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Old 07-29-2011, 10:18 PM
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Sandy G Sandy G is offline
Spiteful Old Cuss
 
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Rogersville, Tennessee
Posts: 9,571
Seems like I remember an Edsel commercial from LATE '57 of "The NEW 1958 Edsel !", but it had no soundtrack. I've seen it somewhere-its a HOOT. As an aside-The Edsel-now, THERE'S a lollapalooza for you. In 1955, Detroit had their Best Year EVER. Ford was led by young Henry Ford 2nd, & a bunch of Young Turks who'd saved Ford from extinction in '49. They wanted to flex their muscles, & beat GM. Ford really was kinda weak in the upper-middle price range, so the Edsel was concocted to be Ford's answer to Buick. Oldsmobile, & Chrysler. ENORMOUS sums were spent on market research, to the point that the whole project was really WAY overcooked. Also, in late 1957, the economy of the US turned sour, & entered a recession that really didn't entirely go away til Kennedy. Plus, apparently, everybody at Ford's had "Go Fever", or were too scared to say to The Boss-"Are we REALLY going into production with THIS ?!? Goddam thing's front end looks like a toilet seat/vagina/horse collar, take yer pick. The back end looks like 2 badly ingrown toenails...They'll laugh us off the map !" Which they did. The Edsel, even today, is synonomous w/"Abject failure", which is really unfair to the memory of Edsel Ford, who was a brilliant, troubled, vastly underrated man.
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