Category talk:Automobile commercial failures

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[edit] Semantic Concern

This is an interesting new category and it certainly triggers thought which is good. I'm interested to know whether we all mean the same thing by it, though. I think we (almost) all know an automobile when we see it, and maybe we can mostly spot a failure. But commercial? A car can sell in large numbers but still be a financial disaster if the profit on the units sold is insufficient to cover the investment in developing the thing and setting up the production plant and other fixed costs that - someone has to cover (that GM pension bill?). There was - deservedly in the past tense, but that's an opinion that probably doesn't belong here - a company called BMC that produced a couple of top selling models in Britain year after year in the 1960s and 1970s. But it still managed to lose money regularly during the 1960s and to run out of money in the 1970s. Were those cars (the Mini and the BMC ADO16) commercial failures, despite selling in huge numbers by the standards of the time and market? They were (presumably) financial failures. But unambiguously commercial failures? Well, from here I think you can argue it either way, but my underlying concern is my uncertainty that we all understand the same by the adjective 'commercial' in this context. And is it useful to word category headings ambiguously? Any thoughts? Regards Charles01 (talk) 20:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

This discussion can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles#Automobile commercial failures category, and the consensus is that this category needs to be removed. (Regushee (talk) 21:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC))