Fergie's Tech Blog

15 July 1957: Full-Scale Production of the Edsel Begins

The Edsel was a make of automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company during the 1958, 1959 and 1960 model years. The car brand is best known as one of the most spectacular failures in the history of the United States automobile industry.

The Edsel was introduced amidst a considerable amount of publicity on "E Day" — September 4, 1957. It was promoted by a top-rated television special, The Edsel Show on October 13, but it was not enough to counter the adverse public reaction to the car's styling and conventional build; the rumors that Ford had circulated led consumers to expect an entirely new kind of car when in reality the Edsel shared its bodywork with other Ford models.

The Edsel was to be sold through a new Ford division. It existed from November 1956 until January 1958, after which Edsels were made by the Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln division (referred to as M-E-L). Edsel was sold through a new network of 1,500 dealers. This briefly brought total dealers of all Ford products to 10,000. Ford saw this as a way to come closer to parity with the other two companies of the Big Three: Chrysler had 10,000 dealers and General Motors had 16,000. As soon as it became apparent that the Edsels were not selling, many of these dealers added Lincoln-Mercury, English Ford and/or Taunus dealerships to their lines with the encouragement of Ford Motor Company. Some dealers, however, closed.

posted by Fergie @ 7/15/2006 12:01:00 AM