Was the Edsel the Car Industry's Biggest Failure?

There's a very old joke. What's the picture of the ultimate loser? Answer: Richard Nixon driving an Edsel.

The joke was based on fact. In 1959, a famous photo was taken of then-Vice President Nixon touring Peru in an Edsel convertible. After the photo opp, Nixon was pelted with eggs and tomatoes by Peruvian demonstrators.

Then again, the joke was back at us when he was elected President in 1968, but that's another subject for another time.

Fiftieth Anniversary

2007 is the fiftieth anniversary year of the Edsel, so the subject is approached with the utmost respect. The Edsel didn't live long. It debuted in 1957 and died in 1960.

The Edsel

In the late fifties, the Edsel was the American automobile industry's biggest bomb -- that is, until the oil embargo and emergence of the Japanese economy car in the late seventies.

Not only was the Edsel's body design considered strange to most American consumers, so were some of its features, including a push-button transmission and a speedometer that rotated on the dash like a roulette wheel.

For some engineers, however, Edsel's more remarkable design innovations included self-adjusting rear brakes and automatic lubrication.

Why It Failed

The Ford Motor Company invested $400 million on the Edsel's development. This was a phenomenal sum in the 1950s, especially since an economic recession was looming in 1957. Many auto industry pundits blame Edsel's failure on poor marketplace timing. In the recession of 1958, consumers were buying smaller, more economic vehicles.

Other pundits have blamed its failure on Ford Motors execs never really defining the model's niche in the car market. The pricing and market aim of most Edsel models was somewhere between the highest-end Ford and the lowest-end Mercury.

Another cause of failure often mentioned was that Edsel never lived up to its pre-release hype. Madison Avenue did its job too well, stirring up a buzz of public anticipation by showing the Edsel as a soon-to-be-launched "mystery" car-of-the-future model kept under tarps or wrapped in paper. When the covers came off, the body style was too strange for the American public and it became a joke.

Comedians were especially hard on it. One called it "an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon."

Edsel Ford

The Edsel was named after Edsel Ford, the son of the company's founder, the first Henry Ford. Poor Edsel. He died young, unable to match up to the old man as an automotive innovator. And the execs named the ugliest car of all time after him, despite son Henry II's objections.

In all fairness to Edsel Ford, he was one of his generation's greatest art benefactors. Also in all fairness, the other car model names considered included The Elkherd and The Utopian Turtletop. The Edsel was the lesser of evils.

The Edsel Today

There are only about five thousand Edsels still in existence out of the 110,000 that were built. Edsel the car lives on with a stalwart coterie of collectors. Google them.

SOURCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel

http://edition.cnn.com/US/9708/11/edsel.anniversary/

"The built it", Rick Newman, US News & World Report, URL: (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070805/13edsel.htm)

"After 50 years, the Edsel no longer considered ugly car", James Barron, International Herald Tribune, URL: (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/02/news/edsel.php)