59 years ago, the Edsel hit the market. Then it went SPLAT.

[MGMcAnick]

I remember going to the brand new local showroom on Lon Gyland to see the new car with my father. They gave me a turquoise and white scale model of the car. I played with it so hard that I don't think it lasted more than six months.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/almanac-the-ford-edsel/

I don't know why CBS insisted on calling it a "Ford Edsel". They don't call a Mercury a Ford Mercury, or a Lincoln a Ford Lincoln. It was a completely separate brand, designed to fill a market niche that didn't exist.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I wasn't even born yet.
Maybe conceived (born 6/18/58) so sometime this month.

[Burning Petard]

When the Edsel was born, it came standard with Ford's most powerful stock engine. But it did hit a marketing blunder. The dealers did not like it (based on what I heard working in a print shop in Kansas City that did lots of stuff for Ford dealers in the area.) And the public was not getting much help from Dearborn in national advertising to tell them why this rather than a Mercury.

Now Mercury is dead. But so is Plymouth, Desoto, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile. I won't even mention the brands from Toledo or Kenosha.

snailgate

[RayThom]

One is found in a farmer's field... and the other is a horse collar.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I was cuttin' the field and found a Ford. Edsel, that be.

[Long Run]

Edsel lives on . . . as a popular crossword answer.

[Bicycle Bill]

One is found in a farmer's field... and the other is a horse collar.

You're off by just a little bit, Ray.  Back in that era, cars were huge, powerful, chrome-laden phallic symbols.
So Ford designs a car with a big shiny pudendum for a grille.  No wonder it flopped.

-"BB"-

[rubato]

Is there an inside story about the Edsel? How did such an ugly design get past so many layers of design and engineering decision-making?

Was there anyone inside Ford willing to speak up or did top management bless the design and no one was willing to point out that the King was Nekkid?

.???

Yrs,
Rubato.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I liked the way it looked.

[Crackpot]

It was far from ugly was just a huge departure from the stylistic norms of the time.

[Burning Petard]

"It was far from ugly was just a huge departure from the stylistic norms of the time."

As a Car-crazy male teen-ager with no financial hope of buying anything beyond a hopeless piece of junk for at least 10 years, I saw the Edsel as just another step in the Detroit style culture. It just took the existing fashion paradigm that began with the little fins on the back of the Cadillac, the slab fins of the Chrysler forward look and pushed all the chrome and swoops to a new level.

Go to the Simpson's show when the big Car mogul decided to let the average consumer (like Homer) have what he really wanted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHGczDHTDpo

snailgate

[oldr_n_wsr]

Remember the 6000 SUX?

[RayThom]

Remember the 6000 SUX?

[MajGenl.Meade]

1958 Edsel Pacer | 687203 $67,200
(CC-687203) 1958 Edsel Pacer
Listed by Classical Gas Enterprises
1958 Edsel Pacer Convertible with Continental Kit
The Edsel brand became launched on September 4, 1957


1959 Edsel Corsair | 419386 $3,900
(CC-419386) 1959 Edsel Corsair
Listed by Marshall Motors
barn find, runs good, very decent body, ok interior bad transmission, moves around

[Big RR]

I recall my grandfather bought an Edsel in 59 (so far as I know, the only new car he ever bought). I recall it being big (I was a lot smaller then, of course) and having a push button transmission in the steering wheel (I think it was the first automatic transmission car I ever saw); it was also a 4 door hardtop. He liked it, but sold it in 63 after he got in an accident and bought a used (probably 59-61) Buick. I doubt I'd like the edsel today, but as a kid I thought it was the car of the future.

[rubato]

I liked the way it looked.

Objectively, you were a member of a very small aesthetic minority.


yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

So did I, and so was I. (FWIW, I also liked Jeeps and VW vans back when nobody else did. )

[Econoline]

Ever seen a 1960 Edsel?





(Only 2846 were built, and only 76 of those were convertibles.)