Introduced to tremendous fanfare, the 1958 Edsel proved to be a spectacular failure. For 1959, the Ford Motor Company reversed course.
The brochure above signals one of the most dramatic course corrections in Detroit history. When it was introduced in September of 1957, the 1958 Edsel was touted as glamorous, luxurious, the most fabulous automobile in a generation. Henry Ford II called it “the only truly new car on the American road.” What followed was one of the most spectacular flops in the annals of U.S. commerce. Ford expected to sell 200,000 cars in the first year, but the total volume amounted to only 63,000. Facing losses of unthinkable proportions, the Dearborn automaker shifted into panic mode.
So just one year later in October of ’58, the bold product strategy was scrapped and the 1959 Edsel was presented as a modest and practical family hauler. No longer a rival to Buick and Oldsmobile, this Edsel was “an all-new quality car in the low price range.” Right alongside Ford, that could be taken to mean. “The 1959 Edsel makes history by making sense,” the copywriters declared.
While the ’58 Edsel had been offered in four model lines, two Ford-based and two Mercury-based, and in 18 different styles, for ’59 the Mercury-based cars were eliminated and the trim levels were reduced to two: Ranger and Corsair. There was now a single Ford-based chassis with a 120-inch wheelbase, and the body styles were pared down to 10. The big 410 cubic-inch E-475 engine was discontinued as powerplant choices were reduced to four: an inline six and three V8s. The largest was a 361 CID V8 with 303 hp.
Nearly all the Edsel’s gee-whiz technical features were discarded for ’59, including the drum speedometer and the bug-ridden Teletouch push-button shifter with its controls in the steering wheel hub. The ’59 dash was a restyled Ford component and the shifter was now an ordinary lever on the steering column. The flamboyant Edsel exterior design was toned down as well. While the controversial vertical grille was retained, the overall look now leaned into the conventional. The wild gull-wing tail fins were flattened down and the tail lamps were broken up with a string of six round lenses.
The radical overhaul of the Edsel product and marketing strategies failed to help. Sales continued to plummet to fewer than 45,000, and now Edsel’s nearly 1,200 dealers were in serious trouble and the sales force was utterly demoralized. (Witness the air of desperation in the 1959 dealer film here.) There would be an Edsel in 1960, a mildly restyled Ford, but it would be introduced on October 15, 1959 and then cancelled 34 days later.
In hindsight, it’s remarkable to see how quickly the Ford corporate brass lost confidence in their original Edsel vision, despite all their careful market research and years of planning. Indeed, it’s been said that some Ford executives had given up the faith even before the car was introduced to the public on E-Day, September 4, 1957. From that angle, the Edsel’s radical 1959 makeover can be seen as both a desperate attempt to save the brand and a tacit admission that the end was already in sight.
If it was “historical” to build a “quality car” in the low price range, weren’t they in effect saying that the Ford wasn’t a ‘quality car”? Sometimes the advertising guys get so carried away with their clever verbiage that they forget to think rationally.
Barry, I’ve always had that thought about GM’s Saturn messaging, which was (paraphrasing) “Finally, a decent-quality small car where dealers won’t try to cheat you on the price.” That must have made Chevy Cavalier buyers feel really great.
As if Chevy Cavalier owners didn’t have enough to make them feel bad. They bought a Chevy Cavalier after all!
The 58 and 59 were so far out of the mainstream they killed its future. The 1960 was much better, and fit with other vehicles on the road. I guess when you already have two strikes against you, you couldn’t afford a third. I’d love to have a 60 two door hardtop with the Sunliner roof, man, what a sexy automobile.
Great article, but weren’t the ’59 design decisions locked in well before the introduction of the ’58’s? I don’t think they redesigned the whole car in a few months, after the introduction.
They weren’t wrong about the next big change in auto styling – along with that year’s Chevys these were the first cars with the headlights set level with the grille.
Nash had tried it a few years earlier, before quad lights, but made the combined opening too narrow with the headlights too far inboard, so the impression was one of rotundness rather than low width.
And as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve often thought that Ford finally got there in the early/mid 2000s when they had Mazda for the “E-F” demographic who wanted something a little bit nicer than the equivalent Ford and Volvo for the “E-M” near-luxury one. (And the Mercury Grand Marquis for the Edsel target *cohort*, the people who had been young up-and-comers 45 years before).
Too bad the British marques made PAG a flop, if it had been just Volvo and Mazda they were onto something there.