18 Facts About Edsel

Edsel is a discontinued division and brand of automobiles that was marketed by the Ford Motor Company from the 1958 to the 1960 model years.

Edsel was now able to sell cars according to current market trends following the sellers' market of the postwar years.

The push-button Teletouch transmission controls were withdrawn, alongside the rotating-dome speedometer, as Edsel introduced a slightly restyled version of the Ford Fairlane 500 dashboard .

Edsel issued credits to dealers for stock unsold or received following the announcement.

Edsel'storians have advanced several theories in an effort to explain Edsel's failure.

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The name "Edsel" became synonymous with the real-life commercial failure of the predicted "perfect" product or product idea.

Since the Edsel program was such a debacle, it gave marketers a vivid illustration of how not to market a product.

The principal reason Edsel's failure is so infamous is that Ford did not consider that failure was a possibility until after the cars had been designed and built, the dealerships established, and $400 million invested in the product's development, advertising and launch.

Not only was Edsel competing against its own sister divisions, but model for model, buyers did not understand what the cars were supposed to be—a step above the Mercury, or a step below it.

One of the external forces working against the Edsel brand was the onset of an economic recession in late 1957.

Compounding Edsel's problems was the fact that the car had to compete with well-established nameplates from the Big Three, such as Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Dodge and DeSoto, as well as with its sister division Mercury, which had never been a stellar sales success.

Name of the car, Edsel, is often cited as a further reason for its lack of popularity.

Consequently, the desired quality control of the different Edsel models proved difficult to achieve, even when the Fords and Mercurys were satisfactorily assembled on the same lines.

Roy Brown, the original chief designer on the Edsel project, had envisioned a slender, almost delicate opening in the center.

Edsel next set his sights on Edsel by maneuvering for elimination of the dual wheelbases and separate bodies used for 1958.

The final blow came in the fall of 1959, when McNamara convinced Henry Ford II and the rest of Ford's management that Edsel was doomed and that it was time to end production before Edsel bled the company dry.

Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi features an Edsel crashing through a wall, intended to symbolically represent US military failure in the Vietnam War.

The Comet adopted multiple design features from the full-size Edsel line, including its oblong taillamp lenses along with the instrument cluster.