Botched new-car launches started these 5 models off on the wrong foot

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There is a lot that goes into a newccar launch. Millions of dollars invested in R&D, marketing strategies carefully planned out, all sorts of methods used to maximize the impact of the car’s introduction into the marketplace.

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However, one would be naïve to assume that everything goes according to plan all the time, despite all of the abov. There are just too many factors at play. Sometimes, the issue is a minor hiccup, easily fixable before it blows out of proportion. However, other times the carmakers are not so lucky, and have to deal with botched car launches of epic proportions, sometimes missteps bad enough to ruin the car and cause serious damage to the reputation of the carmaker. Here, we look at five notable examples of car launches that did not go quite according to plan, with varying results.

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Botched new-car launches started these 5 models off on the wrong foot Back to video

Ford Bronco

The new Ford Bronco is in trouble, and that’s putting it very mildly indeed. Customer deliveries are being pushed back to 2022 and beyond due to a ‘quality’ issue with the hardtop Broncos. It is significant enough to warrant a hardtop replacement for all the two- and four-door hardtop Broncos manufactured so far at the carmaker’s Michigan Assembly Plant. Only customers who ordered the soft-top variants are unaffected, for now at least.

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There was a lot of hype around the nameplate’s revival. Ford spared no expense, whipping up a media frenzy that included multiple ad campaigns extolling the virtues of the compact SUV. Now, it’s resorted to similarly sparing no expense when it comes to pacifying impatient customers, offering them things like branded hammocks and suggesting dealers tip them some booze .

It was billed as the brand’s halo car for 2021, set to continue the legacy established by the first-generation Bronco. It’s still early days, and that may yet happen, but Ford will need to get its act together quickly; the automobile market can be quite hostile and unforgiving.

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Tesla Model X

The Tesla Model X was first unveiled in 2012, with deliveries expected to begin in 2014. That didn’t happen, and customers had to wait two more years before the first units finally hit the market in October 2016. However, that delay was just one of the issues with the Model X. Shortly after deliveries began, complaints began to roll in about the SUV’s unique ‘falcon’ doors.

The double-hinged doors use a complicated sensor array that did not always work as designed. The doors would continue to open or close even with obstacles in its path. Sometimes, the sensors would fail altogether and the doors would become completely unresponsive. Elon blamed himself for ‘putting too much technology in a product at once’ and promised a software fix for the issue.

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It wasn’t just the doors though. There were other reports of things like the windshield creating double vision at night; a phenomenon known as ‘ghosting’; or the intermittent freezing of the massive 17-inch display.

Toyota Supra

The jury is still out on whether the Toyota MkV Supra will ever be able to fill the shoes left by its predecessor, the legendary MkIV Supra of the Fast and Furious franchise fame. Some people within the car community feel that Toyota’s partnership with BMW diluted the essence of the Japanese sports car — take the lack of a manual transmission, for example.

However, the car is not exactly doing itself any favors either, in its bid to win the hearts of enthusiasts. According to Consumer Reports , the 2020 Supra has already been the subject of seven recalls by the NHTSA, with the most recent one issued this August to fix a potential power brake failure. It is an awful record for a car that’s only been on the market for a couple of years. That may explain why sales have been sluggish at best. In 2020, fewer than 6,000 units were sold in the United States, but that’s still better than Canada, where dealers only moved 333 units.

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Jaguar XJ220

This British supercar was arguably one of the most important cars of the ‘90s. It even had a brief reign as the fastest production car on the planet , before the McLaren F1 arrived on scene. Unfortunately, a series of events marred the car’s launch, and what could have been a shining example of the carmaker’s capabilities turned into an embarrassing fail.

First, the XJ220 prototype was displayed with a V12 and four-wheel-drive. However, Jaguar found it impossible to successfully incorporate the V12 into the production version, and opted for a twin-turbocharged V6 instead. Four-wheel-drive was gone too, replaced by a rear-wheel-drive setup. Furious clients demanded a refund of their deposits, and a few even headed to court. In the end, the Jaguar XJ220 slipped away into the sunset after 282 units had been produced, well short of its target of 350 cars. It remains the last true supercar to wear the Jaguar logo.

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Edsel

We travel back in time to wrap up this list with one of the greatest botched launches ever in the automobile industry. The Edsel was promoted as the ‘car of the future’ but instead, it ended up as a poster boy for commercial failure, used to-date as a case study in what not to do in business schools around the world.

Ford spent over US$250 million – the equivalent of over US$2 billion today – in research, development, and marketing but still missed out on important cues such as product differentiation, design, and pricing strategies. The fact that the economy was just coming out of a recession further compounded matters. The Edsel was essentially dead on arrival, an ugly, overpriced car that was treated with disdain by the car community.  It was an unsalvageable situation, and Ford killed off the car in 1959, only about a year after it first launched.