A "Misfit of Motordom"

...as considered by the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. The exhibition, "What Were They Thinking?" features the bizarre and innovative cars throughout motor car history. I got to see it in person and it was FANTASTIC. One car in particular stuck out as "drivable", and that was the Edsel. I also fell upon a gorgeous 1958 Edsel Roundup at the Pomona Swap Meet in March.

If you're in town before June 6th and want to see some out-of-the-box automotive styling and engineering, check out the Petersen's website: http://www.petersen.org/

Here's the 1958 Edsel Citation at the Petersen Museum.

The Edsel make was named after the late Edsel Ford, president of Ford Motor Company, who died in 1943 at the young age of 49. Most of us only know of Henry Ford as Edsel apparently wasn't behind most major decisions for the company.

The Edsel was only in production from 1958 to 1960. The car was deemed a "failure" and "disaster" by the Edsel Owners Club itself. The model nearly pushed Ford Motor Company into bankruptcy in the late 50s. The Edsel's original target was "young professionals". The car made its debut in 1957 in showrooms across the US. The hype around the new Edsel was huge. Ad campaigns aimed to keep the car's full appearance a secret, only depicting the hood ornament. Dealers were warned that if they revealed the car at any point before its release date, they would get a fine or even lose their franchise. Edsel was playing on the curiosity and excitement of the crowds to see and purchase this new, unseen car. It was a mystery and everyone loves a good mystery. The ads only mentioned "The Edsel is Coming", as if it were long-awaited event approaching in the near future.

Unfortunately, people came to look, but only to look. The daily minimum sale of 400 cars per dealership was never met. The initial design of the Edsel definitely stood on its own. Its prominent feature was the front end of the hood, which contrarily to other cars of its time that all looked similar, broke the horizontal line flow on the grille with a vertical hood ornament that spelled out EDSEL from top to bottom. Apparently that design is now referred to as a "horse collar". Fair enough. The feedback from reviewers ranged from positive, to saying it resembled "an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon". Some reviewers were not even sure if they loved it or thought it was a design disaster. The designers idea behind its unique appearance was to make it distinguishable from far. That, it was. The mechanics behind the look were not up to par either. Many owners complained about various problems with their Edsel. According to Failure Magazine (good name) who quotes Bob Ellsworth, owner and operator of http://www.edsel.com/ "there were cases where the cars that weren't exactly complete showed up at dealerships. They would have a list on the steering wheal saying which parts were missing." The Edsel program was to be ended in November 1959, but the last car rolled off the production line a year later in 1960.

There is a lot of information available out there in books and on the web about the Edsel's disastrous history, Failure Magazine online has a well detailed article about it: http://failuremag.com/

Here's the '58 Edsel Roundup in Pomona. The Epic Fail car seems to be alive today. I think it looks cool. Would I drive it? You bet.