Edsel

You probably had the same dream when you were a teenager. Your sixteenth birthday is coming up, or Christmas, or maybe both, and all you want is a muscle car to call your own. That dream has come true for some, and one of them was none other than Edsel Ford II.

A 1951 Studebaker fastback might not be the first vehicle to come to mind when we think "Woody," but here one sits on the SEMA show floor. There's a reason for that: Studebaker didn't make a woody or a fastback in 1951, according to Hot Rod. Hill's Rod & Custom came up with the creation, hired a professional to design i

Yeah, so that didn't work out so well. At least I'll get more practice painting. Project Edsel's time for primer had come, so I thinned some Tamiya X21 into the reservoir and fired up the compressor. It took a while to figure out the proper flow and pressure setting (a pressure gauge would be helpful to adjust the compressor's regulator), but once everything was connected up and filled, I was ready to shoot some paint.

It's been an exciting start, mainly because I get to dig out all my old model building tools and skills. That's also why it's been a little slow since the initial post went up, because I've had to find all those model building tools. The last model I built was a '67 Belvidere GTX over ten years ago and 100 miles from here. I haven't been able to find my X-Acto knife set, but I've made do so far with my home-improvement scarred Stanley 99E razor knife.

Fifty years ago this year, Ford spent a lot of money on consultants who told them car buyers would pay a premium for "the smart car for the younger executive or professional family on its way up."

The recreational car show season is about two-thirds of the way done for 2007, at least here in New England. There will be good cruise days sprinkled in until about Halloween, but as the summer winds down, so does the practice of four-wheeled gatherings. Every year as I stroll past rows of shiny fenders, my thoughts wander to what fun there is to be had with that vehicle that doesn't participate in workaday drudgery.

Ah, the Edsel. A historical signpost warning against innovation for the sake of innovating. Of course, that wasn't the only reason for the car's birth. Ford perceived a hole in their offerings and decided to take Lincoln upmarket and offer a new model range as "step-up" cars from Ford. It sounds a little bit like the conundrum they find themselves in now, and why there's a refocusing going on over at Lincoln/Mercury. Ford's inability to develop and bring the car to market quickly also hurt the E