I can remember people laughing at Hudsons and Studebakers from the fifties with their pasted-on fins, and Mopar used it on their '56 wagons in some lines. But, of course this Edsel wagon was just an attempt to disguise the round Ford taillights and they added that little 'skeg line' piece to the lower part of the boomerang. A neighbor of ours in the early sixties had one of these and I loved those taillights. Great video!
Went with my Dad back in September of 57 and came home with a 58 Edsel Bermuda 9 passenger wagon. We traded a beautiful 55 Bel Air v8 coupe. In 61 with about 75k on the clock, the Teletouch selector was having intermittent communication with the relay and the shift motor. The fix was to pull the Teletouch shaft in the steering column and clean the contact rings, apply dielectric grease and reassemble by ten year old me. No more issues. The "Big E", as my Dad liked to call it, was traded for a new 63 Impala convertible.
Did you find your parents ever had to press Neutral between pressing Drive and Reverse as the video mentioned? I also read somewhere the shifting motor was initially not well protected from the elements or the exhaust pipe and those could make the motor fail.
@@friendofdorothy9376 A couple times before I serviced it you had to go back and forth from neutral to reverse until the motor got the proper signal from the relay.
First car I ever drove was Mom's 1958 Edsel Pacer. I'd ridden in that car since I was three or four. Dad got it as a repo from the finance company he worked for. A guy in high school had a triple white 1958 convertible. Say what you want about the styling, that convertible was a gorgeous car.
The 58 Citation shown is a beautiful car, and you're correct, the speedo is the coolest ever designed and produced...I love the Edsel, always have, the 2-door is badass ride...👍🇺🇸
Edsels are so cool!!! Back in the seventies one of my buddies had a 58 Edsel Citation with the typewriter transmission buttons in the center of the steering & the 475 wide block V8!! It was a real attention getter!!! Thanks Adam for featuring it!!! 👍👍🙂
I'm sure if you have a 58 Edsel today, you can't pull over to a highway rest stop or even buy gas without it being an instant car show with dozens of people gathered round.
Even though they were criticized for the grill, 58 Edsel's had pretty clean styling compared to other 58 models. Especially the magic mushroom styling of the 58 Lincoln. I would love to have a 58 Pacer convertible.
Magic Mushroom?? Put a 58 Lincoln next to a 58 Cadillac or 58 Buick & it looks clean & modern. It also looks perfect with the modern architecture of that era & no other 1958 car does. Go look at a Isamu Nagouchi coffee table and maybe you'll get it. It's all about Mid Century Modern.
Edsel, Edsel, Edsel,...If most people knew to whom it was dedicated to. An honorary salut in the very least. It was well built. He was a good man and only son to Henry Ford. Cheers to Edsel 🥂
His name also lives on at the high school I graduated from in Dearborn, MI -- EFHS. Side note: the school mascot/sports teams are called The Thunderbirds.
Edsel Ford was the brains behind the company but sadly his father overruled him many times. At least he brought three sons into the world to keep the company going (it nearly went bankrupt in 1948)
I have a 1959 Edsel Ranger. 223 L6 with a three speed and the mirror featured in the video. That's actually the dealer option mirror, and is kind of rare. The standard mirror looked very similar to other ford mirrors. The big block V8's were all FE (Ford Edsel) blocks, also available were the 223 L6, and 292 Y block V8. The FE block ended up living on into the late 60's early 70's. The 427 in the GT40's that won LeMans was an FE. As was the 428. Great video, I'm glad to see my Edsel's finally getting some love.
The Ranger and Pacer were available with stick shift, 3-speed on the column, but are very rare. A conventional shifter was also standard on these cars with automatic. Push button drive was optional, but standard on Citation and Corsair. My dream Edsel is a red Pacer convertible with stick shift. You could get it but I wonder if anyone bought a Pacer so equipped? By ordering the Ranger or Pacer without the push button drive you eliminated a lot of potential problems. I assume the wagons were also available with stick as they were made on the smaller Ford platform.
My Uncle wqs a FORD dealer in NJ between 1948 and 1971. He said at the time that the Edsel was a pretty good car - and it didn't fail because of styling. FORD wanted the dealers to build stand-alone showrooms for the Edsel or they wouldn't allocate the cars. The dealers were hopping made and most refused to commit to the expense. FORD's plan to create a new brand died quickly thereafter.
I'm 64yo now, but when I was a kid I remember that distinctive Edsel grill coming down the street in front of my house in Jackson Michigan.....I can actually still 'see' it in my mind....
My uncle had a 1958 Edsel Pacer 4-door hardtop, two-tone red and black. While I thought the front grille was cool, it was the taillights that made me wonder! The '58 Edsel rear end has that "extraterrestrial" vibe going on. Being stuck in traffic behind a '58 Edsel was truly creepy.
Thank you for this very thoughtful overview. A couple of additional branding examples include the "E" hood ornament as well as E's centered inside both spinner and "dog-dish" hubcaps. More subtle is the use of concentric circles in the steering wheel hub mirroring those used in Edsel's advertising logo. Green pickle medallions grace both C pillars on Citation and Corsair 2 and 4 door hardtops and Pacer 4 door hardtops. The floor mat of the driver's side has an embossed E. Models without the optional speed warning light would have an E replacing the speed dial. Edsel actually had it's own product line in '58 that included at least15 different items like brake fluid, windshield washer fluid, etc. Most of these were packaged in green cans ( a few in bottles) with the amazing E logo. I've loved this car since I first laid eyes on one at the ripe old age of three.
When my dad was a teen, he worked at a factory which made those public rest room toilet seats ... which at the factory they called "horse collars." Next, we have the Edsel, and lo-and-behold, the grill is a horse collar!! What could go wrong?
Adam this is your best review yet. I didn't know any of those hilarious and awesome design features, esp the Edsel battery! Those must be extremely rare today.
I love my 58 Edsel sedan. It is the Pacer model and it is finished in a strange purple brown - a bit like the underside of a mushroom (not sure what it was called?). It has a white roof and white side scallops. No power steering which is actually easy to use and has reasonable feel. I love the tele-touch and the flying saucer style speedo. It has a period aftermarket air conditioner that still has the original “Kool King” sticker on the glass.
Robert McNamara, the president of Ford at the time, ordered the end of Edsel very early into the 1960 model year. Due to the slow sales of Lincoln models in the late 1950s, he was seriously considering canceling Lincoln as well. His ultimate goal was for the FoMoCo to offer just one brand - Ford - as a cost saving measure. Fortunately, he left Ford to become JFK’s Secretary of Defense before making it a reality.
Thank god that dull and ordinary penny pincher left ford I’m still convinced that if he woulda stayed and had only falcons built there’d be no ford today
Not a fan of Edsel styling, but the example in this video certainly was well-optioned and in great shape. Those wagon tail lights remind me of a 50's version of the 2016 - 2019 (or so) Prius - another car with controversial styling.
The most recent model of the Mini has Union Jack taillights- within which the turn signals also pointed the wrong direction! They appear to have since remedied that error.
My favorite video that you've done and they are all so good. I love the Edsel - what a sad venture for FoMoCo because it really was one of their coolest cars ever besides the 1957 T-Bird , The Sun Valley full sized Fords, Park Lane station wagon and the 1956 Continental‼
One of the cars I’ve considered owning. I test drove a ‘64 Ninety Eight in the mid-‘90s and decided against the purchase because of the “jerky-jerky” transmission. Thanks for this review and please include more cars from the 1960s, especially the full-sized, luxury makes as the “pony cars” already receive more than enough attention.
I had a 58 Edsel Citation, the push button shifter even worked. It was like piloting the Queen Mary while sitting on a overstuffed 70's brown and orange couch.....
@@jetsons101 That sounded like a '70s color combo more than '50s, but then, I don't recall ever seeing an Edsel growing up, until maybe the early 1980s (somewhere in my neighborhood there was one '58 sitting in a driveway, looking pretty dead). I would have loved trying out a pushbutton transmission. All I recall experiencing back when I was a kid was my neighbor's early '60s Dodge station wagon. Those buttons and lack of a gear shift fascinated me.
My grandfather was an Edsel dealer (and Mercury). I used to have a bunch of Edsel-related pics and promo stuff. Alas, over six decades, they have gone missing.
Very few parts interchangeable between 'the Junior '58 Ranger/Pacer on the Ford body, and the senior '58 Citation/Corsair series on the Mercury body, although to the casual eye they look alike. The Junior versions are pretty broadly understood as a better overall choice today
Love your vids, I wonder if you could make a story about this phenomenon: In around 1970 I went on a trip to Turkey, I found that there were many (old) US models used as taxis. Apparently, the US buyers always wanted the latest models, this generated a surplus of used cars which many were shifted to poorer countries and maintained indefinitely. When entering such a taxi in turkey, the taxi driver would then wait for more passengers to fill his car.
Yes, I enjoyed this 58 Edsel feature very much! I like the character of this car, even with the "tele touch" transmission. It didn't work well. Thanks for adding to my UA-cam history of this brand.
It's too bad about Edsel. If you look at a 58 Edsel and a 58 Merc, can you actually say the Edsel is uglier? Totally agree Adam, that speed alert light is beyond cool! Excellent vid, as always! Are you familiar with Jay at "What it's like"? He's a kid with a passion for "unusual" cars! I think if you, Ed of EAR, Jay, and Bill from "Curious Cars" in Naples teamed up, you guys would be the new "Big 4"!
But the thing that jogged a memory was the HVAC control on the right. The '56 Plymouths had two rotary HVAC controls on the passenger side of the dash. Far from the driver. The position was to make the dash symmetrical balanced. The '55 was worse though - two of the engine gauges were in those two spots! I haven't looked but I bet there are photos. I'm going to look.
And all FoMoCo had to do was make that horse collar portion of the grill much less prominent, and come up with a less unappealing name, and that division might've stuck around for more than three model years... You can tell that they really did pull nearly all of the stops when they designed it.
The Dial-A-Temp rotary dial is missing the stationary red indicator line that you would rotate the dial so that your selection was on the line. Don’t forget Mercury also had this same setup for 58-60 and called it Climate-Dial. I love this setup so much that I have the Dial-A-Temp’s disk face hanging from my keychain.
I've always thought that the biggest problem with the Edsel was it's position in the lineup. Mercury was introduced for the 1938 model year to compete with the Pontiac, GM's lower mid range car. The Edsel needed to be an upper mid range car to compete with Buick and Oldsmobile. People thought of Mercury as a Pontiac equivalent, so was Edsel a Ford plus or Mercury minus. There was no room between Ford and Mercury, but a huge gap between Mercury and Lincoln.
My god, i bet any part for this car is hell to find, imagine cracking those toggle switches made of bakelite!! my little hot rod is 35 years old and i have a blast (sarcasm) everytime i need parts, couldn't imagine something like this, on another note, what a gorgeous car, that aint no pickle, thats a bomb!
I love your videos, all produced very professionally, and what a great voice for narration. This video is one of my favorites! I've always been intrigued by the branding of my cars, small and "not-so-small" Cadillac emblems everywhere. But it's ironic that Ford chose to put those Edsel-emblazened "Horse-collars" all over the car, as that hideous grill was perhaps the biggest reason the Edsel failed!!! Just hysterical! 😁
In 1975, I looked at a 1958 4 door Edsel with 70k miles on it (like the one in this video). It had the typewriter transmission actuation. It was for sale for $850 and was in nice decent running condition. I passed on it.
The two doors and convertibles really weren’t that bad of looking cars considering what other manufacturers were doing with the fin age of cars . Would like to see more of that wagon up close, can’t recall ever seeing one in the wild.
Another interesting and informative video.. This channel has become essential. I also liked a lot the speed alert red light. What do you think of doing a video about Edsel's performance (acceleration, speed)? I read somewhere that these cars weren't precisely slow despite their bad reputation, and considering the time and weight. These MELs are powerhouses. 2:52 And man, that's a beautiful door.
Similarly to the wagon taillights you mentioned at the end the taillights on some modern mini’s have the same effect of pointing in the opposite direction of the indicated turn.
Robert McNamera also ordered the end of the hardtop convertible Skyliner. He called them gimmicks. They only lasted 3 years 57, 58, 59. Although there was persistent problems with the operation of the 17 relay motors that operated the roof and trunk lid.
That seat switch is very interesting. And I think you have a point about fitting your arm between the seat and the door. I have noticed my friends 2018 GMC Acadia that the front seats narrower and I than thought they should be in a car of that particular size. This does allow ample room for me to fit my arm between the seat and the door. Maybe that's why they did it. I'm an average size and my arm is relatively thin so even in other cars I don't even have an issue fitting my arm between the seat and the door.
Was the "tele touch" button mechanism from the same supplier that made the similar system that was in 1956 Packards and similarly afflicted with failure to shift out of "Park" when there was torque load on the drivetrain? (Requiring that you get another vehicle to push yours slightly uphill thus relieving the torque load on the parking pawl in the transmission which would allow the buttons to shift out of "Park") The Lincoln engine option would have been an argument for buying an Edsel but I think all of them came with automatic transmission and the unsatisfactory "tele touch" push button shifting--the biggest reason why Edsel failed? you could have minimized the chance of getting stuck when parking on a hill by setting the parking brake hard and then allowing the car to roll against the parking brake before pushing the "Park" button--but if upon returning to the car you forgot and let the parking brake off before pushing the "Drive" or "Reverse" button you were stuck anyway?
I don't know how the Edsel's infamous grill came to be, but the 1950-1959 Alfa Romeo 1900 had a similar front end. Overall the latter design is more appealing.
The greatest irony of all is that the 1960 Edsel's grille was restyled at the last minute to resemble the 1959 Pontiac...and by 1968, the full-size Pontiac grille was a virtual copy of the 1959 Edsel
I would Imagine what Edsel would've looked like during the Muscle car era of the mid to late 60s and early 70s had Edsel survived and kept using the Split Grill design like Pontiac back in 1960?
I prefer the speed alert to signal as red Amber as opposed to what GM offered during that that time period Which was a loud buzzing noise on reaching a set speed
I love the 58 Edsels, being from my birth year. I don't think they deserved the ridicule that they got, there were other cars that were much worse in terms of styling. I think they got a bit too far ahead of their customers.
The only thing I ever thought was hideous on 58 and 59 models was that horse collar grill. The rest of the car was nice. I remember quite a few in the mid to late 80's that were under $500 for an otherwise nice low mileage car. That grill will still have people scratching their heads in a hundred years.
6:21 That speedometer looks like one of those compasses with the N-S-E-W drum floating in a half-filled chamber. Are the lever switches really Bakelite? They look more like polystyrene or some other modern plastic. Bakelite (aka. Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride) typically contained fillers for strength and had a dark internal color; it was often painted whatever color the designer ordered. It was very brittle and considered obsolete for most moderate-temperature applications (like radio cases) by 1958.
I can remember people laughing at Hudsons and Studebakers from the fifties with their pasted-on fins, and Mopar used it on their '56 wagons in some lines. But, of course this Edsel wagon was just an attempt to disguise the round Ford taillights and they added that little 'skeg line' piece to the lower part of the boomerang. A neighbor of ours in the early sixties had one of these and I loved those taillights. Great video!
@@ValdezJu Charles Phoenix gets some cool cars on his channel. The 1960 Ford has the reputation of being the worst assembled Ford of all time.
I'm 22 and a 1958 Edsel Bermuda is my dream car,
I think we all need more of these old car styling & feature oddity videos.. Thanks Adam
Yep like the 1948-50 Packards. They called them inverted bathtubs or pregnant elephants but I loved those cars.
Went with my Dad back in September of 57 and came home with a 58 Edsel Bermuda 9 passenger wagon. We traded a beautiful 55 Bel Air v8 coupe. In 61 with about 75k on the clock, the Teletouch selector was having intermittent communication with the relay and the shift motor. The fix was to pull the Teletouch shaft in the steering column and clean the contact rings, apply dielectric grease and reassemble by ten year old me. No more issues. The "Big E", as my Dad liked to call it, was traded for a new 63 Impala convertible.
Some nice choices in cars.
I would have cried if my Dad traded a ‘55 V-8 BelAir for an Edsel !!!
@@sking2173 My Ma did. She made my Dad drive by the dealership every Sunday until it was sold.
Did you find your parents ever had to press Neutral between pressing Drive and Reverse as the video mentioned? I also read somewhere the shifting motor was initially not well protected from the elements or the exhaust pipe and those could make the motor fail.
@@friendofdorothy9376 A couple times before I serviced it you had to go back and forth from neutral to reverse until the motor got the proper signal from the relay.
First car I ever drove was Mom's 1958 Edsel Pacer. I'd ridden in that car since I was three or four. Dad got it as a repo from the finance company he worked for. A guy in high school had a triple white 1958 convertible. Say what you want about the styling, that convertible was a gorgeous car.
The 58 Citation shown is a beautiful car, and you're correct, the speedo is the coolest ever designed and produced...I love the Edsel, always have, the 2-door is badass ride...👍🇺🇸
1958 Edsel wagons had the coolest taillights EVER.
They look sharp in my 1958 Edsel Desperado Ranchero.
This is an excellent tutorial to prepare me for the arrival of a '58 Pacer convertible that I purchased last week.
My compliments to whoever restored and detailed that car , amazing work.
Edsels are so cool!!! Back in the seventies one of my buddies had a 58 Edsel Citation with the typewriter transmission buttons in the center of the steering & the 475 wide block V8!! It was a real attention getter!!! Thanks Adam for featuring it!!! 👍👍🙂
I'm sure if you have a 58 Edsel today, you can't pull over to a highway rest stop or even buy gas without it being an instant car show with dozens of people gathered round.
They wasn’t cool back in the day but super cool now
Even though they were criticized for the grill, 58 Edsel's had pretty clean styling compared to other 58 models. Especially the magic mushroom styling of the 58 Lincoln. I would love to have a 58 Pacer convertible.
Compared to many '58s the Edsel is nice looking, in my eyes
@JW
How 'bout a 70s AMC Pacer?
Magic Mushroom??
Put a 58 Lincoln next to a 58 Cadillac or 58 Buick & it looks clean & modern. It also looks perfect with the modern architecture of that era & no other 1958 car does.
Go look at a Isamu Nagouchi coffee table and maybe you'll get it. It's all about Mid Century Modern.
I almost consider it an underrated design.
@@paulpeterson4311; They wanted it long and low, they achieved that goal, but made it extra low in my opinion by having it ride on 14's.
Edsel, Edsel, Edsel,...If most people knew to whom it was dedicated to. An honorary salut in the very least. It was well built. He was a good man and only son to Henry Ford. Cheers to Edsel 🥂
His name also lives on at the high school I graduated from in Dearborn, MI -- EFHS.
Side note: the school mascot/sports teams are called The Thunderbirds.
Edsel Ford was a genius, so sad he passed away so early; imagine the things the man could have done in a long life.
Edsel Ford was the brains behind the company but sadly his father overruled him many times. At least he brought three sons into the world to keep the company going (it nearly went bankrupt in 1948)
The tire howl in the ad is hilarious! And that J turn - wow.
I have a 1959 Edsel Ranger. 223 L6 with a three speed and the mirror featured in the video. That's actually the dealer option mirror, and is kind of rare. The standard mirror looked very similar to other ford mirrors. The big block V8's were all FE (Ford Edsel) blocks, also available were the 223 L6, and 292 Y block V8. The FE block ended up living on into the late 60's early 70's. The 427 in the GT40's that won LeMans was an FE. As was the 428. Great video, I'm glad to see my Edsel's finally getting some love.
My favorite part is the greenhouse, this era car had so much work in assembling and creating the trim etc. curved windshields are very cool.
The Ranger and Pacer were available with stick shift, 3-speed on the column, but are very rare. A conventional shifter was also standard on these cars with automatic. Push button drive was optional, but standard on Citation and Corsair. My dream Edsel is a red Pacer convertible with stick shift. You could get it but I wonder if anyone bought a Pacer so equipped? By ordering the Ranger or Pacer without the push button drive you eliminated a lot of potential problems. I assume the wagons were also available with stick as they were made on the smaller Ford platform.
The era when you could tell what car it was from a distance 😊
My Uncle wqs a FORD dealer in NJ between 1948 and 1971. He said at the time that the Edsel was a pretty good car - and it didn't fail because of styling. FORD wanted the dealers to build stand-alone showrooms for the Edsel or they wouldn't allocate the cars. The dealers were hopping made and most refused to commit to the expense. FORD's plan to create a new brand died quickly thereafter.
Sounds like they may be making the same mistake with EVs
Anybody translated this to English?
So very interesting to learn all that…from someone who was there at the time.
Huh?
Most dealers that I’ve seen, have the electric cars right next to the conventional ones.
What’s with Ford being all in caps?
I'm 64yo now, but when I was a kid I remember that distinctive Edsel grill coming down the street in front of my house in Jackson Michigan.....I can actually still 'see' it in my mind....
Adam, thank you for this video. I love the Edsel automobile especially the 1958 models!
My uncle had a 1958 Edsel Pacer 4-door hardtop, two-tone red and black. While I thought the front grille was cool, it was the taillights that made me wonder! The '58 Edsel rear end has that "extraterrestrial" vibe going on. Being stuck in traffic behind a '58 Edsel was truly creepy.
Outstanding tailights, eerie feeling, i agree
My uncle bought a new Edsel Corsair two door hardtop and kept it until 1965. I never heard of him having any trouble with the Teletouch.
Thank you so much!!! I own an Edsel and had another many years ago. Love these cars!!!
That was VERY, VERY, INTERESTING!!!! MORE PLEASE, MORE VIDEOS OF THESE GREAT CARS!!!!
I really enjoyed seeing these Edsel features in detail. Adam. Thank you for featuring them!
Thank you for this very thoughtful overview. A couple of additional branding examples include the "E" hood ornament as well as E's centered inside both spinner and "dog-dish" hubcaps. More subtle is the use of concentric circles in the steering wheel hub mirroring those used in Edsel's advertising logo. Green pickle medallions grace both C pillars on Citation and Corsair 2 and 4 door hardtops and Pacer 4 door hardtops. The floor mat of the driver's side has an embossed E. Models without the optional speed warning light would have an E replacing the speed dial. Edsel actually had it's own product line in '58 that included at least15 different items like brake fluid, windshield washer fluid, etc. Most of these were packaged in green cans ( a few in bottles) with the amazing E logo. I've loved this car since I first laid eyes on one at the ripe old age of three.
I never thought I'd see an Edsel pulling a Rockford!
When my dad was a teen, he worked at a factory which made those public rest room toilet seats ... which at the factory they called "horse collars."
Next, we have the Edsel, and lo-and-behold, the grill is a horse collar!!
What could go wrong?
I always liked these cars
I love that speedometer. And the push button trans in the steering wheel. Cigarette lighter was cool also. And the gullwing tail lights.
Adam this is your best review yet. I didn't know any of those hilarious and awesome design features, esp the Edsel battery! Those must be extremely rare today.
I would have to believe the batteries and windshield washer jars MUST be rare!!
I love my 58 Edsel sedan. It is the Pacer model and it is finished in a strange purple brown - a bit like the underside of a mushroom (not sure what it was called?). It has a white roof and white side scallops. No power steering which is actually easy to use and has reasonable feel. I love the tele-touch and the flying saucer style speedo. It has a period aftermarket air conditioner that still has the original “Kool King” sticker on the glass.
I bet the color is called Charcoal Brown Iridescent.
Thank you 👍
@@markbehr88 It’s such an interesting color I must say. From one Edsel lover to another. 👍
I’ll have to put it up on my channel one day.
I like the car's styling. I'm a bit quirky so there's that similarity.
Robert McNamara, the president of Ford at the time, ordered the end of Edsel very early into the 1960 model year. Due to the slow sales of Lincoln models in the late 1950s, he was seriously considering canceling Lincoln as well. His ultimate goal was for the FoMoCo to offer just one brand - Ford - as a cost saving measure. Fortunately, he left Ford to become JFK’s Secretary of Defense before making it a reality.
And aided the US into entering the Vietnam conflict.
Thank god that dull and ordinary penny pincher left ford I’m still convinced that if he woulda stayed and had only falcons built there’d be no ford today
@@74rockon
True, but if he had stayed at Ford there would have possibly been fewer American lives lost fighting for a worthless cause in Vietnam.
Cool tour. 😊
Not a fan of Edsel styling, but the example in this video certainly was well-optioned and in great shape. Those wagon tail lights remind me of a 50's version of the 2016 - 2019 (or so) Prius - another car with controversial styling.
Thanks Adam, I always learn something from each of yours videos.
The most recent model of the Mini has Union Jack taillights- within which the turn signals also pointed the wrong direction! They appear to have since remedied that error.
My favorite video that you've done and they are all so good. I love the Edsel - what a sad venture for FoMoCo because it really was one of their coolest cars ever besides the 1957 T-Bird , The Sun Valley full sized Fords, Park Lane station wagon and the 1956 Continental‼
One of the cars I’ve considered owning. I test drove a ‘64 Ninety Eight in the mid-‘90s and decided against the purchase because of the “jerky-jerky” transmission. Thanks for this review and please include more cars from the 1960s, especially the full-sized, luxury makes as the “pony cars” already receive more than enough attention.
Just like a boat on the road! Love it
I had a 58 Edsel Citation, the push button shifter even worked. It was like piloting the Queen Mary while sitting on a overstuffed 70's brown and orange couch.....
Great visual description.
@@70sleftover Gotta love the "Overstuffed brown and orange couch." lol
@@jetsons101 That sounded like a '70s color combo more than '50s, but then, I don't recall ever seeing an Edsel growing up, until maybe the early 1980s (somewhere in my neighborhood there was one '58 sitting in a driveway, looking pretty dead). I would have loved trying out a pushbutton transmission. All I recall experiencing back when I was a kid was my neighbor's early '60s Dodge station wagon. Those buttons and lack of a gear shift fascinated me.
@@70sleftover I had the Edsel in the early 80's and there were still plenty of brown and orange couches to go around. lol
Fascinating!
Those were unique cars.
Edsels are undervalued.
My grandfather was an Edsel dealer (and Mercury). I used to have a bunch of Edsel-related pics and promo stuff. Alas, over six decades, they have gone missing.
Very few parts interchangeable between 'the Junior '58 Ranger/Pacer on the Ford body, and the senior '58 Citation/Corsair series on the Mercury body, although to the casual eye they look alike.
The Junior versions are pretty broadly understood as a better overall choice today
Love your vids, I wonder if you could make a story about this phenomenon: In around 1970 I went on a trip to Turkey, I found that there were many (old) US models used as taxis. Apparently, the US buyers always wanted the latest models, this generated a surplus of used cars which many were shifted to poorer countries and maintained indefinitely. When entering such a taxi in turkey, the taxi driver would then wait for more passengers to fill his car.
The practice of taxis filling their cars with other passengers is common throughout the developing and third world countries to this day.
Yes, I enjoyed this 58 Edsel feature very much!
I like the character of this car, even with the "tele touch" transmission. It didn't work well.
Thanks for adding to my UA-cam history of this brand.
Really cool car! Thanks.
That is an insane amount of tire squealing. Heavy car on skinny bias ply tires. That MEL engine and tranny had some serious poundage.
It's too bad about Edsel. If you look at a 58 Edsel and a 58 Merc, can you actually say the Edsel is uglier? Totally agree Adam, that speed alert light is beyond cool! Excellent vid, as always! Are you familiar with Jay at "What it's like"? He's a kid with a passion for "unusual" cars! I think if you, Ed of EAR, Jay, and Bill from "Curious Cars" in Naples teamed up, you guys would be the new "Big 4"!
I’m not. But Ed and I have met up. Great guy.
This one is educational for me; it makes me appreciate them more than a bit more.
When I see these Edsels, I can’t help but be reminded of the Family Truckster from the first “Vacation” movie …
Green was Edsels "corporate" color. All the dealership signage was green which explains the pickle.
Out of the three Edsels swerving to a stop the first guy was left handed the rest right handed.
I had a 59 Edsel Ranger , still have the grill , front bumpers , mirror, speedo gauge cluster . Use them for display on my shed ! Look’s great too !
But the thing that jogged a memory was the HVAC control on the right. The '56 Plymouths had two rotary HVAC controls on the passenger side of the dash. Far from the driver. The position was to make the dash symmetrical balanced. The '55 was worse though - two of the engine gauges were in those two spots!
I haven't looked but I bet there are photos. I'm going to look.
The best part of the video was in my opinion was saved for last. The rear of the station wagon version of the Edsel. 🤣
The inspiration for Clark Griswold’s Family Truckster, what with all the gaudy wood trim and those cheesy tail lights …
And all FoMoCo had to do was make that horse collar portion of the grill much less prominent, and come up with a less unappealing name, and that division might've stuck around for more than three model years... You can tell that they really did pull nearly all of the stops when they designed it.
The speedometer reminds me of a compass you find on small craft. I thought the mid sixties Volvo 'red worm' speedometer was odd.
Nice job on this one ☝🏻
Very good. The only thing you missed was the 2 banks of warning lights on each side if the lowed dash.
The Dial-A-Temp rotary dial is missing the stationary red indicator line that you would rotate the dial so that your selection was on the line.
Don’t forget Mercury also had this same setup for 58-60 and called it Climate-Dial. I love this setup so much that I have the Dial-A-Temp’s disk face hanging from my keychain.
Lincoln, not Mercury.
My mother had a friend who had a 58 I don't know what happened to it
My mother had a friend who had a 58 I don't know what happened to it
@@erneststaino2254Actually both Mercury and Lincoln had a version of the “one dial does it all”.
Oh, the body roll of American land yachts!
As those cars skidded to a stop in the opening sequence, you could see the cars swaying as if their shock absorbers had already been worn out!
@@gcfifthgear yes, I noticed that too.
I've always thought that the biggest problem with the Edsel was it's position in the lineup. Mercury was introduced for the 1938 model year to compete with the Pontiac, GM's lower mid range car. The Edsel needed to be an upper mid range car to compete with Buick and Oldsmobile. People thought of Mercury as a Pontiac equivalent, so was Edsel a Ford plus or Mercury minus. There was no room between Ford and Mercury, but a huge gap between Mercury and Lincoln.
I saw a station wagon from the rear end on Leave It to Beaver the other day and I couldn’t identify it. Now I know it was an Edsel😊 Mystery solved.
My god, i bet any part for this car is hell to find, imagine cracking those toggle switches made of bakelite!! my little hot rod is 35 years old and i have a blast (sarcasm) everytime i need parts, couldn't imagine something like this, on another note, what a gorgeous car, that aint no pickle, thats a bomb!
When the speed alert option was not selected, in its place was yet another “E” on a chrome disk.
My dad had a 58 he bought it new. It has the biggest engine with a very peculiar carburation.
I love your videos, all produced very professionally, and what a great voice for narration. This video is one of my favorites! I've always been intrigued by the branding of my cars, small and "not-so-small" Cadillac emblems everywhere. But it's ironic that Ford chose to put those Edsel-emblazened "Horse-collars" all over the car, as that hideous grill was perhaps the biggest reason the Edsel failed!!! Just hysterical! 😁
Thx!
Most people thought the grill looked like a certain part of female anatomy.
I like the 1958 edsel.
Nice 😀
This is Jonathan Ward level styling.
In 1975, I looked at a 1958 4 door Edsel with 70k miles on it (like the one in this video). It had the typewriter transmission actuation. It was for sale for $850 and was in nice decent running condition. I passed on it.
The two doors and convertibles really weren’t that bad of looking cars considering what other manufacturers were doing with the fin age of cars . Would like to see more of that wagon up close, can’t recall ever seeing one in the wild.
Yes, a video about the Edsel Bermuda!
Another interesting and informative video.. This channel has become essential. I also liked a lot the speed alert red light. What do you think of doing a video about Edsel's performance (acceleration, speed)? I read somewhere that these cars weren't precisely slow despite their bad reputation, and considering the time and weight. These MELs are powerhouses. 2:52 And man, that's a beautiful door.
The 430 MEL engine was also available in the 59 & 60 Thunderbirds
The taillights on the wagon were a variation of the 57 Ford taillights. Ford never did put its '58 taillights on their wagons.
Similarly to the wagon taillights you mentioned at the end the taillights on some modern mini’s have the same effect of pointing in the opposite direction of the indicated turn.
I've noticed that on the newer Minis. I think it was intended to evoke the stripes of the Union Jack.
Robert McNamera also ordered the end of the hardtop convertible Skyliner. He called them gimmicks.
They only lasted 3 years 57, 58, 59.
Although there was persistent problems with the operation of the 17 relay motors that operated the roof and trunk lid.
That seat switch is very interesting. And I think you have a point about fitting your arm between the seat and the door. I have noticed my friends 2018 GMC Acadia that the front seats narrower and I
than thought they should be in a car of that particular size. This does allow ample room for me to fit my arm between the seat and the door. Maybe that's why they did it. I'm an average size and my arm is relatively thin so even in other cars I don't even have an issue fitting my arm between the seat and the door.
Was the "tele touch" button mechanism from the same supplier that made the similar system that was in 1956 Packards and similarly afflicted with failure to shift out of "Park" when there was torque load on the drivetrain? (Requiring that you get another vehicle to push yours slightly uphill thus relieving the torque load on the parking pawl in the transmission which would allow the buttons to shift out of "Park")
The Lincoln engine option would have been an argument for buying an Edsel but I think all of them came with automatic transmission and the unsatisfactory "tele touch" push button shifting--the biggest reason why Edsel failed?
you could have minimized the chance of getting stuck when parking on a hill by setting the parking brake hard and then allowing the car to roll against the parking brake before pushing the "Park" button--but if upon returning to the car you forgot and let the parking brake off before pushing the "Drive" or "Reverse" button you were stuck anyway?
Those push button shifters from the late-50’s/early-60’s were just a gimmick …
Ive always preferred these over the Chevys of the time.
'58 Chevies are becoming more popular than they used to be
I love that car the 58 is my pick
The whole car is Strange, Cool & Quirky.
I don't know how the Edsel's infamous grill came to be, but the 1950-1959 Alfa Romeo 1900 had a similar front end. Overall the latter design is more appealing.
The greatest irony of all is that the 1960 Edsel's grille was restyled at the last minute to resemble the 1959 Pontiac...and by 1968, the full-size Pontiac grille was a virtual copy of the 1959 Edsel
Yeah, I wonder how many accidents were caused by that turn signal light configuration? LOL!
I would Imagine what Edsel would've looked like during the Muscle car era of the mid to late 60s and early 70s had Edsel survived and kept using the Split Grill design like Pontiac back in 1960?
I know it was a flop, but the kid version of me thought it was beautiful. The frame at 0:51 makes my adult-self continue to agreee.
I prefer the speed alert to signal as red Amber as opposed to what GM offered during that that time period Which was a loud buzzing noise on reaching a set speed
That irritating buzz was very effective. I liked the idea …
Just looked up this product and saw that GM called this product the “Buick safety minder”
I love the 58 Edsels, being from my birth year. I don't think they deserved the ridicule that they got, there were other cars that were much worse in terms of styling. I think they got a bit too far ahead of their customers.
Im a 58 too and I agree with your assessment
All that Edsel only parts cost the consumer a bundle
It looks a lot like a Pontiac to me.
My first car a 58 Edsel Ranger bought in 68 for 450.00 kept it until 20 yrs ago. Always loved the styling of the 58.
The only thing I ever thought was hideous on 58 and 59 models was that horse collar grill. The rest of the car was nice. I remember quite a few in the mid to late 80's that were under $500 for an otherwise nice low mileage car. That grill will still have people scratching their heads in a hundred years.
No straight guys scratch their heads over that grille …
@@rogergoodman8665 - What are you, Rog ? Gay, eunuch, or simply a virgin ??
@@rogergoodman8665 - Now I see … You’re gay …
I understand why the grille offends you.
@@sking2173 : 😆🤣
“Horse collar” is the polite term; this is a ‘family channel’
I think there was a Tri-Power intake option for the Lincolns with that engine.
6:21 That speedometer looks like one of those compasses with the N-S-E-W drum floating in a half-filled chamber. Are the lever switches really Bakelite? They look more like polystyrene or some other modern plastic. Bakelite (aka. Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride) typically contained fillers for strength and had a dark internal color; it was often painted whatever color the designer ordered. It was very brittle and considered obsolete for most moderate-temperature applications (like radio cases) by 1958.
I noticed that the hood was hinged at the front - other Fords had at the time.
If you were around back when they introduced the Edsel, they might have turned into a success! (I'll take 2, please...)
I love the '58 Edsel. I think it's a good looking car. Maybe I wouldn't have at the time, I don't know. But I sure like it now.