Happy anniversary, Ford Motor Company. It was 59 years ago today that you introduced the Edsel automobile to the American public.
How did that work out for ya?
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tonight’s feature presentation: The Edsel Automobile
Things didn’t turn out so well, as it happens. The name Edsel has become synonymous with failure.
Edsel Bryant Ford, the only son of industrial pioneer Henry Ford, died in 1943 at the age of 49. The 1958 Ford Edsel was named after him; it was to be the company’s glorious turn at cutting into the market share of General Motors and Chrysler. Instead, it turned out to be such a megaflop that the name itself now stands for: FAIL.
The namesake Edsel never lived to see his name end up in ridicule. Apologies to anyone else named Edsel who may be a victim of the legacy.
The Hype
The ‘58 Edsel was hyped as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Ford spend lavishly on promotions and advertising for the car, a year before, and well beyond “E-Day”, September 4, 1957.
The Edsel Show, a one-time live production that aired in Ed Sullivan’s time slot on October 13, 1957, featured big stars of the day. Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Louis Armstrong, and Bob Hope all turned up to promote the new car. The show itself was a success, even collecting an Emmy nomination for “Best Single Program of the Year”. The show was broadcast live from CBS Television City in Hollywood at 5PM west coast time, which meant it played live at 8PM on the east coast. It was the first CBS entertainment show to be recorded on then-new videotape for the purpose of time-shifting: the tape was replayed three hours later, for broadcast at 8PM on the west coast. This was innovative for its day, as time-shifting back then was normally accomplished by having a film camera record live shows from a TV monitor for later rebroadcast, a process known as kinescope.
The Car
Ford set up a new division for the Edsel, and the grand plan was to eat into the market share of GM and Chrysler. Touted as innovations, the car design they came up with included these features:
- Floating speedometer that glows when a pre-set speed limit is exceeded
- Transmission locks in park until ignition key turned (new with Edsel - still used today)
- Top portion of seats slant forward to provide shoulder support
- Triple-thermostat cooling system (head/block/radiator) during warm-up for increased fuel economy & heater performance (E-475 engine)
- Front-mounted distributor, coil, fuel pump, oil filter dipstick for easy access.
- Hood hinged in the front for safety (Although this somewhat limits access to the aforementioned distributor, etc!)
- Hood release controlled electronically, from inside the car.
- The front seats were split 60/40 for better driver comfort.
- Promoted Self-Adjusting brakes as a safe and convenient method of compensating for normal brake lining wear. This mechanism has been used in drum brake systems ever since.
(They were not, however, an Edsel invention as is commonly thought. The same basic design was introduced on the 1948 Studebaker.)
- A HUGE array of bells and whistles available as options!
And of course:
One of the most talked about feature was the "Teletouch" shifter, which controlled the automatic transmission selection electronically from push buttons in the center of the steering wheel hub. (A series of planetary gears in the column keeps the buttons stationary as the wheel turns.)
What went wrong?
The car itself was widely derided as ugly. Of particular note is the front grille, with its vertical middle section referred to by various names such as “horse collar”, “toilet seat”, and what are often referred to on Daily Kos as “lady parts”. That just didn’t go over well in the 1950s.
For the 1959 and 1960 model years, the front grille was redesigned to a more traditional appearance. But that may have been too late.
From the moment of first appearance in dealer showrooms, sales were dismal. Due to the huge amount of publicity well beforehand, people did show up in droves at the dealerships. But they didn’t buy. The Edsel was big, rather clunky some said, overpriced (from $2,500 to $3,800 fully equipped, big money at the time), and just didn’t appeal to motorists. In short, it didn’t live up to the hype. Oh, and the introduction occurred at the beginning of a recession.
And, as it turned out, the Edsel suffered from quality and reliability problems. As I mentioned earlier, Ford created a new division for the Edsel, but didn’t establish any dedicated production lines. Instead, the cars were built on existing Mercury and Ford assembly lines (and essentially Mercury and Ford chassis). Supposedly that was a quality inhibitor in and of itself:
Edsel relied on Ford employees to produce their cars. Unfortunately, Ford workers resented assembling someone else's vehicle. Therefore, they took little pride in their work.
And for those who did buy an Edsel found that the car was plagued with shoddy workmanship. Many of the vehicles that showed up at the dealer showroom had notes attached to the steering wheel listing the parts not installed.
That innovative Teletouch shifter was also a failure point:
The control wires for Teletouch were also routed too close to the exhaust manifold, which often caused unpredictable movement of the selector mechanism and, in some cases, complete failure. The electrical design required drivers to shift from Park to Reverse to Neutral to Drive, in that order, to avoid overloading the Teletouch motor. The motor was also not powerful enough to bring the car out of Park while on a hill, so dealerships would instruct drivers to set the parking brake before pushing the Park button.
There were also reports that drivers, accustomed to the horn button being in the center of the steering column, would suddenly and unexpectedly shift gears by pressing the Teletouch buttons which were located where the horn button would be in normal cars.
All in all, about 110,000 Edsel cars were produced, far shorter than Ford had forecast. In less than 3 years, the Edsel division was shut down, and production stopped. Ford was said to have lost $250 million on the project, a staggering amount in those days.
top comments for sunday september 4, 2016
From Canadian Reader:
I would like to nominate this eloquent comment by newreign in “Black folks have long memories, Mr. Trump” by Denise Oliver Velez.
From Yasuragi:
Some great history and insight here by kmoorh, in the same diary as noted above.
Flagged by Gulliver Foyle:
“Well said” honors go to Namekarb, in “What the reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s protest says about America” by Mark E Andersen.
top mojo for saturday september 3, 2016
top photos for saturday september 3, 2016