently they’ve been going through Cadillac sedans like disposable lighters! Because of this reason a GM cancellation that this question is asking has to be on the scale that would hurt GM as it did Ford with the Edsel Division and the Edsel car. It has to be THAT BIG LIKE EDSEL that GM suffered the same fate:Just launched a new division.The flagship car, the first product of this new division launches the brand.The car doesn’t sell well. So bad they have to cancel the car after 3 years to finish the production of what was already planned.Because the car is so closely identified with the brand with the same name, in the same decision and at the same time, they also cancel and close the division with the same car they started with.Get it? That’s what happened over at Ford. Now, we need to find a GM car that fits this very same criteria from that part of the question “that flopped just like Ford Edsel.”Yes there’s been horrible car cancellations and painful ones. Some of you mentioned a few of them. The Chevrolet Corvair lasted ten years despite Ralph Nader, and Pontiac Aztec did not shutter the brand, GM’s bankruptcy restructuring a few years later took care of that. So in these cases the brand lived on after that, and that’s at GM, that it could afford to cancel cars like that. So we need to find a car that left GM for worse than just a car cancellation like it did at Ford.EDIT NOTE:(3/7/2020 Los Angeles): I re-edited the entire piece and added a blurb about the Pontiac Aztec at the near insistence of a reader.EDIT NOTE:(3/27/2020 Los Angeles): I added a blurb about Cadillac Cimarron as that was another notable GM product cancellation failure that almost comes close like Aztec to the “that flopped just like Ford Edsel” but doesn’t drive Cadillac over the cliff like Edsel did with its own brand.PHOTO AND COPYRIGHT CREDITS: Images of a 1975 Imperial by Chrysler, a 2001 Pontiac Aztec, various vintages and the driver’s interior console of a Ford Edsel, including the brand logo “E” to the Edsel brand, appear here via Wikipedia. Other images of a 2001 Pontiac Aztec, including the yellow Aztec concept car, appear courtesy GM Media. The 1982 Cadillac Cimarron at a desperate used car lot appears via Wikipedia. All images published here fall under the Fair Use Act, as I am a reporter who covers the news for the auto industry, and this piece is a news commentary about its history. The Edsel brand and logo are still registered trademarks of the Ford Motor Company.