Edsel Ford, wasn't content to be seen driving around in a regular production Ford... he needed something special, but still Ford

Seems strange to see a dual cowl Model A, but Edsel felt he needed it.

Edsel Ford, unlike his famous father, was an aesthete, artist and connoisseur. Given the presidency of Lincoln in 1922 he applied a measure of style to Ford cars, establishing the company's first design department in 1931. Early in 1934, he ordered a town car from Brewster, built on a Ford V8 chassis.

Brewster and Co. was one of America's earliest carriage builders. Established by James Brewster at New Haven, Connecticut, in 1810, the firm won international acclaim at the Paris Carriage Exhibition in 1878. In 1905, Brewster built its first body for the burgeoning automobile industry; by 1911 it had abandoned carriages entirely and moved the workshops to Long Island City, New York.

In 1914, in what would become a long association, Brewster took a Rolls-Royce franchise.

Not surprisingly, many imported Rolls-Royce cars bore Brewster coachwork. When Rolls-Royce of America was established at Springfield, Massachusetts in 1919, Brewster became one of the companies supplying "Rolls-Royce Custom Coachwork," bodies built in small series and listed in the catalogs. The Brewster relationship was sufficiently close that Rolls bought Brewster in October 1925.

By the early thirties, however, all luxury automakers were reeling, Rolls-Royce among them. Chassis assembly at Springfield ceased, leaving only a few imported Phantom II chassis for Brewster to clothe.

Rolls-Royce of America was shut down in 1934; by then its president, John S. Inskip, was running Brewster and steered the coachbuilding company back to auto manufacture. With the deepening depression, Inskip reasoned that America's wealthy, faced with belt-tightening, might be interested in a coachbuilt car on an economy chassis. This led to the Brewster Ford.

For his own car, however, Edsel specified a standard Model 40 grille and a hood without louvers. Bearing Brewster number 9002, it was reportedly the third built, and was still being finished while in transit to Michigan in a railcar. Delivery took place on June 1, 1934, the first Brewster Ford to reach the public. It has headlights of the 1936 Ford style, 16-inch wheels and a 1938-type banjo steering wheel.

Brewster Ford No. 9002 was sold through the New York Ford agency in 1941, at Edsel's request. The new owner, reportedly a New Jersey resident, kept it until his death. After his passing, it was left to his only daughter and transported to her home in California. It then remained in storage until 2005, when the current owner was able to buy it. The car was transported directly to the Meadow Book Concours d'Elegance, where it was welcomed back to Michigan for the first time in 55 years and displayed as a special, non-judged exhibit. It appeared in March 2006 at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance, receiving the Amelia Award as runner-up in a class for custom-bodied Fords, in competition with seven other cars with high-quality restorations.

The heart-front Brewster Fords are the only Ford V8-based cars recognized as Full Classics by the Classic Car Club of America.

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/4961005_253-1934-brewster-ford-town-car
http://carzhunt.blogspot.com/2018/07/hiding-in-plain-site-gullwing-motors.html

Alloway's Hot Rod shop made this Edsel Ranger really nice!

Yes, they really said this, and felt this way about the Edsel

http://prova275.tumblr.com/

yes, there actually WAS a worse looking design for the Edsel that they passed over

http://www.overdrive.fi/forum/threads/vanhoja-valokuvia-ameriikan-raitilta.267070/page-505#post-3113650

hang on... how about this instant improvement by putting some vertical stripes over the headlights of an Edsel!

Man, I dig it. It would be even better without the license plate, and the hint of the round bezel on the drivers side lights

http://workingclasskustoms.blogspot.com/2017/07/rustndust-2017.html

The Canadian Edsel

http://www.overdrive.fi/forum/threads/vanhoja-valokuvia-ameriikan-raitilta.267070/page-347

Jason says: 

Just a couple of notes on the Edsels.

the blue car is a stock Ranger 2-DHT that was remodeled into a factory prototype stock Corsair 2-DHT.

 The blue car is a proposed 1960 Corsair 2-door hardtop, except Charlie Wells of Ohio, hand-built it from a standard Ranger 2-Door Hardtop and did a marvelous job.

 They are both prototypes of proposed 1960 models that were never produced. The red car is long gone, and the blue car is a marvelous recreation done by a man whose first name was Charlie, who has since passed away.

The red car is a proposed 1960 Corsair 4-door hardtop. If it was ever a functioning car, it was dismantled (like most are) by Ford after the photos were taken.

The other reference to Jim (his last name is Popp) 1960 Serial Number 1 is a hoax. The whole car was created in his garage, and the #1 VIN created to match the car.

 The rub about Jim Popp is he insisted his car was an original, normal production unit, yet anybody who has owned, torn down and rebuilt many '60s and studied them, knows better. His car is a 4-door hardtop, a model of which a scant 135 were ever assembled. When new models hit the assembly lines, the first ones off are the ones most expected to sell quickly. In the case of the 1960 Edsel, those models were the Ranger 2- and 4-Door Sedans.

the blue car is a stock Ranger 2-DHT that was remodeled into a factory prototype stock Corsair 2-DHT. Pictures of the original prototype are in b/w and all over the Internet. Only Charlie Wells' meticulous reproduction is in color, Polar White over Cadet Blue.

Shrine of the Holy Grill, an oasis of Edsels

His first car was an Edsel, bought a month after production ceased, and the dealership wanted it gone so bad they knocked a 1/3rd off the price. It lasted 12 years and 120,000 miles, and then life got in the way until he restored it, won trophies with it, and started collecting more Edsels.

He found and purchased 1960 Edsel Serial Number One – a four-door hardtop coincidentally painted the same Sahara Beige as his first four-door sedan. A lot of the his cars are low-mileage originals, including a black ’58 Citation four-door hardtop that has clocked just 22,000 miles, and a ’59 Corsair two-door hardtop – red, with cream-yellow inserts and a white roof – showing just 16,300 miles

In 1994, Jim’s 1960 Ranger sedan – the first Edsel he ever purchased, 34 years before – earned a Grand National First Prize from the Antique Automobile Club of America. It was the first Edsel ever to be so honored.

http://performance.ford.com/enthusiasts/newsroom/2017/12/-jim-popp_s-_shrine-of-the-holy-grille.html

sweet matched set

these were on Ebay for 47k

http://www.woodyboater.com/blog/2017/06/06/edsel-and-century-a-match-made-on-ebay/

Edsel's 2nd speedster, the famous one

this will be on permanent display at Edsel’s estate in Grosse Point Shores

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/01/look-at-what-i-found-the-most-significant-car-at-the-2012-naias-edsel-fords-1934-model-40-special-speedster/speedster-mono-img_0285/

http://automotivetrends.com/index.php/2012/01/2012-naias-edsel-fords-1934-model/
http://www.conceptcarz.com/articles/article.aspx?articleID=238

Who saved Ford from bankruptcy in the great depression? Henry Ford? Nope. Edsel Ford? Nope. The guy who fixed Edsel's car on his 1915 cross country trip, his brother in law Ernest

http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/07/in-1915-edsel-ford-and-friends-went.html

Henry Ford suddenly resigned the presidency of Ford in December 1918, and Edsel Ford was elected to succeed him.

Henry had been angered by minority stockholders, particularly the Dodge brothers, who had sued for increased dividends. He figured out a brilliant short term solution to having to put up with working for shareholders though.

Early in 1919 Henry Ford said he would form a new company and produce a car to rival the famous Model T.

Suddenly scared of the profitability of their Ford shares in view of Henry himself announcing a better car in the works, shareholders sold their shares to agents secretly working for the Fords.

This ruse brought complete ownership of Ford Motor back to the Ford family. The charade led to Edsel Ford's ownership of 41 percent of the company's stock that had been in non-Ford hands. Henry Ford remained the majority stockholder.

But then the 1920 recession hit, and Ford happened to be $75 million in debt to the Boston and New York banks due to rapid expansion and buying out the shareholders, including the Dodge brothers. As the recession deepened, he was at risk of losing the business.

Ernest Kanzler, a second Vice President at Ford in charge of the tractor side of the Ford business, Edsel's brother-in-law, (Edsel married Kanzler's wife Josephine's sister, but more on that under the links) and closest confidant, cancelled all supplier contracts, extended accounts payable from 60 to 120 days, and then used the standing inventory to assemble 90,000 cars, which were then sent to Ford dealers unsolicited under the standard terms: cash on delivery. Dealers had no choice but to pay for the cars or forfeit their franchises.

In this way, Ford threw his debt onto the backs of his dealers, the bankers were chased off, and Ford maintained control of his company. This was not the first or last time Ford gave his dealers a raw deal, and it was his practices in part that inspired all the various state franchise laws that give car dealers special protections.

Kanzler composed a six-page letter in January of 1926, pointing out that Chevrolet sales were rapidly gaining, while Ford's were in sharp decline.

Kanzler, while delicately refraining from direct criticism of Henry's beloved Model "T", called for a more competitive six cylinder car. "With every additional car our competitors sell, they get stronger and we get weaker."

Any critisism of the Model T infuriated Henry. Thereafter, Ernest Kanzler found himself ignored, ridiculed, and victimized in every conceivable way. Ultimately, while Edsel was out of the country, Henry had Kanzler fired. Henry really didn't get along with anyone, as no one was quite the same hard ass flint nosed old oak stump stubborn as Henry, except for maybe Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone.

Even Edsel wasn't able to get along with the old man, and what is probably unknown to you is that part of this is due to Henry's farm upbringing but due to Henry's success in automobiles Edsel had been born and raised in the city, and then Edsel married the niece of one of the Hudson car company leaders and owner of the largest dept store in Detroit, and then moved farther from the country, into the most elite and highest society circle of his wife's old money family in Indian Village, and then into Grosse Pointe Shores.

After he left Ford, Kanzler became a prominent Detroit banker, and while he and HF I did not get on, he remained a close advisor to Edsel Ford, and later to Edsel's widow Eleanor, and to their son. Henry Ford II. To the family he was known as "Uncle Ernest."

Kanzler was also head of the War Production Board during World War II, and a director of the Detroit Lions football team.

In 1955 he married Rosemarie, and he died in 1967

http://www.edsel.com/pages/edslford.htm
https://www.facebook.com/groups/321577158048111/
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/edsel-bryant-ford

Henry Ford II met his second wife, the Italian-born Cristina Vettore Austin, at one of Mrs. Kanzler's homes.
Mr. Ford's daughter, Charlotte Ford, met Stavros Niarchos, the Greek shipping tycoon whom she later married, at the Kanzler residence in St. Moritz.

Mrs. Kanzler was also credited with introducing Henry Fonda to his third wife, Countess Afdera Franchetti, and Oscar de la Renta to Francoise de Langlade, his first wife.

Over her lifetime, Mrs. Kanzler decorated and lived in 23 residences throughout the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/17/world/rosemarie-kanzler-85-social-magnet-who-d-find-a-find-and-make-a-match.html

Edsel Ford's 1932 roadster was at the 2007 Grand National Roadster Show, in an "as found" condition, but was throroughly restored and auctioned off for $770,000

The all-aluminum boattail body was made by Ford's aircraft division. It was just what Edsel Ford wanted and had described. No running boards and a steeply raked split windshield that disguised Edsel's continental car's humble assembly line origins.

Edsel drove the Speedster to work on several occasions. An updated Ford flathead V-8 was later installed for more performance. In 1934, when the 2nd Speedster was built, this car was sold to an Indianapolis mechanic Elmer Benzin.

By the 1940's it was in a Connecticut wrecking yard, where it was saved - but underwent extensive modifications by the new owners by replacing the damaged alloy fenders with a set of four steel fenders, which were sourced from a 1935/36 Chevy. No one knows how it got from Michigan to Connecticut and this is still a mystery.

The car was purchased by John Cox who had no idea what the car was, and sold in the late 1940s. He came upon the car again in 1984 and re-purchased it. He completely disassembled it. Shortly after this it was realized to be Edsel Ford's 1932 Speedster. After Cox's passing, the car was sold to the current owners.

The current owner purchased the car several years ago, and decided to return the car to its original condition. It has been repainted in 1932 Ford Tunis Gray, mated to a sample found on the underside of the cowl vent. Power is from flathead, with a Stromberg 81 two-barrel carburetor, and dual exhaust.

http://www.edsel.com/pages/edslford.htm
http://www.conceptcarz.com/profile/8980,17516/1932-Ford-Special-Speedster.aspx
https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2016/01/25/edsel-fords-first-v-8-speedster-set-the-stage-for-fords-design-department/

http://www.conceptcarz.com/view/photo/1478604,17516/1932-Ford-Special-Speedster_photo.aspx
https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2016/01/25/edsel-fords-first-v-8-speedster-set-the-stage-for-fords-design-department/

when your Edsel isn't enough to impress the snobs, go all out

Andy Prieboy's design genius shows us, excess shouldn’t stop merely at the number of wheels and tires. How about grilles? One or two more grilles should spruce up any car, two more horse collars was exactly what the Edsel needed.

https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2016/08/11/photochops-the-more-better-edition/

Thanks Steve!

what were they thinking? Never use a name from a prior bad sales vehicle. Pacers and Citations... bad idea to recycle those names. Notice both were Edsel names.

https://www.historicvehicle.org/top-ten-recycledreused-car-names/

Edsel by Le Bro

https://www.facebook.com/groups/684985828311051/

Edsel designs from the back corner

the cool thing about the 50s cars was that they used more than one color sometimes, and that you could identify them fast and easy by the taillight shape, size, and configuration

Mad magazine's version of the 63 3/4 Edsel

thanks Steve!

back when cars were a frequent prize in give away contests, here were a couple remarkable ones

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.343631419007008.70846.280823595287791&type=3
http://aacalibrary.tumblr.com/post/165085832173/win-a-wagon-from-libbys-canned-vegetables-1968