An Edsel; surely not the greatest of base material to start with when building a top class custom; aren't they those 1950's cars with the grill that looks like someone's squashed it's lips together? Well yes and no.
The Edsel marque only existed for three model years (1958-1960); designed to fit between the Mercury and Lincoln marques as so to push the latter upmarket to do battle with Cadillac, which was at that time a rival for the likes of Buick and Oldsmobile. Poor build quality, together with a disastrous lack of market research led to releasing a product that didn't appeal to the majority of the car-buying public; the result was poor sales. The brand was canned in 1960 with losses of $350m; an expensive exercise in how not to launch a car company. Ford announced the end of the Edsel program on Thursday, November 19, 1959; however, production continued until late in November, with the final tally of 2,846 1960 model year cars, such as the example you see here.
Unlike the '58 & '59 cars the 1960 Edsel Ranger is a bit of a looker; this particular example started life as a 2-door saloon (the convertible is super-rare and hard to find) converted to a ragtop with a whole ton of work done to stop it shaking apart. That gorgeous rear end is original Edsel and the car has a lot more work done to get that low ride height. It makes the contemporary Ford Thunderbird, one of the supposed 'glamour' cars of the FoMoCo line-up look more than a little gawky in comparison.
Read more info about this oxmoronic Edsel here.
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