Countless reasons have been cited for the spectacular failure of the Edsel, but there was one issue that, in hindsight, is painfully obvious: The product line was far too large and complicated.
Why did the Edsel fail? That’s a great question, thanks for asking. Automotive writers and academics have pondered the matter for decades now, and they’ve identified an entire pile of trouble spots with the Ford Motor Company’s most famous blunder. Poor market timing, unpopular styling, reliability issues, let us count the ways. However, there’s one problem that doesn’t get enough notice, in our view. In the effort to make the 1958 Edsel all things to all people, the car was launched with far too many models and body styles for the company to manufacture, or for the car-buying public to sort out.
For example: The ’58 lineup consisted of four complete models or trim levels: Ranger, Pacer, Corsair and Citation. Station wagons had their own model designations as well: Roundup, Villager, and Bermuda. What’s more, the models were based on two different Ford Motor Company platforms: the Ranger, Pacer, and the three wagons were built on the 118-inch wheelbase Ford chassis, while the Corsair and Citation shared a significantly larger 124-inch chassis with Mercury. This failure to make choices resulted in a kitchen-sink product line with 18 different body styles, and to complicate matters further, there were 19 different exterior colors and a variety of available two-tone paint combinations, too.
Ford had originally planned to produce 200,000 Edsels in the ’58 model year, but as the reality fell far short of the projections, only 63,110 cars found buyers. As a result, many of the variations were produced in shockingly small numbers for a big-three Detroit automaker. Four models were in the three-digit range, hardly worth keeping the lights on, and none of the 18 models got close to the 10,000-unit mark.
Only 963 Roundup two-door wagons were delivered, which points to a painful question: Two-door wagons are cool, but did Edsel need one? There were two different Edsel convertibles, Pacer and Citation, and neither one sold enough units to be profitable (1,876 and 930 units, respectively). We can also see how for the assembly plants, which already had their hands full producing Fords and Mercurys, the Edsel represented a major manufacturing headache without much of a payoff. Meanwhile, problems with build quality were almost guaranteed.
For 1959, the Edsel product line was slashed from four trim levels to two and from 18 body styles to 10, a far more realistic alignment. With the benefit of hindsight, the ’59 lineup is probably closer to what the ’58 rollout year should have been in size and scope. But in truth, by ’59 the Edsel division was all but dead anyway. There was an Edsel in 1960, but only barely: a single model, the Ranger, was unveiled on October 15, 1959 and then discontinued on November 19. And that closed the book on one of the most fascinating failures in Motor City history.
The 58 Edsel (and Ford) wagons actually were on the standard 116″ Ford wheelbase instead of the 118″ Fairlane wheelbase.
WRONG. 1958 Ranger and Pacer model Edsels are 118″ wheelbases not 116…
The 58 Edsel wagons aren’t Rangers or Pacers. They use the standard 116″ Ford wagon body from the windshield back, same as a Country Squire. The Rangers and Pacers have unique Edsel bodies on the 118″ Ford Fairlane chassis.
Your initial comment said the cars and wagons- way to edit it after I noted the mistake lol
I didn’t edit the original comment, and don’t know how to edit comments on this platform.
On top of all of those models, just where did the Edsel fit into the Ford lineup of cars? Ford was the “people’s car” which could be sold as an inexpensive ‘stripper’ and optioned up to be kind of fancy. Mercury was the traditional “step up” Ford product with better interiors and more chrome on the outside. Lincoln was the Ford “luxury car”. It would seem had all parts of the market covered with the cars they already sold. What did the Edsel have that was distinctive? The MEL V-8 was powerful but it also could be had in the Mercury and Lincoln. The styling was “different” but that could be defined as “distinctive good” if you liked it or “distinctive bad” if you didn’t Most seemed to think it was “distinctive bad”. The 50s push button gear selector could be troublesome (My dad had a 58 Dodge with push button shit and it always caused a problem. If it didn’t go into hers, he opened up the button case and stuck a screwdriver in to unjam it, causing an eruption of sparks but it went in gear). It was a weird looking car looking for a market which wasn’t there.
I agree, Jeff, though the same argument could be made of GM: What, exactly was the marketing positioning (in the 1950s) of Chevy, Pontiac, Buick, Olds, and Cadillac? Clearly Ford thought that they could create a third line. And maybe they could have, without that “horse collar” grille. I guess they were trying for a retro look to recall the free-standing grilles of 1920s and 30s, but to many people, it was just ugly.
Also, fun fact, the Mercury Comet was originally intended to be an Edsel. Note the resemblance of the 1960 Comet’s “cat-eye” taillights to the Edsel taillights. That’s why the Comet (at least the 1960) had no “Mercury” badging.
The Comet didn’t officially become a Mercury until 1962
The 1960 Edsel was the best looking of the bunch, but it was no beauty queen, either. If it had of came out in 58, it might have had a chance. The horse collar grille cars were pretty ugly, but a lot of other 58 and 59 models were too.
It’s also why the name chosen — Comet — had the same number of letters as Edsel, and could use the same holes to affix the nameplate.
The roots of this go back to Ford’s postwar dilemma. The mid market was growing, and Ford had only Mercury in that space, while GM had Pontiac, Olds, and Buick, and Chrysler had Dodge, DeSoto, and Chrysler. The two-level Edsel strategy was designed to fill the the Pontiac-Olds gap, while at the same time, Mercury, previously a modified Ford, would move up in size and price to the Buick gap.
It was all too clever by half, and executed right as the great middle-price boom of the fifties cratered. Edsel failed, and Mercury soon retreated to being a gussied-up Ford.
And yet, as Thomas Bonsall observed years ago, the original 200K target was calculated based on a % of Pontiac sales, and in a down year, Edsel’s 68K actually exceeded the percentage.
Apparently, the dealership in the second image was located in Columbus, OH, and was one of three in the city, closing only eight months after its grand opening.
Pretty tough situation for the single franchise owner.
Rockford, Illinois’ Packard dealer J.J. Ingrassia was granted the Edsel franchise after Packard folded. Oh, what a lucky man he was…