(EXPANDED FROM 5/5/2023)
One of the curious things about American cars is that even the most ridiculed models will invariably develop a dedicated fan club. As a case in point, some collectors of the infamous 1958 Edsel have heavily customized their cars by adding a retractable roof.
In a way it makes perfect sense: The Edsel was already an over-the-top design, so why not take it to the next level?
This was doable because entry-level Edsels shared the same body as the Ford Fairlane. From 1957-59 the automaker’s low-priced brand offered a retractable metal roof on a top-end Skyliner model.
Compromises were necessary to make an Edsel
In our featured car, a 1957 Skyliner was reportedly used as the base body, with an Edsel front and interior fittings added (oldpartsman1, 2009). The biggest challenge appears to have been adapting the rear sheetmetal. The Ford’s fins were kept in the process of grafting on the Edsel’s side sculpting and taillights.
As an added touch, the car proudly displays a “continental” spare tire, replete with a bumper that extends all the way to Kansas.
Trim level not the same as production models
The rear quarter of the Edsel uses trim from the top-end Citation. However, the sheetmetal is drawn from a lower-end Edsel, which had meaningful differences.
This was a wise choice. The entry-level Ranger and Pacer used the same front-door sheetmetal as the Ford. In contrast, the top-end Corsair and Citation shared sheetmetal with the Mercury. The lower-end Edsels arguably looked better because their side styling had gentle curves instead of a squared-off look.
Compare the above two Edsels with the Ford and Mercury below. The Citation’s horizontal crease a few inches below its beltline from the front door forward has a more tacked-on quality that clashes with the downward arc of the front-quarter chrome trim.
The horizontal crease first appeared on the 1957 Mercury, where it looks much better integrated with the car’s squared-off styling. Presumably Edsel designers had to adapt Mercury’s sheetmetal because it came out a year later.
The custom Edsel featured here was on display at the LeMay Collections annual car show in Tacoma, Washington.
This is only one Edsel among a number that have been retrofitted with a retractable roof. As a case in point, AutoWeek (Wren, 2015) ran a story about a car with the Edsel wagon’s V-shaped taillights added to a 1957 Ford’s rear sheetmetal. It doesn’t look nearly as grand.
Retractable roof originally designed for Mark II
Thomas E. Bonsall noted that the retractable roof was originally developed for the Continental Mark II. “The engineering problems inherent in such a concept were numbing, but eventually overcome only to run up against the objection that the modest Continental production volume couldn’t justify the investment” (2004, p. 56).
Why then was the retractable roof only used on the plebeian Ford rather than the automaker’s more prestigious brands?
As you can see from the graph below, the Edsel was priced somewhat below the premium-priced Mercury — whose top-end models had moved substantially upmarket since 1956. For 1959 the Edsel’s high-end models were discontinued and the brand focused on the entry-level, premium-priced market niche that Mercury had previously occupied.
Even in its introductory year of 1958, the Edsel didn’t get any special “halo” models. In contrast, Mercury offered two- and four-door hardtop wagons and Turnpike Cruiser hardtops with a roll-down back window.
This is perplexing. You would think that Ford would have given its new brand at least one noteworthy halo model. A retractable convertible roof would have allowed the Edsel to tout a unique body style that did not compete with the Mercury.
The 1958 Edsel’s lack of a halo car is revealing
I am not implying that the Edsel’s fate could have turned out a whole lot differently if it just had a halo car. The above-mentioned Mercury models sold poorly enough that they were phased out. And while Ford produced a healthy 15,000 Skyliners in 1958, an Edsel retractable hardtop would likely have achieved only a fraction of that output because of factors ranging from a smaller dealer network to the inevitably higher price tag.
The Edsel’s lack of a halo car is more revealing for what it suggests about the internal politics of the Ford Motor Company. Despite the enormous sums spent on launching the Edsel, the brand’s lineup was rather ordinary compared to its corporate siblings.
Edsel’s gimmicks didn’t add up to a compelling car
Mark J. McCourt (2008) presented the Edsel’s interior as “forward-thinking.” Perhaps the two most noteworthy gimmicks were a floating compass-style speedometer and automatic transmission buttons located in the center of the steering wheel. However, the brand also touted a number of other features, such as the speed-warning light shown below.
While these features gave the Edsel some individuality, they were not significant enough to compensate for the brand’s controversial styling, quality-control issues and collapse of the premium-priced market.
1958 Edsel sales were bad — but better than DeSoto’s
The Edsel sold so poorly that it was killed early in the 1960 model year after a grand total of roughly 111,000 were built. The brand’s peak year was in 1958, when slightly more than 63,000 cars left the factory. That was less than half as many cars as Mercury produced but more than DeSoto and Studebaker. Even the Chrysler brand’s output was only 600 units higher than the Edsel’s.
The only 1958 Edsel series that managed to outsell its Mercury counterpart was the entry-level Ranger, which almost hit 20,000 units — roughly a thousand units more than the strippo Medalist. However, Mercury’s Monterey series came within a 1,000 units of outselling the entire Edsel lineup.
One could blame the 1958 Edsel’s weak sales on a recession that hurt the whole premium-priced field, but the latter rebounded by 26 percent in 1959 whereas the Edsel dropped 29 percent. The only other premium brand whose output also fell that year was a dying DeSoto — but it still managed to slightly outsell the Edsel.
The point of the Edsel was to increase Ford’s presence in the premium-priced field, which had lagged in third place behind the Chrysler Corporation. For 1958 Ford’s market share of that field did grow to what was then a peak of 16.3 percent. However, by 1959 it fell to 12.8 percent. That was even below the 13.6 percent the automaker had hit in 1956, which was the year before it began its expansion effort.
One might suggest that Ford did get closer to Chrysler’s market share by the end of the decade. However, that was primarily because Chrysler saw its premium-priced output fall by a whopping 49 percent from 1957-59.
Should the Edsel have been kept alive?
Production and market-share data can lead to debates about whether the glass was half full or half empty. As a case in point, Bonsall (2002) argued that the Edsel was not as big of a flop as is often assumed. Indeed, he thought that the brand deserved more time to build a following.
In contrast, Richard M. Langworth and James Flammang called the Edsel’s discontinuance a “blessing in disguise” because it allowed Ford to avoid being saddled with too many brands like General Motors (1992, p. 141). This strikes me as the better argument.
As a case in point, the LTD’s huge success in the 1970s was based upon the idea that the Ford brand had more flexibility to move upmarket because the automaker didn’t have as strong of a presence in the lower reaches of the premium-priced class as did General Motors and Chrysler.
Also see ‘1969 Ford LTD attacked GM’s hierarchy of brands in multiple ways’
Indeed, one could argue that the the Ford brand’s move upmarket with the 1957-58 Fairlane undercut the viability of lower-priced Edsels. For 1958 the list price for a Fairlane 500 four-door hardtop was $2,598. That was almost $50 less than the entry-level Ranger and $200 less than a Pacer. The greater popularity of the top-end Ford suggests that most buyers didn’t consider the Edsel worth the extra money.
Edsel goes from butt of jokes to restomod favorite
James Barron (2007) summed up the many reasons why the Edsel didn’t sell very well, including that the styling and brand name were not well received and the car was came out just as a recession was taking hold.
The Edsel quickly became the butt of jokes — including about national security. A cartoon published after the car was unveiled in the fall of 1957 stated: “My, it’s a big week for everybody! The Russians have the intercontinental ballistic missile, and we have the Edsel” (Barron, 2007).
Amazingly, the Edsel’s widespread reputation as a failure has not dissuaded some from embarking on expensive restomod projects. And in the case of our highlighted Edsel, from becoming the ultimate in 1950s-style glitziness.
NOTES:
This story that was originally posted Dec. 1, 2019 and expanded on March 26, 2021; May 5, 2023; and Oct. 24, 2025. Prices and production data are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006) and Gunnell (2002).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Barron, James; 2007. “To Ford, a Disaster. To Edsel Owners, Love.” The New York Times. Posted Aug. 1.
- Bonsall, Thomas E.; 1981. 2002. Disaster in Dearborn: The Story of the Edsel. Stanford General Books, Stanford, CA.
- ——–; 2004. The Lincoln Story: The Postwar Years. Stanford General Books, Stanford, CA.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI
- Langworth, Richard M. and James Flammang; 1992. Great American Automobiles of the 60s. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- McCourt, Mark J.; 2008. “Control Center, We Have Lift-off.” Hemmings. Published Feb. issue of Hemmings Motor News.
- oldpartsman1; 2009. “1958 Edsel Pacer Retractable.” Flickr. Posted Aug. 4.
- Wren, Wesley; 2015. “This is the Edsel that should have been.” Posted Sept. 28.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Edsel (1958)
- fordheritagevault.com: Edsel (1958, 1959); Ford (1957, 1958)
I recall reading that the Ranchero and retractable Ford shared quarter panel sheetmetal an other underpinnings, sharing tooling costs. I don’t know if this is true, I’m sure someone here will.
Edsel was discontinued in November 1959— not early 1960. This error in fact of one that is so easy to find the information on alone makes me question how much credibility the rest of your article has…
My apologies for being overly vague — what I meant to say “was early in the 1960 model year.” I have made that clarification. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
I would also agree that you should question the credibility of everything in this story . . . and entire website.
You might appreciate what Mike Spinelli has to say about auto history fact errors (go here).
Was some or perhaps all of the engineering and tooling for the 1957-1959 Skyliner retractable roof utilized for the 1961-1966 Thunderbirds and Lincoln Continental converibles ?
James, Thomas Bonsall wrote that the top “retracted into the trunk area, much as the 1957-59 Ford retractables had done, with the rear deck being hinged in back.” He went on to note that the arrangement “played havoc with trunk space” (1981, p. 174).
Initially, Lincoln designers reportedly carried over some trunk components from the convertible to the sedan, but that was rectified in 1963 in response to complaints about luggage capacity. And then in 1964 the gas filler cap was moved from the back of the car to the side to allow for a lower trunk lift-over height (go here for further discussion).