There is an Edsel in a small panel shop on Phattanakarn Road (almost opposite Tara Pattana School). It appears to be complete, with LHD, but no engine, though it might be at the back of the shop!
The name Edsel is these days synonymous with white elephant, but actually it wasn’t a bad car. It was the right car at the wrong time. A similar example was the Leyland P76 in Australia which was released just as the fuel shortage began to hit, and nobody wanted a gas guzzling V8.
Edsel was similar in which the marque was killed by the Ford PR machine by going into overkill. The marketing department at Ford ran a 12 month teaser campaign and led everyone to believe the Edsel would be the fore-runner of the cars of the future. What they delivered was a tarted up Ford Mercury. Just when a fuel shortage began to hit at the end of the 1950’s and gasoline prices started to escalate, it was the ideal wrong time to launch a gas guzzler.
Historians have advanced several theories in an effort to explain the Edsel’s failure. Popular culture often faults the car’s styling. Consumer Reports has alleged that poor workmanship was the Edsel’s chief problem. Marketing experts hold the Edsel up as a supreme example of the corporate culture’s failure to understand the market. 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.”
Whatever, Edsels now have become collectors’ items and price is escalating. Is this your last chance?
