The history of the automobile has always been littered with the dreams of madmen and visionaries – and it is often impossible to tell them apart. In fact, in many cases, the madmen are simply visionaries in disguise. We’ve all heard about the flop cars. Ford’s Pinto and Edsel. GM’s Catera and Aztek, Chrysler’s Prowler and… well, anything with the Plymouth badge. AMC was a hodgepodge of failed ventures. Having been created out of the ashes of Nash, American and Rambler, AMC was never one to put out a very good car (we recognize there are those who will disagree with this statement). Many of their vehicles were, in fact, a hodgepodge in and of themselves. Created from parts manufactured by their competitors, AMC’s cars were never taken seriously. But when AMC took over production of Jeep from Willys, they were able to stay afloat for decades just on the strength of sales of America’s most popular SUV. There were, however, many other companies that failed in far-more miserable fashion, and they make for an interesting read – so sit down with us and remember some of the more notorious companies that, in an industry where you must sink or swim, they sank. While some “sunk” companies had varying degrees of success, from Duesenberg and duPont to Stutz and Studebaker – in this first edition of “Brands that Failed,” we are going to concentrate on some of the more scandalous and just-plain-insane failures. Certainly a madman, and unquestionably a visionary, Milton Reeves tops our list. While it’s true that he qualifies as a visionary for inventing the muffler and the Variable Speed Transmission, Reeves also qualifies as a madman for inventing the Octoauto. Believing that adding a second axle to the rear – and one to the front – would smooth the ride on those early pot-hole-filled paved and bumpy dirt roads, Reeves created his (ahem) “masterpiece”. Behold the ultimate in ridiculouness: the OctoAuto!
Proving that his insanity wasn’t temporary, Reeves, having determined that nobody placed a single order for his 20′ long beast because of its enormity, went on to create a modified version of his vision: the SextoAuto.
A mere 15′ long, the Sextoauto sold just as well as its predecessor and solidified Reeves’ place in history as the automotive equivalent of this guy…
But not all failures are caused by a vehicle’s sheer ridiculousness. Preston Tucker may have had some madman in his blood, but he was, without doubt, a visionary. While his ideas were ahead of the time and are ones that would go on to integrate widely into other vehicles, such as seatbelts and front-wheel drive, Preston made the mistake of angering Detroit’s establishment. Before any of his 1948 Tucker’s were able to hit the dealer showroom, the company was under attack by the SEC and shut down by the government. Preston learned the hard way that the Detroit magnates had significant power in Washington. The Tucker was indeed a brilliant invention, and the fifty that were assembled before the shut-down are now extremely valuable (in fact, we’ll soon be sharing an in-depth story about the 1948 Tucker automobile).
John DeLorean would certainly be best known as the man who created the Camaro Z28, a feat that most people would have been proud to claim. But DeLorean wasn’t satisfied with just that creation. He had bigger and more powerful ideas. He left General Motors to form his own company and build the car of his dreams. Of course, we’re talking about the DeLorean DMC-12. The car made of stainless steel and fiberglass could even travel time, assuming you could generate 1.21 gigawatts of power. The DeLorean was never profitable and ultimately failed after selling approximately 9,000 units in two years.
Although the previously-mentioned vehicles are more famous, the Dale is probably the most infamous failure on this – or any other – list. Like the first two entries on this list, it was the product of a genius and a madman. In this case, however, they were two different people. Dale Clifft was a typical Southern California car guy and in 1972 he created a car for personal use and high fuel mileage while working for aerospace contractor Litton Industries. Also like Reeves, he held patents for useful and brilliant items throughout multiple industries. Then came the day he met the madman, Liz Carmichael. Liz, much more of a schemer than a dreamer, duped Clifft into believing that the car could be mass-produced and that he would become a multi-millionaire. Whether Liz had Clifft convinced that she was a real woman is another question, as Liz was indeed a man. They subsequently founded Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation, which turned out to be nothing more than a sham to dupe investors. After millions of dollars invested, a murder inside the company’s office and a nationwide manhunt, Carmichael was arrested in Florida and her real name of Jerry Dean Michael, a wanted counterfeiter who had been eluding police of nearly two decades, was revealed. He was later convicted of 26 counts of fraud.
These are just a few of the many failed automotive brands. And, one could say, failure is a bit subjective. Surely turning one’s dream into an actual vehicle is an achievement in and of itself. -John McCabe
Keyword: Brands That Failed: The Notorious