Bankruptcy 1982
Braniff International
When US airlines were deregulated in 1978, Braniff bet on rapid growth, new cities, routes, and about a billion dollars of aircraft. Then debt, fuel costs, and 20% interest rates crushed the over-extended carrier, which shut down in 1982.
Bankruptcy 2013
Coda Automotive
Coda Automotive raised about $125 million to sell an all-electric sedan, built partly in China, to American drivers. The car was plain, its roughly $45,000 price undercut it against the better-known Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, and almost nobody bought it. A 2012 airbag recall covered just 78 cars. Coda went bankrupt in 2013 having sold only around 100.
Failed strategy 2003
Concorde
Concorde was an engineering triumph and a commercial failure. The Anglo-French supersonic airliner crossed the Atlantic in half the time, but sonic-boom bans confined it to over-water routes, the 1973 oil crisis made its thirst ruinous, and every airline order was cancelled except the two state carriers. Just 20 were built, subsidised by governments, and it was retired in 2003.
Bankruptcy 1982
DeLorean Motor Company
The DeLorean Motor Company built one car, the stainless-steel, gull-winged DMC-12, in a British-government-funded factory in Belfast. It was expensive (around $25,000, more than twice the average car), underpowered, and plagued by unreliable electronics, and it launched straight into the 1980-82 recession. Too few people bought it; by the end of 1981 only 3,000 had sold. The company went into receivership in February 1982, and the arrest of founder John DeLorean that October, on charges he was later acquitted of, finished off a firm that was already collapsing.
Bankruptcy 2013
Fisker Automotive
Fisker Automotive built the Karma, a gorgeous $100,000 plug-in hybrid designed by Henrik Fisker, on a $529 million federal loan. The car arrived a year and a half late, broke down in a Consumer Reports test, caught fire, and was recalled. When its only battery supplier, A123, went bankrupt in 2012 and the government froze the loan, production stopped, and Fisker collapsed into bankruptcy in 2013.