Only about six thousand Edsels remain, to delight collectors with their distinctive appearance, and frustrate mechanics with their specialized restoration needs. They’re to be found in every conceivable condition, from junkyard derelicts to “trailer queens” so flawlessly restored they can’t be driven for fear of a loss in value. Unusually for a Fifties “orphan” make, nearly everyone who sees one knows what it is; not many know the story behind it.
Debuting in September, 1957 as a 1958 model, the Edsel was intended to give Ford a line of cars that could help the company compete head-to-head with General Motors. The Ford brand competed with Chevrolet, the Mercury competed with Oldsmobile, and the Lincoln with Cadillac. But Ford had no cars directly comparable with Pontiac and Buick, and Mercury wasn’t really up there with the more expensive Olds products.
GOING OUT ON A LIMB: In '58, Edsel ads said the car's
styling was so wonderful that all other cars would look like it by the
following year. Public reaction to the styling actually forced Edsel to
soften it considerably for '59. Photo: Historic Edsel advertisement
Conceived in the early 1950’s, with its styling and engineering done from 1954 to 1956, the Edsel was based on contemporaneous Ford bodies. There were to be four different Edsel series, so that there would be something to tempt every GM customer who was considering switching brands. The Edsel Citation was the top-of-the-line car, as luxurious and gadget-laden as any upper-series Buick. Just below that was the Corsair, still very nice indeed, aimed at lower-end Buick buyers and upper-series Olds customers. Both these cars were based on the large Mercury body.
The other two Edsels were based on the smaller, shorter Ford body. There was the Pacer, a car meant to wow the sportier Olds and Pontiac buyer. After that came the Ranger, a bread-and-butter car for the family market Pontiac had such a lock on. A trio of wagons rounded out the line. Bermuda was the expensive one with the obligatory fake wood trim, Villager was the mid-series offering, and the Roundup was a plain-Jane two-door wagon.
TWO-TONED WONDER: This Corsair hardtop was considered both
sporty and elegant by the stylists who created it. The rest of America
wasn't so sure. Photo: Historic Edsel advertisement
The Edsel arrived to the most intense promotional effort Ford had ever mounted; it was the biggest, most expensive launch of a new product ever. The newly created Edsel Division got a colossal modern headquarters building, reams of print ads were created, and Edsel logos were slapped on everything from keychains to oil cans. Radio spots touted the new car incessantly. There was even an “Edsel Show” TV special that enlisted a jaw-dropping amount of starpower: Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, and Bing Crosby appeared, with Bob Hope thrown in for good measure.
The saturation advertising was followed up with a barrage of “fact sheet” brochures that mercilessly hammered sales prospects with all the reasons that they should choose an Edsel. The Edsel was touted as the only car that was really “all-new” for 1958; the ad men categorized all other cars as “carryover” models. Like a lot of Edsel advertising, it wasn’t strictly true; Edsel wasn’t new from the ground up any more than any other car was that year. What was really all-new was the Edsel brand. Copywriters went so far as to compare Edsel point-by-point to a lot of other cars, finding every competing make – including Cadillac – inferior to Edsel in some way.
GOOD INTENTIONS: This Edsel Division Headquarters Building
in Ecorse Township, Michigan certainly looked as if Edsel was here to stay,
but after only three model years, the sign came down. Photo: Ford Motor
Company historic photo
Every Edsel feature was justified, hyped, made to seem the wave of the future. The controversial chromed-oval front grille was called an “Impact Ring”; ads hinted to consumers that the device would absorb energy in a low-speed collison, sparing the car’s bodywork. Ad copy dealing with the Edsel’s Teletouch pushbutton transmission was particularly optimistic: it was said to be a feature all other cars would have soon, and its electronic controls were supposed to be superior to the competing mechanical pushbuttons used by Chrysler. It all added up to one of the biggest, most sophisticated campaigns ever created; for a while, it looked like it was going to work. Customers flocked to showrooms to see the new cars; if the number of tire-kickers could measure the success of a promotional campaign, Edsel was going to be a rousing success. Except, of course, it wasn’t.
Sales for 1958 reached only about one-third of projections, and it was downhill from there. The car’s controversial grille styling became the butt of jokes: people said it looked like “an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon”. The cost-efficient use of shared parts worked against the car, too; it was easy to see the re-worked Ford and Mercury bodies underneath the Edsel chrome if you were trying to be critical. Worst, Ford tried to build Edsels on the same assembly lines as Fords and Mercurys: the procedure confused line workers who had to switch mental gears and do things differently on Edsel units when they appeared. This resulted in some quality control problems – the last thing any new-car launch needs.
BEHIND THE HYPE: This ad trumpeted, "They'll know you've
arrived when you drive up in an Edsel." Secretly, top Ford
executives were already planning the car's departure from the time it was
introduced. Photo: Historic Edsel advertisement
Ford toned down the styling and cut out the whiz-bang gadgets for 1959; that may have been a critical mistake. The Impact Ring was gone, Teletouch was gone, and the Citation, Pacer, Bermuda and Roundup models were gone, as well. That left a detrimmed Corsair, a Ranger, and a Villager wagon; while these remaining models were trying to strike a balance between looking like other cars and looking like Edsels, the overall effect was that of a mid-series Mercury with a beaky grille. No apologies were made to 1958 buyers who had believed in the wondrous promises of Teletouch and all the other gizmos: Edsel was no longer touted as a space-age marvel. It was now just a car, and as events proved, that wasn’t enough.
1959 sales were so bad they made 1958 look like a bonanza; whatever car-buyers wanted, it sure didn’t seem to be an Edsel. One last attempt was made to yank things out of the fire. A 1960 Edsel was created by fitting a unique grille, taillights, and side trim to the Ford Galaxie; interior fabrics and trim were also Edsel-specific. It was a cost-conscious, last-ditch effort, and nobody much bought it – not quite three thousand 1960’s had been built and flogged to a disinterested public before Ford bowed to reality and pulled the plug on both the car and the Edsel Division.
WEIRD SCIENCE: Teletouch was a push-button transmission;
you touched a button on the steering wheel's hub to select a gear.
Copywriters loved it; Consumer Reports hated it, saying it took a
lot of getting used to. Teletouch depended on primitive Fifties electronics
and a diaphragm that tended to give trouble. Photo: Historic Edsel
advertisement
Looking back, it’s easy to see the mistakes made with Edsel. The 1958 styling theme – vertical grille, horizontal taillamps – was exactly the opposite of that seen in popular cars of the day, which had wide, horizontal grilles and vertical tailfins. An Edsel advertising slogan pointed to another problem: “Priced from just above the lowest to just below the highest.” Those who looked at low-line Rangers didn’t see much added value when they compared Rangers to the Fords they were so obviously based on. Those who were checking out Citations weren’t sure of the wisdom of spending Buick money – and not getting guaranteed Buick prestige and resale value. And Edsel broke faith with the buyers it managed to attract in its first year. The 1958’s were sold as a car with such advanced gadgets, all other cars would be like it soon – then the company discontinued the unique features for ’59.
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM: This vintage Ford Styling photo
shows the trouble with Edsel. Popular cars of the day had low, wide
horizontal grilles, and tall, vertical tailfins. Edsel's styling ran
directly counter to that consumer preference. Photo: Ford Motor Company
historic photo
It’s too bad; Edsels were at least as good as anything on the road in their time, and their styling delights now, in an age where it’s difficult to tell an expensive import from a domestic grocery-getter. Any car show featuring Fifties cars is almost certain to have an Edsel or two in it, and a growing cadre of owners is busy putting remaining examples back into shape. Some show-quality cars are probably better today than when they were built. There are restoration challenges unique to Edsels – like repairing a Teletouch transmission – but for the most part, the make’s Ford heritage is a great help when owners seek parts and repairs.
It may have been a disappointment in 1958, but it’s a hot collectible today. It took folks a long time to warm up to these unique cars, but if America didn’t fall in love with Edsels at first, it has fallen in love with them at last.
TRADEMARKS / COPYRIGHT NOTICES
Edsel® is a trademark of the Ford Motor Company.
Other trademarks mentioned in this article are the property of their respective owners.
The conclusions presented herein are those of the author; this article has not been authorized by any of the persons or corporate entities mentioned in it.
To search this entire site by keyword, click here.
Copyright © 2005 D.A. "Sandy" McLendon
and Joe Kunkel, www.jetsetmodern.com Jetset - Designs for Modern Living. All rights reserved worldwide. This article may not be reproduced, reprinted, reposted or rewritten without express permission in writing from the author and publisher. First posted to the Web on January 8, 2005.
