While 1958 Edsels introduced multiple advanced features for the price segment, the launch of the model line became symbolic of commercial failure.

[1] Introduced in a recession that catastrophically affected sales of medium-priced cars, Edsels were considered overhyped, unattractive, distinguished by a vertical grille said to resemble a horse collar,[2] and low quality.

Following a loss of over $250 million, $2.57 billion in 2023 dollars,[3] on development, manufacturing, and marketing on the model line, Ford quietly discontinued the Edsel brand before 1960.

[6] Ford's new management compared the company's roster of makes with that of General Motors and Chrysler,[6] and concluded that Lincoln was competing not with Cadillac, but with Oldsmobile, Buick, and DeSoto.

Ford later claimed to have performed more than adequate, if not superior, product development and market research work in the planning and design of the new vehicle.

Ford assured its investors, and the Detroit automotive press, that Edsels were not only superior products, as compared to their Oldsmobile/Buick/DeSoto competition, but the details of their styling and specifications were the result of a sophisticated market analysis and research and development effort, that would essentially guarantee their broad acceptance by the buying public when the cars were introduced.

In line with aircraft design, the dashboard adopted warning lights for conditions such as low oil level, parking brake engaged, and engine overheating.

[13] While a standard column-mounted transmission shifter was offered, as a delete option, Edsel marked the introduction of the Teletouch push-button shifting system, mounted in the steering wheel hub.

The push-button Teletouch transmission controls were withdrawn, alongside the rotating-dome speedometer, as Edsel introduced a slightly restyled version of the Ford Fairlane 500 dashboard.

[6][10] Compounding Edsel's problems was that the car had to compete with well-established nameplates from the Big Three such as Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Dodge, and DeSoto, as well as with its sister division Mercury, which had never been a stellar sales success.

Ford's investment in expanded plant capacity and additional tooling for Edsels helped make the company's subsequent success with the Falcon possible.

Ford ran internal studies to decide on a name, and dispatched employees to stand outside movie theaters to poll audiences as to what their feelings were on several ideas.

David Wallace, manager of marketing research, and coworker Bob Young unofficially invited freethinker poet Marianne Moore for input and suggestions.

Moore's unorthodox contributions, among them "Utopian Turtletop," "Pastelogram," "Turcotinga," "Resilient Bullet," "Andante con Moto" and "Mongoose Civique", were meant to stir creative thought and were not officially authorized or contractual in nature.

Even though Edsels shared basic technology with other Ford cars of the era, a number of issues caused reliability problems, mostly with the 1958 models.

Reports of mechanical flaws with the cars surfaced, due primarily to lack of quality control and confusion of parts with other Ford models.

Consequently, the desired quality control of the different Edsel models proved difficult to achieve, even when the Fords and Mercurys were satisfactorily assembled on the same lines.

[6] In the March 1958 issue of Popular Mechanics, 16% of Edsel owners reported poor workmanship, with complaints ranging from faulty welding to power steering failure.

[29] According to Thomas E. Bonsall's 2002 book, Disaster in Dearborn, it was assistant stylist Bob "Robin" Jones who suggested a vertical motif for the front end of the "E-car".

The control wires for Teletouch were also routed too close to the exhaust manifold, which often caused unpredictable movement of the selector mechanism and, in some cases, complete failure.

The electrical design required drivers to shift from Park to Reverse to Neutral to Drive, in that order, to avoid overloading the Teletouch motor.

Mechanics of the time were wary of the 410-cubic-inch Edsel "E-475" engine because its perfectly flat cylinder heads lacked distinct combustion chambers.

Eventually, Ford's former executive vice president Ernest R. Breech, who was a financial contributor to Goldwater, wrote to the Senator's campaign, explaining that "Mr. McNamara ... had nothing to do with the plans for the Edsel car or any part of the program."

During his time as head of the World Bank, McNamara instructed his public affairs officer to distribute copies of Breech's letter to the press whenever the accusation was made.

[31] The Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi features an Edsel crashing through a wall, intended to symbolically represent US military failure in the Vietnam War.

[32] Though sharing chassis underpinnings and many body stampings with the Falcon, the Comet was stretched to a 114-inch (290 cm) wheelbase, longer than the GM Y-body "senior compacts".

The Comet adopted multiple design features from the full-size Edsel line, including its oblong taillamp lenses, though canted diagonally, creating its rear tailfins, along with the instrument cluster.

For 1962, the full-size Meteor was discontinued, with Mercury shifting the nameplate to its newly introduced intermediate car line, becoming a counterpart of the Ford Fairlane to 1963.

The BMW 4 Series (G22) is a contemporary model line with a vertical grille, generating a negative critical response similar to the Edsel.

Through technological advances, multiple features introduced by Edsel cars, including self-adjusting brakes, automatic climate control, steering wheel-mounted transmission controls, and childproof rear door locks are no longer impractical ideas, but included in many current production features as options or standard equipment.