Eighty years ago this month, the Ford Motor Company launched the 1939 Mercury 8.

History often paints Edsel Ford as a failure, a beaten-down man, the perennial loser in his constant battles with his father, Henry Ford. In truth, he won many of his power struggles with the Ford Motor Company founder, and one of these victories produced the Mercury, the company’s upmarket brand introduced for 1939.

In a ceremony at the Ford Rotunda in Dearborn on November 4,1938, Henry and Edsel Ford (above) celebrated the introduction of the 1939 Mercury 8. Very much Edsel’s baby, the Mercury 8 was designed to expand and fill out the Ford Motor Company’s narrow product line. Edsel was the force behind the volume-luxury Lincoln Zephyr of 1936; next, he widened the Ford passenger car line with distinct front-end styling for the Standard and Deluxe models. With the addition of Mercury, Ford now had a broadened product lineup a bit more like that of its giant rival, General Motors, and thus the potential for greater sales volume. Of course, all this was entirely Edsel’s vision. If old Henry truly had his way, Ford might still be making the Model T.

Riding on a four-inch longer 116-inch wheelbase chassis, with the extra length added mainly between the cowl and front axle, the Mercury was in essence a bigger and better Ford. Suspension and running gear components were interchangeable, including the company’s new hydraulic brakes for ’39, while the familiar flathead V8 was enlarged from 221 to 239 cubic inches to produce 95 horsepower, 10 more than Ford.

The body design was supervised by styling chief E.T. “Bob” Gregorie, who was forced to keep the overall look very close to Ford at the insistence of the patriarch, Henry. It’s said that Mercury was the Motor Company’s first car developed from a full-size clay model. According to Gregorie, the net result of the running battle between Henry and Edsel over the car’s appearance was essentially a pneumatically enhanced Ford, pumped up like a beach ball in every direction. None of the sheet metal interchanged as the Mercury body was much bigger—a full eight inches wider at the doors. Naturally, trim and interior appointments were a significant upgrade as well from the lowly Ford passenger car.

Four body styles were offered the first year: a Town Sedan with four doors at $957; a Sedan with two doors at $916; a close-coupled Sedan-Coupe for $957, and a Sport Convertible with automatic top at $1,018. Prices were right in the middle of Oldsmobile territory, roughly $300 more than Ford. The Sedan-Coupe (above) owes its attractive, hardtop-like greenhouse to a clever cost-saving measure. Bolt-on, stainless-steel window  channels were used so the convertible and coupe could share the same door stamping.

The company struggled at first to find a clear identity for the Mercury brand. Edsel initially decided to call the new car “Ford-Mercury,” following the pattern established with Lincoln-Zephyr. Gregorie was unable to dissuade him, but just as production was spooling up, a group of East Coast dealers were able to talk Edsel out of the blended brand messaging, and the name became simply Mercury 8. A handful of “Ford-Mercury” hubcaps still exist, and they command a king’s ransom among vintage Ford collectors

Sales were encouraging that first year: nearly 75,000 units, no threat to Ford’s massive volume but a meaningful bump in the automaker’s annual production. Through the next seven decades, the division’s fortunes waxed and waned, reaching a high point in the 1970s of nearly 700,000 units annually. But as product development costs escalated, Mercury lost its exclusivity, becoming more of a rebadged Ford each year. The Mercury story ends the way it begins, with the brand struggling for its identity. On June 2, 2010, Ford announced the end of the Mercury line by the end of the year.