[Mr_Moonlight]

Maybe off topic, but I never understood why the Edsel was such a loser in the marketplace. Sure I've done research on it and such, and from what I've garnered it was a pretty darn good car .. mechanically, styling, and otherwise, .. so then *why* was the Edsel such a bust in the market?

I'm serious on this, really want to know ..... any FReepers care to chime in?

[Clemenza]

The vertical grill for one.

[ozzymandus]

Too ugly, too expensive, too wide, had an annoying whistle at highway speeds, and didn’t fit any niche in the FOMOCO lineup. I was a little kid when they came out, but I remember they were the butt of jokes from the day they appeared.

[ken21]

it looks like parts of the human anatomy?

[Polybius]

Maybe off topic, but I never understood why the Edsel was such a loser in the marketplace. Sure I've done research on it and such, and from what I've garnered it was a pretty darn good car .. mechanically, styling, and otherwise, .. so then *why* was the Edsel such a bust in the market? I'm serious on this, really want to know ..... any FReepers care to chime in?

You got me curious so I started looking around.

The Wikipedia article is actually pretty good about listing all the faults, real, imagined and just plain nasty. :-)

The Edsel is best remembered for its trademark "horsecollar" grille, which made it stand out from other cars of the period. A widely circulated wisecrack at the time was that "It looked like an Oldsmobile sucking on a lemon." Men often referred to the horsecollar grille as being akin to a woman’s genitalia. In fact, Robin Jones, a Ford designer at the time, later recalled that someone in the design studio - presumably as a cruel joke - actually taped hair to the inside of the grille area on one of the clay models produced during the design process; the end result, according to Jones, "looked like a hormonally-disturbed cow after giving birth."

[the lastbestlady]

The Edsel took away from Ford and Mercury. They did not manage to take many customers away from Crysler and GM. Hence, the failure.

[printhead]

I remember an episode of the Munsters in which Grandpa had to go to Detroit to locate a distant relative to help either cast a spell or remove one. This guy was an automotive exec. He had this secret room attached to his office. Once they were in there he put on all his wizard garb. When asked what were his bonafides, he replied “ Do you remember the Edsel?”.
Now you know.

[Mike Darancette]

Ugly car with an ugly name.

[painter]

I was told that the Edsel was way over hyped before it even hit the showrooms. When the public finally saw it they couldn’t see what all the fuss was all about. It was just another car.