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Yesterday's Flops, Today's Collectibles
By Claire Martin of MSN Autos

One lesson that came out of product launches like New Coke and the Sony Betamax is that too much hype can be a bad thing. The auto industry has had its fair share of flops over the years — cars that didn't live up to the expectations, gained infamy for abysmal sales or performance, or were just plain weird. But those cars didn't disappear from the roads. Many have achieved cult status and become collector's items, sought after by car enthusiasts for their rarity. "Enthusiasts measure success differently," explains McKeel Hagerty, founder and CEO of Hagerty Insurance, which specializes in collector vehicles. "They'll find some odd-duck car that no one has and they want it." Here are the top 10 most coveted car flops.

Ford Pantera

Henry Ford II never could get over being blown off by Enzo Ferrari in his attempt to acquire the Ferrari brand in the early 1960s. So instead, Ford tried to compete, convinced there was a market in the United States for Italian-designed cars. The Pantera — a Maserati or Lamborghini look-alike powered by a giant Ford V8 engine — was one such attempt. But by the time Ford launched the Pantera, the oil embargo of the early 1970s was on. "There was no way you were going to sell a supercar through an American car dealership at that time," Hagerty says. "The Pantera suffered from an absolute failure of timing."