1958 Edsel
edited by David Barth, 10 January 2009.
Courtesy The Forney Museum of Transportation at 4303 Brighton Blvd., Denver,
Colorado.
Photos were taken in January 2009.
This 1958 Edsel was a marque of the Ford Motor Company. The car was named "Edsel" in honor of Edsel Ford, former company
president and son of Henry Ford. The Edsel had a short life, from the 1958, through 1960 model years. The brand is known
best as one of the biggest commercial failures in the history of American business.
In the early 1950s, the Ford Motor Co. became a publicly traded corporation that was no longer entirely owned by members
of the Ford family. Research and development had begun in 1955 under the name "E-car," which stood for "experimental car."
This represented a new division of the firm alongside that of Ford itself and the Lincoln-Mercury division, whose cars at
the time shared the same body.
The Edsel was introduced amid considerable publicity on "E Day," September 4, 1957. It was promoted by a top-rated
television special, "The Edsel Show," on October 13. For months, Ford had been circulating rumors that led consumers to
expect an entirely new kind of car, when in reality, the Edsel shared its bodywork with other Ford models.
For the 1958 model year, the four-door Bermuda and Villager wagons and the two-door Roundup wagon were based on the 116
inch wheelbase Ford station wagon platform and shared the trim and features of the Ranger and Pacer models. It included
several innovative features, among which were its "rolling dome" speedometer and its Teletouch transmission shifting
system in the center of the steering wheel. Other design innovations included ergonomically designed controls for the
driver and self-adjusting brakes (often claimed as a first for the industry, even though Studebaker had pioneered them
earlier in the decade).
In 1958, 63,110 Edsels were sold in the U.S., with another 4,935 sold in Canada. Though below expectations, it was still
the second-largest car launch for any brand to date, exceeded only by the Plymouth introduction in 1928.
Ford announced the end of the Edsel program on Thursday, November 19, 1959. However, cars continued being produced until
late in November, with the final tally at 2,846 1960 models. Total sales were approximately 84,000, less than half
McNamara's projected break-even point. The company lost $350 million on the venture.
There is no single reason why the Edsel failed. Popular culture often faults the car's styling. Consumer Reports cited
poor workmanship. Marketing experts hold the Edsel up as a supreme example of corporate America's failure to understand
the nature of the American consumer. Business analysts cite the weak internal support for the product inside Ford's
executive offices. According to author and Edsel scholar Jan Deutsch, the Edsel was "the wrong car at the wrong
time."
One popular misconception was that the Edsel was an engineering failure, or a lemon, although it shared the same general
reliability of its sister Mercury and Ford models that were built in the same factories. The Edsel is most famous for
being a marketing disaster. Indeed, the name Edsel came to be synonymous with commercial failure, and similar ill-fated
products have often been colloquially referred to as Edsels. Since it was such a debacle, it provided a case study for
marketers on how not to market a product. The main reason the Edsel's failure is so famous was that it flopped despite
Ford's investment of $400,000,000 in its development.
The prerelease advertising campaign touted the car as having "more YOU ideas," and the teaser advertisements in magazines
only revealed glimpses of the car through a highly blurred lens or wrapped in paper or under tarps. Edsels were shipped
to the dealerships undercover and remained wrapped on the dealer lots.
But the public also had a hard time understanding what the Edsel was, mostly because Ford made the mistake of pricing the
Edsel within Mercury's market price segment. Theoretically, the Edsel was conceived to fit into Ford's marketing plans
as the brand slotted in between Ford and Mercury. Not only was the Edsel competing against its own sister divisions, but
model for model, consumers did not understand what the car was supposed to be, a step up or a step below the Mercury.
After its introduction to the public, the Edsel did not live up to its overblown hype, even though it did have many new
features, such as self-adjusting rear brakes and automatic lubrication. While consumer focus groups had said these and
other features would make the "E" car attractive to them as car buyers, the cost of the cars exceeded what the public
was willing to pay.
One of the external forces working against the Edsel was the onset of the recession in late 1957. When the Edsel was
in its planning stages in the early and mid-1950s, the American economy was robust and growing. However, in the years
that spanned the planning to its introduction, an economic recession hit, and American consumers shifted their idea of
what an ideal car should be. In prior economic downturns, buyers flocked to the lower-price marques like Plymouth,
Chevrolet, and Ford; but in 1958, even these cars were perceived by some as unnecessarily large. And while the compact
Rambler saw itself shoot to the third-best-selling make, none of the Big Three had anything compact to sell except their
European cars built by Vauxhall, Simca, and Opel. The compacts introduced by the Big Three in 1960 were the direct
result of the recession of 1958.
Even if the 1958 recession hadn't hit when it did, the Edsel was entering into a shrinking marketplace. Hoping to turn
around their losses, Packard acquired Studebaker, yet the venerable Packard was no longer produced after 1958. Nash and
Hudson cars were discontinued after the 1957 model year. Even Chrysler saw sales of its DeSoto marque drop dramatically
from its 1957 high by over 50 percent in 1958. Following a disastrous 1959 model year, plans were made in Highland Park
to discontinue DeSoto during its 1961 model year run.
Marketing surveys later found the name "Edsel"
was thought to sound like the name of a tractor (Edson) and therefore was unpopular with the public. Moreover, several
consumer studies showed that people associated the name "Edsel" with "weasel" and "dead cell" (dead battery), drawing
further unattractive comparisons.
Perhaps the most important factor in the Edsel's failure, however, was that when the car was introduced, the U.S. was
entering a period of recession. Sales for all car manufacturers, even those not introducing new models, were down.
Consumers entered a period of preferring less expensive, more fuel-efficient automobiles, particularly Volkswagen
Beetles, which were selling at rates exceeding 50,000 a year in the U.S. from 1957 onward.
Edsels were fast, but required premium gas and did not have the fuel economy desired during a recession. Mechanics
disliked the bigger engine because of its unique design. The cylinder head had no combustion chamber and was perfectly
flat, with the head set at an angle and "roof" pistons forming both a squish zone on one side and a combustion chamber
on the other, meaning that the combustion took place entirely within the cylinder bore. This design reduced the cost of
manufacture and possibly carbon buildup, but appeared strange to mechanics.
There were also reports of mechanical flaws
in the models originating in the factory, due to lack of quality control and confusion of parts with other Ford models.
Edsels in their first (1958) model year were made in both Mercury and Ford factories; the longer-wheelbase models,
Citation and Corsair, were produced alongside the Mercury products, and the shorter-wheelbase models, Pacer and Ranger,
were produced alongside the Ford products. There was never a standalone Edsel factory devoted solely to Edsel model
production. Workers making Fords and Mercurys literally had to change parts bins and tools to assemble extra Edsels once
their hourly quota of regular Fords and Mercurys was achieved. As such, the desired quality control of the different
Edsel models was difficult to attain for the new make of car. Many Edsels left the line unfinished, with the extra parts
having been put into the trunks, with assembly instructions for the mechanics at the dealerships.
