Edsels in Oak Ridge
Fans of Ford’s controversial, short-lived car gather to celebrate
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One of the judges looks over an Edsel in a long line of the cars on Saturday during the rally at the Doubletree Hotel in Oak Ridge. The baskets on the ground in front of each car allowed show visitors to drop money to indicate their favorites. The money collected was then donated to the Shelter Animal Rescue Group of Oak Ridge. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Margeret Given of LaFollette, left, and Jim Fisher of Andersonville came out to see the Edsels at the rally in Oak Ridge on Friday. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Alex Scott of Huntsville, Alabama, with his son Ryan, 18 months, were visitors to the Edsel rally in Oak Ridge on Saturday. Alex is wear- ing one of the special shirts recognizing Oak Ridge as the site of the rally. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Edsel rally visitors Margaret Given of LaFollette and Jim Fisher of Andersonville look over an entry from New Hampshire during the Interntional Edsel Club rally last Friday at the Doubletree Hotel in Oak Ridge. - G. Chambers Williams III
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David Yancey of Rosemark, Tennessee, checks out the driver’s side of the recently restored interior of his Edsel as his wife Carla looks on from the other side. - G. Chambers Williams III
The Edsel, a car that has morphed from its role as a colossal marketing failure for Ford Motor Co. into a revered piece of automotive history for modern-day aficionados, was the focus of a rally in Oak Ridge last weekend.
From Thursday through Sunday at the Doubletree Hotel, members of the International Edsel Club showed off their quirky Edsel cars and memorabilia from the late 1950s, gathering from across the United States.
Although an exact count wasn’t available, as cars came and went as the rally progressed, it was estimated that about 50 of the surviving Edsel sedans, coupes, convertibles and wagons were on hand for the event – along with about 150 club members.
For those not familiar with it, the Edsel was a specialty brand of Ford that was sold in just three model years – 1958-60.
The signature feature of the car that it will forever be remembered for was the chromed horse-collar grille with the name “Edsel” prominently displayed vertically in its center.
Introduced by Ford on Sept. 4, 1957, as a 1958 model, the full-sized Edsels were sold through a separate network of 1,187 dealers.
Prior to their rollout, they were hyped by the company for months in one of the biggest marketing campaigns the automotive industry had ever undertaken.
Sadly, though, the cars named after the only son of Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford fell flat with consumers, and were quietly dropped early in the production cycle for the 1960 models, with the last one rolling off the assembly line on Nov. 19, 1959.
In all, just 118,237 Edsels were built, which was a mere fraction of what Ford Motor Co. had expected.
Rally coordinator Mike Brogan of Fort Myers, Florida, said he and his wife chose Oak Ridge for this year’s annual club rally, mainly because of the city’s post World War II history in nuclear energy development.
“We toured the Oak Ridge museum (American Museum of Science and Energy) as a group on Thursday, and we even had special T-shirts made up for the rally recognizing Oak Ridge and nuclear energy,” he said Saturday morning.
Club members took the time and effort to contribute to the community while in Oak Ridge. The group held a fund-raising banquet at the hotel Friday night, in which more than $1,000 was raised for the Oak Ridge-based Shelter Animal Rescue Group, Brogan said.
David and Carla Yancey, who live in Rosemark, Tennessee, near Memphis, brought their Edsel to its first show since they finished restoring it, they said.
“It was my Dad’s car, and it was 85% done when he died,” David Yancey said.
As with many of the club members attending the rally, Tom and Carolyn Selander of Grant, Michigan, came without bringing their own Edsel, which is still in need of restoration.
They were there to see the other cars and hang out with fellow club members, he said.
“This is a crowd of people from all walks of life,” Yancey said.
