1958 Bermuda	1958 Citation	1958 Citation	1958 Ranger	1959 Corsair	1959 Ranger	1960 Ranger

In the early to mid-Fifties, the lower-medium price range automobiles were selling like hotcakes.  Pontiac, Dodge and Buick combined were selling close to two million vehicles a year in this market.  Ford, wanting to move Lincoln back into competition with Cadillac, thought they needed a new marque to compete with Pontiac and Dodge, while they positioned Mercury against Oldsmobile, Buick and DeSoto.  So the Edsel idea was conceived.

Automotive development takes years, and unfortunately for Ford, in the three years it took to create the Edsel Motor Division and the Edsel cars, the American economy retracted.  In 1958 unemployment was the highest it had been since 1941 and automotive sales were off by 31.4% from the previous year.  The division goal was to sell 100,000 Edsels for model year 1958; just over 63,000 were built.

The controversial styling of the Edsel really wasn't that radical from other designs of the era.  The vertical grille was an attempt at differentiating the car from everything else, and Packard had planned something similar for their 1957 models (but they were not making cars by that time).

In 1959, Edsel only sold 44,891 cars.  Compacts and imports were taking market share from the traditional American automobiles.  Ford decided to cut their losses with the Edsel, and develop the Falcon/Comet (The Comet was originally designed as an Edsel).  Edsel joined DeSoto as the American upper-mid-priced marques discontinued in the early 1960's.