People were buying car brands that they knew at discounted prices. Also the entire country was suffering through a recession. Primarily Edsel models were positioned so they ended up competing with Mercury models. Nor was the name much help (Edsel was Henry Ford’s son). The reasons for its failure actually had little to do with it’s styling (but it didn’t help).
The very word “Edsel” became a popular symbol for a commercial failure. The Ford Motor Company lost millions of dollars on the Edsel’s development, manufacturing and marketing. But contrary to Ford’s plans, the Edsel never established itself firmly in the marketplace. With Edsel, Ford had expected to close the gap between itself and General Motors in the domestic American automotive market. The grille resembles a gaping fish mouth and the tail fins, well, you get it.Įdsel was a brand of the Ford Motor Company during the 1958 through 1960 model years. With the possible exception of the British Daimler SP-250 sports car, no vehicle has looked so much like a fish without intending to do so. The design inspiration for the1958 Packard, in particular, must have come during a fishing trip. What followed were some of the most ghastly cars of the 1950s.
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So as Studebaker was calling the shots, they determined the design direction and left it to Packard to figure out afterwards how to create a unique Packard identity out of a Studebaker design (without spending an real money). Packard now had to build cars out of whatever else Studebaker was manufacturing. Worst yet, by 1957 all Packard engineered cars had been dropped from the line-up. In 1954 the once proud Packard company had become part of Studebaker.
There were other issues with the engine as well, so helicopter engines were adapted. For example his own engine design was so heavy it took 60 volts just for the starter to turn the engine over. Though there’s plenty of rumors about why Tucker failed, in reality the design was too complicated and had too many new features for the technology and manufacturing of the time, and Tucker didn’t have the capital to properly engineer even those advanced features that made it onto the 51 cars.
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Only 51 cars were made before the company folded due to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and a heavily publicized stock fraud trial (which ended in acquittal). The Tucker 48 was an automobile conceived by Preston Tucker and briefly produced in Chicago. The “spinner” was dropped for the 1952 model year. The 1950 front wasn’t much better, with a “nose” one assumes was to look like an aircraft with a “spinner” grille that looked like it had been removed from the nacelle of a B-29. While great for visibility, as the C Pillar was so far forward, it created an extremely awkward looking rear section. In 1950, new styling was introduced on the Studebaker Champion, with one of the new styling features the wraparound, “green-house” rear window that was on two-door cars from 1947–1951, at first just an option, in 1950 it was given its own trim line, the Starlight coupe.
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