Some cool example business plan images:
Major Dick Winter's notebook. On display at Dead Man's Corner, the approach to Carentan in Normandy
Image by Nikonmania
Major Richard "Dick" D. Winters (January 21, 1918 – January 2, 2011) was a United States Army officer and decorated war veteran. He commanded Company "E", 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, during World War II.
Winters parachuted into Normandy in the early hours of D-Day, and fought across France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and eventually into Germany. Later in the war, Winters rose to command the 2nd Battalion. Following the end of hostilities Winters was discharged from the army and returned to civilian life, working in New Jersey.
In 1951, during the Korean War, Winters was recalled to the Army from the inactive list and briefly served as a regimental planning and training officer on staff at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Although issued orders for deployment, he was not sent to Korea. After his discharge he worked at a few different jobs before founding his own company and selling farming products.
Winters was featured in a number of books and was portrayed in the 2001 HBO mini-series Band of Brothers by Damian Lewis. He was a regular guest lecturer at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He retired in 1997. He was the last of the Easy Company commanders to die.
Winters enlisted in the army on August 25, 1941, in order to shorten his time in service. In September he underwent basic training at Camp Croft, South Carolina. Afterwards he remained at Camp Croft to help train draftees and other volunteers, while the rest of his battalion was deployed to Panama. In April 1942 he was selected to attend Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. It was there he met his friend Lewis Nixon, with whom he would serve throughout the war in the 101st Airborne Division. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant after graduation from OCS on July 2, 1942.
During the course of his officer training, Winters reached the decision that he wanted to join the parachute infantry. Upon completing training he returned to Camp Croft to train another draft as there were no positions available in the paratroopers at that time. After five weeks he received orders to join the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment at Camp Toccoa (formerly Camp Toombs) in Georgia.
He arrived at Toccoa in mid-August 1942 and was assigned to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th PIR, serving under First Lieutenant (later Captain) Herbert Sobel. Company E was also known as "Easy Company" per the contemporaneous Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet. Initially he served as a platoon leader in charge of 2nd Platoon, but later, in October 1942, he was promoted to first lieutenant and became the acting company executive officer, although this was not made official until May 1943. The 506th PIR was an experimental unit, being the first regiment to undertake airborne training as a formed unit. As many of the men had very little previous military experience the training at Toccoa was necessarily very tough and as a consequence there was a high level of personnel wastage. Indeed, of the 500 officers who had volunteered, only 148 successfully completed the course. The enlisted men had it equally tough, with only 1,800 men being selected out of 5,300 volunteers.
On June 10, 1943, the 506th PIR was officially attached to the 101st Airborne Division. Later in the year they embarked on the Samaria bound forEngland, arriving there on September 15, 1943, and disembarking in Liverpool. They then proceeded to Aldbourne, in Wiltshire where they began an intense training program designed to make the regiment ready for the invasion of Europe that was planned for 1944.
It was while Easy Company was based at Aldbourne that the tension and competition that had been brewing between Winters and Sobel came to a head in November–December 1943. Winters had privately held concerns over Sobel's ability to lead the company in combat for some time before this and many of the enlisted men in the company had come to respect Winters for his competence and had also developed their own concerns about Sobel's leadership. Winters has stated that he never wanted to compete with Sobel for command of Easy Company. However, the situation became out of hand when Sobel attempted to bring Winters up on charges for failure to carry out a lawful order. Feeling that his punishment was unjust, Winters requested that the charge be tried by court martial. When Winters' punishment was set aside by the battalion commander, Sobel proceeded to charge Winters with another, separate charge the following day. While the investigation was being undertaken, Winters was transferred to the headquarters company and appointed as the battalion mess officer.
Following this, though Winters tried to talk them out of it, a number of the company's noncommissioned officers (NCOs) gave the regimental commander, Colonel Robert Sink, an ultimatum: either Sobel be replaced, or they would hand back their stripes. Sink was not impressed and several of the NCOs were subsequently demoted and transferred out of the company. Nevertheless, he realised that something had to be done and decided Sobel had to be replaced. Sobel was transferred and given command of a newly formed parachute training school. Winters' court martial was set aside and he returned to Easy Company as platoon leader of 1st Platoon. Despite their personality clash, Winters later stated he felt that at least part of Easy Company's success had been due to Sobel's strenuous training and high expectations . In February 1944, First Lieutenant Thomas Meehan III was given command of Easy Company.
Meehan remained in command of the company until the Normandy invasion, when at approximately 1:15 a.m. on June 6, 1944, the C-47 Skytrain transport the company headquarters section was in was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire, killing everyone on board. Winters jumped that night and landed safely near Sainte-Mère-Église. After having lost his weapon during the drop, he was able to orient himself, collect several paratroopers, including members of the 82nd Airborne, and proceed toward the unit's assigned objective near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. Without knowing the fate of Lieutenant Meehan, Winters became the acting commanding officer of Easy Company for the duration of the Normandy campaign.
Later that day, Winters led an attack that destroyed a battery of German 105 mm howitzers which were firing onto the causeways that served as the principal exits from Utah Beach. The Americans estimated that the guns were defended by approximately one platoon of 50 German troops, while Winters had 13 men. This action south of the village of Le Grand-Chemin has been called the Brécourt Manor Assault. Aspects of the attack have been taught at the military academy at West Point as an example of an assault on a fixed position. In addition to destroying the battery, Winters also obtained a map detailing German gun emplacements in the Utah Beach area.
On July 1, 1944, Winters was told that he had been promoted to captain. The next day he was presented with the Distinguished Service Cross by General Omar N. Bradley, who was then the commanding officer of the First Army. Shortly after the 506th was withdrawn from France and returned to Aldbourne in England for reorganisation.
In September 1944, the 506th PIR took part in Operation Market Garden, an airborne operation in the Netherlands. On October 5, 1944, a German force launched an attack on the 2nd Battalion's flank, and threatened to break through the American lines. At the same time, four men in an Easy Company patrol were wounded. Returning to the headquarters, they reported that they had encountered a large group of Germans at a crossroads about 1,300 yards to the east of the company command post. Realising the seriousness of the situation, Winters took one squad from 1st Platoon, and moved off toward the crossroads, where they observed a German machine gun firing to the south, toward the battalion headquarters. After surveying the position, Winters then led the squad in an assault on the gun crew. Soon after taking the position, the squad took fire from a German position opposite them. Estimating that this position was held by at least a platoon, Winters called for reinforcements from the rest of the 1st Platoon, and led them in an assault. Later it was discovered there were at least 300 Germans.
On October 9, Winters became the battalion executive officer. Although this position was normally held by major, Winters filled it while still a captain.
On December 16, 1944, German forces launched a counter-offensive against the Western Allies in Belgium. After the 101st Airborne was moved by truck to the Bastogne area on December 18. Still serving as executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, Winters took part in the defence of the line northeast of Bastogne near the town of Foy during what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. The entire 101st Airborne and elements of the 10th Armored Division battled about 15 German divisions, supported by heavy artillery and armour, for nearly a week before the U.S. Third Army broke through the German lines surrounding Bastogne.
After being relieved, the 2nd Battalion carried out an attack on Foy on January 9, 1945. On March 8, 1945, following the 2nd Battalion's move to Haguenau, Winters was promoted to major and shortly afterward he was made acting battalion commander of 2nd Battalion, when Lieutenant Colonel Strayer was elevated to the regimental staff. Second Battalion saw little combat after this.
In April the battalion carried out defensive duties along the Rhine, before deploying to Bavaria later in the month. In early May the 101st Airborne Division received orders to capture Berchtesgaden. The 2nd Battalion set out from Thalham, Germany, through streams of surrendering German soldiers, and led the way to the alpine retreat, reaching the town at noon on May 5, 1945. They were still there when the war ended three days later on May 8, 1945.
After the end of hostilities Winters remained in Europe as the process of occupation and demobilisation began. Even though he had enough points to return to the United States, he was told that he was needed in Germany. Later, he was offered a Regular commission, but declined it. He finally embarked from Marseilles aboard the Wooster Victory on November 4, 1945. He was separated from the Army on November 29, 1945 although he was not officially discharged until January 22, 1946 and he remained on terminal leave until then.
Winters was recommended for the Medal of Honour for his leadership at Brécourt Manor, but due to the quota system which limited the distribution of the award to only one per division, and since one Medal of Honour had already been awarded—to Lieutenant Colonel Robert G. Cole—the recommendation was downgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross, the U.S. Army's second highest award for combat valour. After the release of the Band of Brothers television miniseries, a letter-writing campaign to have Winters awarded the Medal of Honour began, but so far without success. Currently, Rep. Tim Holden (D-PA) introducedHR 3121 (111th) "To authorise and request the President to award the Medal of Honour to Richard D. Winters, of Hershey, Pennsylvania, for acts of valour on June 6, 1944, in Normandy, France, while an officer in the 101st Airborne Division." The bill has been referred to the House Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
He was discharged from the army and became a production supervisor at an adhesive plaster mill in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 1951, he and his wife Ethel bought a small farm where later Winters built their farmhouse and together they raised two children. In 1972, he went in to business for himself, starting his own company and selling animal feed products to farmers throughout Pennsylvania. Soon afterward, he moved his family to Hershey, Pennsylvania. He finally retired in 1997.
During the 1990s, Winters was featured in a number of books and television series about his experiences and those of the men in Easy Company. In 1992, Stephen Ambrose wrote the book Band of Brothers: Easy Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, which was subsequently turned into an HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. Winters was also the subject of the 2005 book Biggest Brother: The Life of Major Dick Winters, The Man Who Led the Band of Brothers, written by Larry Alexander. His own memoir, Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters, co-written by military historian and retired U.S. Army Colonel Cole C. Kingseed, was published in early 2006. He also gave a number of lectures on leadership to cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
On May 16, 2009, Franklin and Marshall College conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters upon Winters.
Despite the many accolades he had received, Winters remained humble about his service. During the interview segment of the miniseries Band of Brothers, Winters quoted a passage from a letter he received from Sergeant Mike Ranney, "I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day when he said, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?' Grandpa said 'No… but I served in a company of heroes.'"
Winters, a resident of Hershey, Pennsylvania, died on January 2, 2011, at an assisted living facility in nearby Campbelltown, Pennsylvania. He had been suffering from Parkinson's disease for several years. Winters had requested a private, unannounced funeral service, which was held on January 8, 2011.
Winters was buried in the Bergstrasse Evangelical Lutheran Church cemetery in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, in a private ceremony. He is buried next to his parents in the Winters family plot. His grave is marked Richard D. Winters WW II 101st Airborne.
Military Awards
Distinguished Service Cross
Bronze Star with one Oak Leaf Cluster
Purple Heart
Presidential Unit Citation with one Oak Leaf Cluster
American Defence Service Medal
National Defence Service Medal
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with 3 service stars and arrow device
World War II Victory Medal
Army of Occupation Medal
Croix de guerre with palm
French Liberation Medal
Oorlogskruis with palm
Belgian WWII Service Medal
Combat Infantryman Badge
Parachutist Badge with 2 combat stars
Medal of the City of Eindhoven
1958 Edsel: Lousy Car But Great Planter.
Image by bill barber
Here's a link to how this same Edsel looked in 1959. I took this picture with my Brownie Hawkeye when I was thirteen.
farm2.static.flickr.com/1286/544933741_8e82112e81.jpg
A bit busy today and tomorrow, but will try to visit everyone's stream. Thanks for your patience
When my stepfather first met my mother in 1959, he was driving a brand new 1958 Ford Edsel. At that time it was touted as being far ahead of its time. The big feature was the ability of the driver to shift gears by pushing buttons on a touch pad in the centre of the steering wheel.
After a few years the Edsel was abandoned. It had become an embarrassment to Ford. The button shift did not live up to its potential, and was notorious for losing its timing. It sometimes took up to five seconds from the time you pushed a button until the time the transmission shifted, usually with a jolting 'thunk'. Further, the Edsel was an overly heavy car, even in an age of heavy cars.
I did drive it a fair bit over a ten year period, and it could be scary at times.
Over the years I wondered what happened to it. I couldn't remember it being traded in. Then, several years ago, I spotted it in the farm yard at my brother, Steve's, place. it was pretty badly smacked up, and had been used for .22 practice. I always meant to photograph it, but didn't get a chance until yesterday. It had been towed about fifty feet from where I originally saw it, and the tow had not been kind.
From my set entitled “Steve and Marg’s Farm”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157608031549391/
In my collection entitled “Places”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760074...
In my photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/
The Story of the Edsel
(taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel
The Edsel was a marquee division of Ford Motor Company during the 1958, 1959 and 1960 model years.
In the early 1950s, the Ford Motor Co. became a publicly traded corporation that was no longer entirely owned by members of the Ford family. They were then able to sell cars according to then-current market trends following the sellers' market of the postwar years. The new management compared the roster of Ford makes with that of General Motors, and noted that Lincoln competed not with Cadillac, but with Oldsmobile. Since Ford had an excess of money on hand from the success of the Ford Thunderbird the plan was developed to move Lincoln upmarket with the Continental at the top, and to add another make to the intermediate slot vacated by Lincoln. Research and development had begun in 1955 under the name "E-car," which stood for "Experimental car." This represented a new division of the firm alongside that of Ford itself and the Lincoln-Mercury division, whose cars at the time shared the same body.
The Edsel was introduced amidst considerable publicity on "E Day"—September 4, 1957. It was promoted by a top-rated television special, The Edsel Show on October 13, but it was not enough to counter the adverse public reaction to the car's styling and conventional build. For months Ford had been circulating rumours that led consumers to expect an entirely new kind of car when in reality the Edsel shared its bodywork with other Ford models.
The Edsel was to be sold through a new Ford division. It existed from November 1956 until January 1958, after which Edsels were made by the Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln division (referred to as M-E-L). Edsel was sold through a new network of 1,500 dealers. This briefly brought total dealers of all Ford products to 10,000. Ford saw this as a way to come closer to parity with the other two companies of the Big Three: Chrysler had 10,000 dealers and General Motors had 16,000. As soon as it became apparent that the Edsels were not selling, many of these dealers added Lincoln-Mercury, English Ford and/or Taunus dealerships to their lines with the encouragement of Ford Motor Company. Some dealers, however, closed.
For the 1958 model year, Edsel produced four models, including the larger Mercury-based Citation and Corsair, and the smaller Ford-based Pacer and Ranger. The Citation came in two-door and four-door hardtops and two-door convertible versions. The Corsair came in two-door and four-door hardtop versions. The Pacer came in two-door and four-door hardtops, four-door sedan, and two-door convertible. The Ranger came in two-door and four-door hardtop or sedan versions. The four-door Bermuda and Villager wagons and the two-door Roundup wagon were based on the 116" wheelbase Ford station wagon platform and shared the trim and features of the Ranger and Pacer models. It included several innovative features, among which were its "rolling dome" speedometer and its Teletouch transmission shifting system in the center of the steering wheel. Other design innovations included an ergonomically designed controls for the driver, and self-adjusting brakes (often claimed as a first for the industry, although Studebaker had pioneered them earlier in the decade).
In the first year, 63,110 Edsels were sold in the U.S. with another 4,935 sold in Canada. Though below expectations, it was still the second largest car launch for any brand to date, second only to the Plymouth introduction in 1928.
For the 1959 model year, there were only two Edsels: the Ranger and the Corsair. The two larger cars were not produced. The new Corsair came in two-door and four-door hardtops, four-door sedan, and two-door convertible. The Ranger came in two-door and four-door hardtops, two-door and four-door sedans, and the Villager station wagon. In the 1959 model year, 44,891 cars were sold in the U.S., with an additional 2,505 sales in Canada.
For the 1960 model year, Edsel's last, only the Ranger and Villager were produced. The 1960 Edsel, in its final model year, emerged as a Ford. Its grill, hood, and four taillights, along with its side sweep spears, were the only real differences separating the Edsel from the Ford.
Ford announced the end of the Edsel program on Thursday, November 19, 1959. However, cars continued being produced until late in November, with the final tally at 2,846 1960 models. Total sales were approximately 84,000, less than half McNamara's projected break-even point. The company lost 0 million on the venture [1].
On Friday, November 20, United Press International's (UPI) wire service reported that book values for used Edsels had decreased by as much as 0 [approximately 00 in 2006 dollars] (based on condition and age) immediately following the Ford press release. In some newspaper markets, dealers scrambled to renegotiate newspaper advertising contracts involving the 1960 Edsel models, while others dropped the name from their dealership's advertising "slugs." Ford issued a statement that it would distribute coupons to consumers who purchased 1960 models (and carryover 1959 models) prior to the announcement, valued at 0 to 0 towards the purchase of new Ford products to offset the decreased values. The company also issued credits to dealers for stock unsold or received, following the announcement.
There is no single reason why the Edsel failed, and failed so spectacularly. Popular culture often faults the car’s styling. Consumer Reports cited poor workmanship. Marketing experts hold the Edsel up as a supreme example of corporate America’s failure to understand the nature of the American consumer. Business analysts cite the weak internal support for the product inside Ford’s executive offices. According to author and Edsel scholar Jan Deutsch, the Edsel was "the wrong car at the wrong time."
One popular misconception was that the Edsel was an engineering failure, or a lemon, although it shared the same general reliability of its sister Mercury and Ford models that were built in the same factories. The Edsel is most famous for being a marketing disaster. Indeed, the name Edsel came to be synonymous with commercial failure, and similar ill-fated products have often been colloquially referred to as Edsels. Since it was such a debacle, it provided a case study for marketers on how not to market a product. The main reason the Edsel's failure is so famous was that it flopped despite Ford’s investment of 0,000,000 in its development.
The prerelease advertising campaign touted the car as having "...more YOU ideas," and the teaser advertisements in magazines only revealed glimpses of the car through a highly blurred lens or wrapped in paper or under tarps. Edsels were shipped to the dealerships undercover and remained wrapped on the dealer lots.
But the public also had a hard time understanding what the Edsel was, mostly because Ford made the mistake of pricing the Edsel within Mercury’s market price segment. Theoretically, the Edsel was conceived to fit into Ford’s marketing plans as the brand slotted in between Ford and Mercury. However, when the car arrived in 1958, its least expensive model—the Ranger—was priced within of the most expensive and best-trimmed Ford sedan and less than Mercury’s base Medalist model. In its midrange pricing, Edsel's Pacer and Corsair models were more expensive than their Mercury counterparts. Edsel's top-of-the-line Citation four door hardtop model was the only model priced to correctly compete with Mercury’s mid-range Montclair Turnpike Cruiser model.
Not only was the Edsel competing against its own sister divisions, but model for model, consumers did not understand what the car was supposed to be—a step up or a step below the Mercury.
After its introduction to the public, the Edsel did not live up to its overblown hype, even though it did have many new features, such as self-adjusting rear brakes and automatic lubrication. While consumer focus groups had said these and other features would make the "E" car attractive to them as car buyers, the cost of the cars outstripped what the public was willing to pay. When many potential buyers saw the base price tag, they simply left the dealership, and others were frightened by the price for a fully loaded, top of the line model.
One of the external forces working against the Edsel that Ford had no control over was the onset of the recession in late 1957.
When the Edsel was in its planning stages in the early and mid-1950s, the American economy was robust and growing. However, in the years that spanned the planning to its introduction, an economic recession hit, and American consumers not only shifted their idea of what an ideal car should be; in prior economic downturns, buyers flocked to the lower price marques like Plymouth, Chevrolet, and Ford. But in 1958, even these cars were perceived by some as unnecessarily large, and while the compact Rambler saw itself shoot to the third best selling make, none of the Big Three had anything compact to sell except their European cars built for Vauxhall, Simca, and Opel. The compacts introduced by the Big Three in 1960 were the direct result of the recession of 1958.
Compounding Edsel's problems was that the car had to appeal to buyers of other well established nameplates from the Big Three, such as Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Dodge, DeSoto, and even its internal sister division, Mercury -- itself never a stellar sales success.
Even if the 1958 recession hadn't hit when it did, the Edsel was entering into a shrinking marketplace. While Ernest Breech convinced Ford management that this market segment offered great untapped opportunity in the early 1950s, when the "E" car was in its earliest stages, by 1957, independent manufacturers in the mid-price field were drifting towards insolvency. Hoping to turn around their losses, Packard acquired Studebaker, yet the venerable Packard was no longer produced after 1958. On the other hand, American Motors changed its focus to the compact Rambler models, while their pre-merger brands (Nash and Hudson) were discontinued after the 1957 model year. Even Chrysler saw sales of its DeSoto marque drop dramatically from its 1957 high by over 50% in 1958. Following a disastrous 1959 model year, plans were made in Highland Park to discontinue DeSoto during its 1961 model year run.
Thus, the large, expensive Edsel that was planned to be all things to all people suddenly stood for excess, not progress.
The name of the car, Edsel, is also often cited as a further reason for its unpopularity. Naming the vehicle after Edsel Ford was proposed early in its development. However, the Ford family strongly opposed its use, Henry Ford II stating that he didn't want his father's good name spinning around on thousands of hubcaps. Ford also ran internal studies to decide on a name and even dispatched employees to stand outside movie theaters to poll audiences as to what their feelings were on several ideas. They reached no conclusions.
Ford hired the advertising firm Foote, Cone and Belding to come up with a name. However, when the advertising agency issued its report, citing over 6,000 possibilities, Ford's Ernest Breech commented that they had been hired to develop a name, not 6,000. Early favorites for the name brand included Citation, Corsair, Pacer, and Ranger, which were ultimately chosen for the vehicle's series names.
David Wallace, Manager of Marketing Research, and coworker Bob Young unofficially invited poet Marianne Moore for input and suggestions. Moore's unorthodox contributions (among them "Utopian Turtletop," "Pastelogram," and "Mongoose Civique") were meant to stir creative thought and were not officially authorized or contractual in nature. History has greatly exaggerated her relationship to the project.
At the behest of Ernest Breech, who was chairing a meeting in the absence of Henry Ford II, the car was finally called "Edsel" in honor of Edsel Ford, former company president and son of Henry Ford. Marketing surveys later found the name was thought to sound like the name of a tractor (Edson) and therefore was unpopular with the public.
Moreover, several consumer studies showed that people associated the name "Edsel" with "weasel" and "dead cell" (dead battery), drawing further unattractive comparisons.
Perhaps the most important factor in the Edsel's failure, however, was that when the car was introduced, the U.S. was entering a period of recession. Sales for all car manufacturers, even those not introducing new models, were down; consumers entered a period of preferring less expensive, more fuel-efficient automobiles.
Edsels were fast, but required premium gas and did not have the fuel economy desired during a recession. Mechanics disliked the bigger engine because of its unique design. The cylinder head had no combustion chamber and was perfectly flat, with the head set at an angle and "roof" pistons forming both a squish zone on one side and a combustion chamber on the other, meaning that the combustion took place entirely within the cylinder bore. This design reduced the cost of manufacture and possibly carbon buildup, but appeared strange to mechanics.
There were also reports of mechanical flaws in the models originating in the factory, due to lack of quality control and confusion of parts with other Ford models. Edsels in their first (1958) model year were made in both Mercury and Ford factories; the longer wheelbase models, Citation and Corsair, were produced alongside the Mercury products, and the shorter wheelbase models, Pacer and Ranger, were produced alongside the Ford products. There was never a stand-alone Edsel factory devoted solely to Edsel model production; workers making Fords and Mercurys literally had to change parts bins and tools to assemble extra Edsels once their hourly quota of regular Fords and Mercurys was achieved. As such, the desired quality control of the different Edsel models was difficult to attain for the new make of car. Many Edsels left the line unfinished, with the extra parts having been put into the trunks, with assembly instructions for the mechanics at the dealerships.
The Edsel is best remembered for its trademark "horsecollar" grille, which made it stand out from other cars of the period. A widely circulated wisecrack at the time was that "It looked like an Oldsmobile sucking on a lemon." Men often referred to the horsecollar grille as being akin to a woman’s genitalia. In fact, Robin Jones, a Ford designer at the time, later recalled that someone in the design studio - presumably as a cruel joke - actually taped hair to the inside of the grille area on one of the clay models produced during the design process; the end result, according to Jones, "looked like a hormonally-disturbed cow after giving birth."
Jokes aside, the front of the original Edsel turned out nothing like what was originally intended. Roy Brown, the original chief designer on the project, wanted a slender, almost delicate opening in the center; engineers, fearing engine cooling problems, vetoed the intended design, which led to the "horsecollar." The vertical grille theme, while improved for the 1959 models, was discontinued for the 1960 models, which were almost indistinguishable from Ford models of the same year, although the new front-end design bore no small resemblance to that of the 1959 Pontiac.
Many drivers disliked having the automatic transmission as pushbuttons (above) mounted on the steering wheel hub: this was the traditional location of the horn, and drivers ended up shifting gears instead of honking the horn. While the Edsel was fast, the location of the transmission pushbuttons was not conducive to street racing. There were jokes about stoplight dragsters and the buttons: D for Drag, L for Leap, and R for Race (instead of Drive, Low and Reverse).
There were also complaints about the taillights on 1958-model Edsel station wagons, which were boomerang-shaped and placed in a reverse fashion; at a distance, they appeared as arrows pointed in the opposite direction of the turn being made. While the left turn signal blinked, its arrow shape pointed right, and vice versa. However, there was little that could be done to give the Ford-based station wagons a unique appearance from the rear; corporate management insisted that no sheetmetal could be changed. Only the taillights and trim could be touched.
While the car and Ford’s planning of the car are the most often cited reasons for its failure, internal politics within the executive offices at Ford are as much to blame for the failure of the Edsel. Following World War II, Henry Ford II brought on Robert McNamara as one of the "whiz kids" to help turn Ford around. McNamara’s cost cutting and cost containment skills helped Ford emerge from its near collapse after the war. As such, McNamara eventually assumed a great deal of power at Ford. In many ways, McNamara was very much like Henry Ford: both men were committed to Ford above all other things and had little use for Continental, Lincoln, Mercury, and Edsel brand cars made by the company.
McNamara was against the formation of the separate divisions for Continental, Lincoln, Mercury, and Edsel cars, and moved to consolidate Lincoln, Mercury, and Edsel into the M-E-L division. McNamara saw to it that the Continental program was canceled and that the model was merged into the Lincoln range for 1958. He next set his sights on Edsel by maneuvering for elimination of the dual wheelbases and separate body used in 1958; instead, the Edsel would share the Ford platform and use Ford’s inner body structure for 1959. In 1960, the Edsel emerged as a Ford with different trim. McNamara also moved to reduce Edsel’s advertising budget for 1959, and for 1960, he virtually eliminated it. The final blow came in the fall of 1959, when McNamara convinced Henry Ford II and the management structure that the Edsel was doomed and that it was time to end production before the Edsel bled the company dry. (Note: McNamara also attempted to end the Lincoln nameplate; however, that effort ended with Elwood Engel's now classic redesign of 1961.) McNamara left Ford when he was named Secretary of Defense by President John F. Kennedy.
During the 1964 presidential election, Republican nominee Barry Goldwater blamed McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, for the Edsel's failure. Eventually, Ford's former executive vice president and financial contributor to Goldwater's campaign Ernest R. Breech wrote the Senator's campaign explaining that "Mr. McNamara ... had nothing to do with the plans for the Edsel car or any part of the program." However, the charge continued to be leveled against McNamara for years. During his time as head of the World Bank he instructed his public affairs officer to distribute copies of Breech's letter to the press whenever the accusation was made.[2]
The scheduled 1960 Edsel Comet compact car was hastily rebranded the Comet and assigned to Mercury dealerships. The Comet was an instant success, selling more cars in its first year than all models of Edsel produced during its three-year run. Styling touches seen in the Comets sold to the public that allude to being part of the Edsel family of models included the instrument cluster, rear tailfins (though canted diagonally), and the taillight shape (the lens is visually similar to that used on the 1960 Edsel, and even retained the embossed "E" code). The Comet's keys were even shaped like Edsel keys, with the center bar removed from the "E" to form a "C." For 1962, Ford officially assigned the Comet to the Mercury brand.
As the Edsel was a large commercial failure, the name became a popular joke in various media. A backronym, "Every Day Something Else Leaks", was inspired by the car's failure. Television programs, cartoons, video games, and films have all used the Edsel as humor, usually as a quick joke or as a sight gag.
In May 1958, then Vice President Richard Nixon was on a trip to Peru, riding in an Edsel convertible, when he was pelted with eggs and tomatoes by demonstrators. Nixon later joked: "They were throwing eggs at the car, not me."[3]
Fifty years after its spectacular failure, Edsel has become a highly collectible item amongst vintage car hobbyists. Fewer than 6,000 Edsels survive and are considered collectors’ items. A mint 1958 Citation convertible sometimes sells for over 0,000,[1] while rare models, like the 1960 convertible, may price up to 0,000. While the design was considered "ugly" fifty years ago, many other car manufacturers, such as Pontiac and Alfa Romeo, have employed similar vertical grille successfully on their car designs.
Many of the Edsel's features, such as transmission lock on ignition, adjustable brakes, gear selection as steering wheel buttons etc, which were considered "too impractical" in the late 1950s, are today standard features of sports cars.
Post Processing:
Topaz Add-On: Vibrance (HDR)
PhotoShop Elements 5: posterization, rough pastel, accented edges, ink outlines
