Ford also insisted that, in the Edsels, it had built exactly the "entirely new kind of car" that Ford had been leading the buying public to expect through its pre-introduction publicity campaign for the cars.
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For months, Ford had been telling the industry press that it "knew" (through its market research) that there would be great demand for the vehicles. They were also promoted by a top-rated television special, The Edsel Show, on October 13, but the promotional effort was not enough to counter the adverse initial public reaction to Edsel styling and unconventional build.Īfter the launch date, Edsel was described as a "reborn LaSalle," a General Motors brand that had disappeared in 1940. With a network of 1,187 Edsel dealers, Ford Motor Company now had approximately 10,000 dealerships between its three divisions, bringing it closer in line with Chrysler (10,000 dealers across four brands) and General Motors (16,000 across six brands).Įdsels were introduced amid considerable publicity on "E Day"-September 4, 1957. In November 1956, the Edsel Division of Ford Motor Company was formed to establish a retail organization and dealer network, alongside Ford and Lincoln-Mercury (the Continental Division had ceased to exist several months earlier). Ford assured its investors, and the Detroit automotive press, that Edsels were not only superior products (as compared to their Oldsmobile/Buick/DeSoto competition), but the details of their styling and specifications were the result of a sophisticated market analysis and research and development effort that would essentially guarantee their broad acceptance by the buying public when the cars were introduced. The proposed vehicle marque would represent the start-up of a new division of the firm alongside that of Ford itself and the Lincoln- Mercury division, whose cars at the time shared the same bodies.įord later claimed to have performed more than adequate, if not superior, product development and market research work in the planning and design of the new vehicle. Ford, son of the company's founder, Henry Ford (despite objections from Henry Ford II ).
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Marketing research and development for the new intermediate line had begun in 1955 under the code name "E car", which stood for "experimental car." Ford Motor Company eventually decided on the name "Edsel", in honor of Edsel B. Ford developed a plan to move Lincoln upmarket, with the Continental broken out as a separate make at the top of Ford's product line, and to add premium/intermediate vehicles to the intermediate slot vacated by Lincoln.
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Ford's new management compared the company's roster of makes with that of General Motors and Chrysler, and concluded that Lincoln was competing not with Cadillac, but with Oldsmobile, Buick, and DeSoto. The company was now able to sell cars according to current market trends following the sellers' market of the postwar years.
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While 1958 Edsels would introduce multiple advanced features for its price segment, the launch of the model line would become symbolic of commercial failure. In the year leading to its release, Ford invested in an advertising campaign, marketing Edsels as the cars of the future. Established as an expansion of the Lincoln-Mercury Division to three brands (re-christened the Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln Division), Edsel shared a price range with Mercury the division shared its bodies with both Mercury and Ford.Ĭompeting against Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Dodge, and DeSoto, Edsel was the first new brand introduced by an American automaker since the 1939 launch of Mercury. Deriving its name from Edsel Ford, son of company founder Henry Ford, Edsels were developed in an effort to give Ford a fourth brand to gain additional market share from Chrysler and General Motors. For other uses, see Edsel (disambiguation).Įdsel was a brand of automobile that was marketed by the Ford Motor Company from the 1958 to the 1960 model years.