What made the Edsel fail ?

[Howard Cohen]

I read the Henry Ford story a couple of years ago and it talked about the Edsel. It was built on a Ford/Mercury line where the employees were paid to build 1 car a minute, 60 cars an hour. Then Ford added in the Edsel and told the guys they had to build 1 extra car every hour. The union hated the idea, the workers hated the idea. They went out of their way to build every Edsel poorly. 

A styling book I read ( I have read several) said the Edsel grille went against the 1950s designs. Prewar cars had vertical grilles, post was cars had horizontal grilles, the Edsel couldn't make up its mind. One book said the Edsel grille failed because it looked like a woman's reproductive organ. 

[Ron Hamilton]

Timing. Too much overlap in the market. Bizarre styling. Politics. Stagnant economy. Take your pick. One, some or all.

Edited February 12, 2018 by Ron Hamilton

[unclescott58]

3 minutes ago, Mercuryman54 said:

Dads 1960 Edsel was designed to have backup lights. They were part of the design, but an option to be hooked up!!  The ones on Dads car were never hooked up, they still have the factory tape over the light socket holes. 

Look at those taillights. Then look at a 1960 or '61 Comets taillights. Hum? Look familiar? If things had got the way they were originally planned, the Comet was to be a companion car to the Edsel, rather than Mercury. Look closer at a '60 or '61 Comets taillights. You'll note the part starts with an E. E for Edsel. Two things to note. One, even those Comet taillights look similar to the '60 Edsels, and have an Edsel part number, they are not the exact same taillights. Second, for it first two years, the Comet was not sold as a Mercury. They did not officially become Mercury Comets until the 1962 model run. 

[slusher]

2 hours ago, Ron Hamilton said:

Timing. Too much overlap in the market. Bizarre styling. Politics. Stagnant economy. Take your pick. One, some or all.

Sure sounds like it. Adding a car to the workers and being built poor that would be the quality issues.

[ZTony8]

Another factor in the Edsel failure was that then Ford President Robert McNamara was against the idea of the car. He did nothing to assure it's success and anything he could to help kill it. His baby was the Falcon (and the Cardinal which became the German Taunus) .For an entertaining read of the Edsel story find a copy of "The Edsel Affair" by C.G. Warnock who was the P.R. Director for Edsel.

[Art Anderson]

On 2/10/2018 at 8:29 PM, OneTrickPony said:

Imho, the styling was part of it but another part was timing. It is hard to bring out a new, more expensive model when the economy is taking a downturn. Ford just blew it all around.

Ford made a lot of massive mistakes with Edsel, starting with the idea that there was room in the marketplace for a car situated between Ford and Mercury.  Couple that with horrible build quality, and some gadgets obviously poorly designed, that car was doomed even without the sudden, sharp recession of late '57 into the 3rd quarter of '58.  The questionable (for the day) styling only added insult to injury.

Art

[Art Anderson]

1 hour ago, ZTony8 said:

Another factor in the Edsel failure was that then Ford President Robert McNamara was against the idea of the car. He did nothing to assure it's success and anything he could to help kill it. His baby was the Falcon (and the Cardinal which became the German Taunus) .For an entertaining read of the Edsel story find a copy of "The Edsel Affair" by C.G. Warnock who was the P.R. Director for Edsel.

The excellent book, "Ford, The Men And The Machines" also covers the Edsel debacle in great detail as well.

[slusher]

25 minutes ago, Art Anderson said:

Ford made a lot of massive mistakes with Edsel, starting with the idea that there was room in the marketplace for a car situated between Ford and Mercury.  Couple that with horrible build quality, and some gadgets obviously poorly designed, that car was doomed even without the sudden, sharp recession of late '57 into the 3rd quarter of '58.  The questionable (for the day) styling only added insult to injury.

Art

I can understand recession and quality problems, but wasnwasn't the 58 Edsel Pacer the best looking one. I don't care for the rest but did people dislike the 58 Pacer that much? Just trying to learn guys...

Edited February 12, 2018 by slusher

[Chuck Most]

You can boil it down to this- expensive car with oddball styling, introduced during a recession where upper mid-priced cars were taking a hit across the board, and a board of directors who had good intentions but didn't quite know how to make it work in the long haul. Add them up and you get the Big E. 

[Chuck Most]

4 minutes ago, slusher said:

I can understand recession and quality problems, but wasnwasn't the 58 Edsel Pacer the best looking one. I don't care for the rest but did people dislike the 58 Pacer that much? Just trying to learn guys...

I'm not Art, but I'll offer this... I've talked to a ton of old-timers about them... seems to be just like today, it was "love it or leave it" as far as the styling. There were people who thought it was stylish and distinctive, and others who thought it looked like a half-finished concept car nose slapped onto a Ford. 

[slusher]

33 minutes ago, Chuck Most said:

I'm not Art, but I'll offer this... I've talked to a ton of old-timers about them... seems to be just like today, it was "love it or leave it" as far as the styling. There were people who thought it was stylish and distinctive, and others who thought it looked like a half-finished concept car nose slapped onto a Ford. 

Thanks Chuck, I really like the 58 but not so much the rest. 

[1930fordpickup]

5 hours ago, unclescott58 said:

Look at those taillights. Then look at a 1960 or '61 Comets taillights. Hum? Look familiar? If things had got the way they were originally planned, the Comet was to be a companion car to the Edsel, rather than Mercury. Look closer at a '60 or '61 Comets taillights. You'll note the part starts with an E. E for Edsel. Two things to note. One, even those Comet taillights look similar to the '60 Edsels, and have an Edsel part number, they are not the exact same taillights. Second, for it first two years, the Comet was not sold as a Mercury. They did not officially become Mercury Comets until the 1962 model run. 

The Comet was going to be an Edsel in fact my brother has looked at a title from an early Comet and it said Edsel on it. 

[Chuck Most]

13 minutes ago, slusher said:

Thanks Chuck, I really like the 58 but not so much the rest. 

I was talking to a guy a few months ago who bought one new. He wasn't fond of the front end, but he loved the dash layout, and "... because when I'm driving I'm looking at that and I can't see the front end of the car so what does it matter?"