Ford Edsel car, 1958. Serial no. X8WX702430, registration no. DBY 475B. The Ford Edsel was launched with considerable publicity on 4 September 1957, branded ‘E-Day’, with a television special ‘The Edsel Show’ aired in October. However despite the publicity the Edsel was unsuccessful and eventually pulled in November 1959. Ford had promised a completely new kind of car, yet the Edsel was essentially conventional with bodywork similar to previous models.

Edsel Corsair 4-door hard-top car, 1958. The Edsel marque (brand) was produced by the Ford Motor Company between 1957 and 1959 and was intended to fill the supposed gap in the middle-class market between the Ford and Mercury marques. It was produced in 5 models and 18 body variations in total. Despite vast sums spent on customer research and public relations, the project backfired. The gap did not exist, the US economy was entering a period of recession, the model's launch coincided with a marked decline in car sales generally, the look of the car failed to gel with the public, the name 'Edsel' was considered problematic, there were dealership problems, and issues with indifferent quality control. The latter was not helped by the Edsel Division having to buy production time in other Ford divisions' car plants, rather than having a dedicated factory and workforce. As a result, only 35,000 Edsels found customers during the first six months of production, while projected sales had been 200,000 in the first year