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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.

Some of the companies that are not mentioned often or wrongly thought to be present in Bangalore or Hyderabad only:1. Athena HealthAthena Health's office is mind blowing and has unrivalled views of the city. The take-away salaries at Athena Health are also pretty high compared to most other companies in Chennai.2. Sanmina-SCISanmina-SCI is one of the lesser known but hi-tech Silicon Valley based companies in Chennai. It offers good opportunities for engineers active in the embedded market. Sanmina does most of its campus recruitment from MIT Chrompet, which is close by. Their office is located in MEPZ and is relatively unheard of.3. AtmelReally cool place to work for EDA and chip design in Chennai. Worthy mentioning about Atmel is their high profile recruiting, you need to be very good to get in here.4. CiscoEarlier used to be Scientific Atlanta and later Cisco after acquisition.5. Qualcomm AtherosYes, Qualcomm does happen to be in Chennai and right in the heart of the city, Mylapore !6. VisteonVisteon Automative India Sytems Limited, is an arm of Ford Motors and deals primarily with embedded products for automobiles. Visteon Chennai hires heavily from College of Engineering Guindy. The Chennai branch is situated at Maraimalai Nagar.7. ThalesNot many expect a super hi-tech French defence contractor to set up office in India, let alone Chennai. Most projects in Thales are defence based and require specialists in avionics, software engineering and embedded systems. Their office is located inside Guindy Industrial Estate.8. Alcatel LucentA research arm of Alcatel-Lucent is located along OMR.9. EricssonEricsson employees enjoy amazing views of the Bay of Bengal from their office at MRC Nagar.10. Rockwell AutomationChennai's answer to Bangalore and Hyderabad's Honeywell. (Quite honestly and I admit that this bigger-the-company-better-the-city ideology is inane, but I am trying to keep this response in spirit with the question).Companies like ABB, ZTE Telecom, Barry Wehmiller, Vestas and Thomson Reuters are also worth mentioning apart from the ones in other posts in this thread.

When Tata acquired JLR back in 2008, it was a matter of pride for every Indian although it also generated a lot of skepticism. Giants like BMW and Ford had tried to make things work at JLR before Tata bought it from Ford. Tata Motors was still a new name in the passenger car market with its majority of businesses existed only in India. No wonder a lot of people deemed the acquisition as a venture on the course of failure. But as it turned out, miraculously, JLR is not only profitable, it is expanding like never before. The valuation of JLR was $2.3 billion in 2009, it went up to $14 billion in 2014.As an Indian, I can only wish that Tata Motors had bought JLR for purely nationalistic reasons; but more than that, it involves a lot of business acumen and vision of the Tata group. These could be the reasons why Tata gambled on JLR.1. JLR is known for its state of the art technology. Tata Motors, though largest vehicle manufacturer in India, was new in car making. The expertise of JLR would have benefited Tata Motors' car division. At least it would give a sense that Tata Motors' vehicles have technological access to world-class engineering. Tata's cars and commercial vehicles once dominated Indian markets but started facing threatening competition from domestic as well as foreign vehicle manufacturing since the early 2000s. Having a strong name of JLR under its umbrella only increases the credibility of Tata vehicles.2. Tata Motors is a company under the Tata group. Tata Group owns companies in almost every section of the market. They are into fields ranging from chemicals to hospitality, software to pesticides, retail to steel, defense contracts to research institutions. JLR boosts the Tata profile to a new level on a global scale.3. Since Tata is such a big deal in India, owning JLR automatically opens a huge market for JLR vehicles. The rapidly increasing rich class of India needs brands like JLR. Tata Motors already have their sales and distribution infrastructure set in India. All they needed was kick-ass cars to sell to this neo rich strata of Indian society.4. JLR is a premium car manufactures. Tata Motors' car division produces economy cars. In the future, Tata's presence in Europe would help them expand in that market. It also helps Tata to strengthen its market of commercial vehicles in the continent of Africa and South America.