(EXPANDED FROM 6/26/2020)
Disaster in Dearborn: The Story of the Edsel is paradoxical. On the one hand, this is a serious history book — unlike so many of the coffee-table decorations that populate the big-box bookstores. On the other hand, Thomas E. Bonsall’s conclusions about the Edsel were grounded in 1950s-style auto industry groupthink. Fortunately, he held back his most problematic opinions until near the end of this 230-page book.
The best quality of Disaster in Dearborn is that it balances research rigor with accessibility. Fellow automotive historians will appreciate Bonsall’s inclusion of endnotes, while lay readers may enjoy his engaging writing style and a fair number of black-and-white photographs. Some of the most interesting images are of proposed designs, some of which could lead you to think, “If only . . . .”
The book’s “pracademic” format is presumably a reflection of its publisher, the Stanford University Press. Before Bonsall died in 2008 at the age of 61, he published a number of automotive books through this university, including about Studebaker and Lincoln. These books offer considerably more robust analysis than earlier works by Bonsall, such as the rather buffy Pontiac: The Complete History 1926-1979 (1979).
Bonsall shed light on Ford’s highly political culture
A major goal of Disaster in Dearborn was to show how the byzantine political dynamics within the Ford Motor Company so heavily colored the direction — and ultimately the failure — of the Edsel.
For example, Bonsall suggested that one of the first nails in the Edsel’s coffin was Ford Division head Robert McNamara insisting that the two-seater Thunderbird be upsized to a four seater. This led to both the T-Bird and Lincoln getting a unitized body and being built in the same plant.
Also see ‘1958-60 Lincoln: Failing to beat GM at its own game’
This unraveled the plan for Mercury to go upmarket by sharing a body with Lincoln. Bonsall noted, “This problem would be especially acute for the E-Car, which was heavily dependent upon assuming much of the traditional Mercury customer base” (p. 136).
Bonsall painted McNamara in a largely negative light. For example, he described the Whiz Kid as a “master at killing things through devious means” (p. 139). Disaster in Dearborn offered evidence that McNamara, once elevated to executive vice president in May 1957, stated that the Edsel would be discontinued even before the brand was launched. The Edsel’s future may have been determined as early as December 1957, when McNamara announced a 1960-61 body interchangeability plan that consigned the brand to being a modestly revised Ford.
Bonsall thought Ford should have kept the Edsel alive
Disaster in Dearborn includes an admirable level of detail in diagnosing why the Edsel didn’t do better in the marketplace. However, Bonsall insisted that “the 1958 Edsel was actually a modest success that deserved continued support” (p. 204).
The author argued that the Edsel might have survived if it had been kept in production long enough for the Comet to be introduced later in the 1960 model year. The larger version of the compact Falcon had originally been planned to be offered as a junior Edsel (go here for a Bonsall quote on that topic).
Also see ‘Lee Iacocca got lucky with the 1964-66 Ford Mustang’
In other words, his analysis was grounded in 1950s-style groupthink regarding the value of a large, GM-like stable of brands. Richard Langworth and James Flammang (1992) offered a more realistic perspective in suggesting that the Edsel’s failure was a blessing in disguise because it saved Ford from experiencing General Motors’ more recent struggles with fielding too many brands.
A good book — if you keep an eye on the author’s biases
The key to reading Disaster in Dearborn is to pay attention to Bonsall’s biases — and ask yourself whether they make sense given the evidence provided. As a case in point, I think he was too hard to McNamara, who was correct in viewing the Edsel as an evolutionary wrong turn. Even so, I appreciate Bonsall’s detailed historical research and engaging storytelling skills.
Disaster in Dearborn: The Story of the Edsel
- Thomas E. Bonsall; 2002
- Stanford General Books, Stanford, CA
“Particular attention has been given to the internal politics of Ford Motor Company at the time. Back then, Ford was the most ‘political’ of the car companies, with well-entrenched factions vying daily for control. A key reason for the ultimate failure of the Edsel program was the corrosive effect upon it by the intramural warfare between these factions. Of course, most of this was unintentional; no one within the company wanted a major disaster. Today, we would call it collateral damage but the cumulative effect was devastating.” (p. 4)
“While in its final throes, the design still underwent several last-minute changes. These included lowering the bumper pods. In early versions the pods rode higher with sheet metal lower panels, similar to the 1965 Ford Mustang. The center grille was also widened. Initially, the theme called for a much narrower grille section than was actually built, but it was widened for engine cooling. Finally, the headlamp pods were redesigned. In the early design phases, the E-Car had been tentatively scheduled for the 1957 model year. As the project moved on, however, the final release date was set for the 1958 model run when there was talk of switching over from the traditional single headlights to dual headlights. The problem was left undecided until the very end of the design process, though. This indecision required headlight pods and fenders to be wide enough to accept dual headlights and tall enough to accept the larger single headlights.” (p. 89)
“Of the 1,468 remaining Edsel dealers, all but two were dualed with either Ford or Lincoln-Mercury by that point, and so could soldier on with relatively little inconvenience. As for Ford Motor Company, of the $250 million invested in the Edsel program, perhaps a (sic) much as $150 million went into plants and facilities that remained assets to the company. It was estimated that operational losses during the life of the Edsel cost the company around $100 million, making a final loss of around $200 million, or more than $1,800 per car.” (p. 174)
OTHER REVIEWS:
EH.net | Cambridge Core | Chicago Tribune | mustangandfords.com | Amazon | Goodreads
RE:SOURCES
- Bonsall, Thomas E.; 1979. Pontiac: The Complete History 1926-1979. Bookman Dan! Baltimore, MD.
- Langworth, Richard M. and James Flammang; 1992. Great American Automobiles of the 60s. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES
- oldcaradvertising.com: Edsel (1958)
This is an expanded version of a review that was originally posted April 22, 2013 and updated on June 26, 2020.
This unraveled the plan for Mercury to go upmarket by sharing a body with Lincoln. Bonsall noted, “This problem would be especially acute for the E-Car, which was heavily dependent upon assuming much of the traditional Mercury customer base” (p. 136). It is always very risky trying to push a brand upmarket. Is this why they hived off continental into a full line separate brand, with Lincoln filling the intended Mercury slot?
My sense is that Lincoln, which had hovered between the premium and luxury classes during the early-50s, was moved up to compete more directly against Cadillac. Meanwhile, the 1955-57 Continental Mark II was positioned well above the high-volume Cadillacs. For 1958-60 the Continental’s prices were significantly reduced to compete with the top-end, high-volume Cadillacs. Ironically, those cars sold relatively well — and presumably gave Ford the courage to price the 1961 Continental similarly (go here for further discussion).
Even if the mid-1957 recession had never occurred, the adding of two divisions to FoMoCo would have been a failure long-term. In 1952, Ford had three good and different cars in the Ford, the Mercury and the Lincoln, although perhaps the overlap of the Mercury and the Lincoln was too close. Ford rightly focused its energies on improving the engineering of their cars between 1952 and 1954…engines, suspensions, tighter body structures than the 1949-1951 cars, etc. If the 1955 refresh of Lincoln had occurred in 1954, maybe the a few more Lincolns would have sold. A redesigned Lincoln in 1955 (not the 1957 redesign) with a more stately appearance (more like an understated 1956 Buick Roadmaster 75 coupe and hardtop sedan) might have put Lincoln in a more competitive situation versus Cadillac. As interesting as the Continental Mark IIs and the Cadillac Eldorado Broughams were, only the Mark II established a design inspiration that resulted in the incredible 1961 redesign. Chrysler ran out of design ideas with DeSoto after 1955 and 1956. How Harley Earl could keep the plates successfully spinning with FIVE divisions at G.M. into the 1960s (with the help of Bill Mitchell) is amazing. McNamara was right, but the car was already “in production” by its press unveiling. I think the Edsel planning negatively impacted the details of the over-styled (“Dream Car Design” ?) 1957-1958 Mercurys and the horrendously gross 1958-1960 Lincolns. Ford had winners in the 1957 Ford and the 1958-1960 Thunderbirds. I read that the only good news of the demise of the Edsel was that it gave Ford the capacity to produce over 400,000 Ford Falcons in model-year 1960 and later that spring, the Comet, without additional manufacturing capacity.
“How Harley Earl could keep the plates successfully spinning with FIVE divisions at G.M. into the 1960s (with the help of Bill Mitchell) is amazing.”
There was a real difference in philosophy between GM and Ford that allowed this differentiation. GM spent the money for bodyside tooling and at least some variations in roofs to ensure there were distinctly different appearances for the brands. Whether as a cost issue or just underlying philosophical difference Ford did not share this approach.
Harley Earl, as continued by Mitchell, kept the design studios separate so each studio was not seeing what the others were doing. Only the senior level design management had that privilege. Ford’s studios were not separated (nor were Chrysler’s) so there was a tendency to homogenize the designs even when they were supposed to be separate efforts.
The review of this book at eh.net states that if you hate robert mcnamara, you are going to like this book. It states that mcnamara helped create the Edsel. 😳
For those who are interested in reading the review, the link is here. The review’s author, Thomas R. Winpenny, was listed as teaching history at Elizabethtown College. He has also published a number of books sold at Amazon.com. So how did he get Bonsall’s book wrong in such basic ways?
The popular reason for the failure of the Edsel was its looks. Truth is that the design was no worse, and in some ways, better than the competition. The “design disaster, lemon sucker” was pushed by a few auto reviewers after the fact and then picked up by others who had little knowledge of the Ford internal politics as stated in the book. A modern-day example was the panning of the Pontiac Vibe, no worse than many others, check out the Nissan Juke.
I do generally agree that the Edsel was not horrible yet it still did suffer from a typical Ford design/styling issue that goes straight to their VP of Styling, George Walker. In his interview http://autolife.umd.umich.edu/Design/Walker/walkeri.htm he describes his philosophy of placating the constituency of senior execs by incorporating their favored detail. That may have been good for his own political standing but it made some of his cars (Dream Look Mercuries and the 1958-1960 Lincolns are best examples) lack cohessiveness. [It also may not have helped that Walker had a side business of being the representative for a chrome trim supplier to the auto industry.] Do the front, side and rear look like they belong to the same car or are they multiple competing designs that should have been on different cars.
It did not help the Edsel that it arrived while Exner’s Forward Look had pointed to a very different design direction.
To my eyes the Ranger/Pacer came off a bit better than the Corsair/Citation. The lower-level Edsels shared front-door sheetmetal with the Ford, which gave the cars a more rounded quality that worked better with the front and rear.
The horizontal rear eyebrows were a welcome change from tailfins, but the rear looked bulky and the luggage lift was rather high. Moving the taillights below the brow on the 1959 models struck me as a somewhat better design solution.
I don’t think the vertical grille on the Edsel worked nearly as well as on the aborted 1957 Packard. This is partly because the Packard’s grille was much thinner, but it also seemed to help that both the Predictor show car and 1957 prototypes had a lower- and wider-looking fascia. Perhaps most importantly, Packard’s grille made more sense because it embodied the brand’s famous classic-era grille. The Edsel didn’t have any design DNA to draw upon, which may have made it easier for people to associate the unusual grille with non-car shapes such as a urinal.
The width of the Edsel’s vertical grille was apparently increased in order to improve radiator cooling. A reasonable goal, although I wonder why they couldn’t increase the size of the side grilles instead. One other sour note was the shape of the twin front bumpers, which served to accentuate the height of the vertical grille. The bumper shape on the 1959 models strike me as working a bit better, although I question stretching the vertical grille all the way to the bottom of the fascia.
“The lower-level Edsels shared front-door sheetmetal with the Ford…” I believe it was a lot more than door panels. More like the entire body less front & rear. As a teenage car freak expecting a dramatic new car, the E-Cars looked like overstyled Fords and Mercuries…nothing more. What a letdown. At least a lot of adults agreed with me.
To use a 1957-1958 styling reference: Did Alfa Romeos “suck lemons”?! I never read any American, British or European car buff magazines that wrote anything nearly as critical!
One other feature Ford lacked was that Ford did not have a separate body division like G.M.’s Fisher Body. While Ford and Chrysler both had suppliers like Murray and Briggs, only G.M. had a fully captive body engineering, fabrication and assembly structure in Fisher.