Edsel the Automotive Industry\'s Biggest

¶ … Edsel

the automotive industry'S BIGGEST FAILURE

As the source of countless jokes and the origin of a new word for failure, the Edsel, designed and manufactured by the Ford Motor Company between 1957 and 1959 in Detroit, Michigan, was originally created in order to give Ford an additional signature automobile for middle-class buyers. In the early 1950's, Ford considered itself somewhat inferior to its biggest auto rival General Motors, due to GM selling more than a millions cars ahead of GM in 1954. Exactly why the Edsel failed so miserably, in fact, why it "failed so spectacularly," is due to several reasons. First, the popular culture of the time apparently did not like the Edsel's styling as compared to similar models offered by General Motors; second, Consumer Reports "cited poor workmanship" throughout the design of the Edsel, and third, "marketing experts hold the Edsel up as a supreme example of Corporate America's failure to understand the nature of the American consumer," no to mention that the Edsel itself was not truly supported by the executives at Ford ("Edsel," Internet).

When it was announced in September of 1957, there were thirteen Edsel models, being the station wagon as well as two and four-door sedans, hardtops and convertibles. Prices ran from $2,519 for the two-door Ranger sedan to $3,810 for the Citation convertible. Compared with its rivals from other companies of the time, the Edsel "was priced lower than Desoto and Oldsmobile, about on par with Pontiac and slightly higher than Dodge" (Daines, 56). Apparently, these rather low prices for all of the Edsel models did not convince American buyers that the Edsel was worthy to be kept in their garages or showcased on their driveways for all of their neighbors to see and hopefully envy.

As Kathleen a. Ervin relates, when the Edsel first showed up at Ford dealerships, curious and potential buyers "flocked to the dealerships in record numbers" which at first was seen by Ford executives as a sign of great things to come, meaning that they assumed that the Edsel was destined to become one of Ford's best sellers cars of all time. However, it soon became apparent to the executives at Ford that "people weren't buying" the Edsel and had showed up at the dealerships only to gawk at this new type of automobile. According to the director of public relations for Ford in 1957, "the company expected to sell a daily minimum of 400 Edsels through 1,200 dealers" nationwide; however, this did not come about, due to the fact that "the public thought there was something radically new coming out," while in reality, the Edsel "was just another 1958 model car (with) more gizmos and gadgets on it, but it wasn't anything that lived up to the hype" ("Auto Biography," Internet).

Named after Edsel Ford, the son of Henry Ford, the Edsel was launched with a spectacular television show "starring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong, but sales were disappointing from the start" (Daines, 78). Even with these Hollywood heavy-hitters applauding the new Edsel as the car of the future, American consumers were not convinced. To break even, Ford was required to sell 650 Edsels every single day, but the best they could manage was 409 for the first ten days after which sales fell to only 300 or so daily. Obviously, the target audience for the Edsel, being those consumers of the post-World War II and Korean War generations, was the wrong audience. "When the Edsel was first developed, it looked like big was the way to go...but by 1958, people were thinking more along the lines of smaller economy cars. The public's interest in huge, big fin cars with glitzy chrome was just about over" (Ervin,

Internet).

To make matters worse, Ford based its sales expectations on 1954-56 figures and unfortunately, the executives in charge of sales "assumed that this trend was going to continue" and believed that "by the 1958 model year, they wouldn't be able to build (the Edsel) fast enough" (Ervin, Internet). Thus, it is clear that one of the major reasons why the Edsel failed to sell or become as popular as Ford had anticipated was because it was really nothing new as compared to the dozens of models offered by Ford's competitors, such as GM and Desoto. In essence, the people in charge of sales at Ford did not have the foresight to understand that the American consumer had changed after the war years.

In his excellent study on the Edsel, Rob Daines provides several reasons which supports the idea that the Ford executives responsible for sales did not know what they were doing in relation to selling the Edsel to the American public. First of all, "the market for medium-sized cars" which stood at about 40% when the Edsel was introduced, "had dropped to 25% by 1957 because of the inroads made by imports and smaller American cars," such as the Rambler. Second, "the dealer network was unsatisfactory, for only 118 dealers had exclusive franchises for the Edsel, while the rest sold Edsels along with Mercury and Desoto models." Thus, in the minds of the dealers and with sales hard to find for the Edsel, "they were naturally more likely to push the well-known brand rather than a newcomer," meaning that the dealers already had a large consumer base for GM products and thought it was a waste of time to truly attempt to sell the Edsel models (134).

Also, the issue of quality control was poor, due to Edsel production at the Detroit factories being "squeezed into the end of each hour of Ford output," an indication that the Edsel product was somewhat of a rush job which resulted in mechanical problems. Obviously, this problem could have been partially solved if Ford had built separate manufacturing facilities especially designed for the Edsel. "There were no plants set up to produce the Edsel, so the Edsel division had to rely on Ford and Mercury employees" to build the car along with other models that were clearly Ford products (the Edsel never displayed the familiar Ford logo). Thus, "by squeezing in Edsels on the Ford and Mercury assembly lines," this proved to be disastrous "from a quality control perspective because many Ford and Mercury employees resented having to build another division's vehicles" (Ervin, Internet).