33. 1958 Edsel Corsair
Up next is an American contribution, this time from Ford, and one so bad that it remains synonymous with “lemon” to this day. The 1958 Edsel was a machine designed to . . . well, we’re not sure. It had all the outer hallmarks of 50s greatness: fins on the body, a boxy design, an elaborate front end including a suggestively shaped vertical grill. And while mechanically sound, the Edsel was the victim of media over-hype: the marketing campaign presented it as the car-to-end-all-cars, but rather than defining the decade in automotive engineering, the Edsel was just another run-of-the-mill sedan. There’s a lesson there: under promise and over deliver, not the other way around.