The greatest wrong car at the wrong time

E FOR EXPERIMENTAL, EDSEL, AND EXTINCT

Big thanks to Neen from the Empire Region who sent these lovely snaps in of a landmark footnote brightening up a driveway in Glens Falls, NY!
There are a few automobiles in history that have a reputation that transcends reality. Not every Ford Pinto is going to explode if hit in the rear. Not every Rolls Royce is a great car (I'm looking at you, Carmague). The hardest sell to the general public will be this statement: The Edsel is not and never was a bad car!

This is a 1958 Edsel Pacer in two-tone Snow White over Spruce Green Poly. This beast is a Greatest Hits of late '50s styling; flashy chrome, tall and wide shape, and Jet Age features like the head and tail lights jutting out in their own enclosures. Still there is one big, rounded design elephant in the room that the public couldn't see past. 

That wide open Horse Collar center grill looks like a jet engine intake to me, and I'm sure that was the intention of the lead designers. I don't know if it was too advanced or too ugly, but once an auto journalist proclaimed that it looked "like an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon", that's all the public could see.

Horse collar was one commonly used term, toilet seat was another. Regardless this center grill opening proved too daring for 1958. The following year would see this same basic look toned way down. The 1959 Edsel had no space between the three grill components and the center collar was much smaller. The hood ornament is an E suspended in glass which is a neat look.
*E was the given name for this ride while it was in development, standing for Experimental. After a committee within Ford tossed around dozens of potential names they chose Edsel. The name proved too hard to place for the public, one of the many missteps in this sad story.

The dimensions are pure Ford of this era. This one is as minty fresh as can be! The fit and finish where the grill and headlight surrounds meet the body is flawless. That chrome spear running along the fender is laser straight. Everything about this Edsel says "show winner".

The shape of the vent window shows just how far the wrap-around windshield goes. That green upholstery is perfect and correct.
The Edsel was the most expensive car to build up to that point at 250 million dollars just in research and design. This made it all the more tragic once it was deemed a flop after just 2 years (not to mention it takes its name from Edsel Ford; son of the company founder Henry Ford.

All that design money went into myriad innovations, some of them downright bonkers. For instance take a look at the center of the steering wheel. Where 99% of auto makers put the horn the '58 Edsel had their Teletouch system; a push button automatic transmission. That's all fine and good when operating under normal conditions, but when you truly need the horn you're instead slamming your palm into a cluster of buttons, throwing the car out of gear in the process! As you might imagine this lasted only 1 year before switching to a traditional column shifter.

Another cool feature was the speedometer which is barely visible in the pic above. Through the vent window there is a round dial identical to the one on the other side of the wheel. Above that dial you can just about see what looks to be a glass dome laying flat with a chrome band along the bottom. Within that dome is a round speedometer where the numbers are written around the angled edge. The inner dome would circle around while the needle was stationary. 

From this angle all we see is a beautiful 1950s sedan with its two-tone cove and rear panel.

The wheel wells lean forward giving the impression of movement. The trunk is gargantuan!

Unfortunately the Edsel was such a horrific disaster that its name became synonymous with failure. Not only did it look odd, but it was released into the now-forgotten mini recession of 1958. They never had their own dedicated factory, with Edsel being built in Ford and Mercury plants, usually at the same time. Imagine assembling 30 Mercurys in a row and then 3 Edsels come along on the assembly line! As a worker you have to grab the necessary tools for the Edsel out of another bin, perform your tasks, and then switch back to your usual Mercury gear. As a result there was great variation in build quality.
I had an Edsel once. When I was home from college I passed by a 1959 Edsel Ranger 2 door with $450 written on the windshield. Being a '59 it wasn't quite as odd as the '58 but it still captured everyones imagination who saw it. Registering it involved forging the signature of a man who'd been dead over 10 years as it had been sold several times but never registered after the 1st owner. My ownership of this heavily neglected beast was brief but entertaining. One day while driving I realized there was a mini pedal under the dash to the right of the accelerator. I stepped on it and the windshield wipers moved once! A great and forgotten feature from a maligned and wrongly accused car.

L.A. Rob returns with a Venetian delicacy

BLUEBIRD BEATER
Usually if I get a series of pics from L.A. Rob they consist of the worlds greatest classic cars in museum condition. Not this time! Behold this surfers hooptie from the streets of Venice Beach:

 This is a 1958 Ford Thunderbird wearing remnants of its original Regatta Blue paint. We're in serious hooptie/rat rod territory here people; patina for days, rear window off the track, and backyard repairs left half finished contrasting a new set of wheels and what looks to be a new exhaust. Being California this car remains straight and not rotted out even in this shape at age 58.

Just look at this mouth breathing, leering freak! Terrible acne scars tell of a neglected childhood, and yet this car started out as Fords top of the line flagship. The T-birds from '55-'57 were sexy little 2 seaters, but the management thought sales were restricted due to their limited passenger ferrying capabilities. 1958 introduced this catfish-faced colossus, larger in every way and fitted with 4 seats.
*The grill had this hexagonal pattern only in '58. The following year brought horizontal bars in the same opening.

 I once had a '59 Edsel that had very similar chrome details on the leading top of the fenders. This is smack dab in the middle of nonessential decoration in auto design.

 This was built on the meridian between the end of the Jet Age and the beginning of the Space Age. The Russian satellite Sputnik was launched in 1957, heralding a new fascination with space. Being that this car was already being manufactured, Jet Age elements such as this mirror can still be found.
The steering wheel looks really beat and the dashboard rusted. I bet this thing sat without a windshield for a while.

Love it or hate it the looks of the '58 T-Bird are bold. We've got some of the most literal Jet Age styling cues ever on this rear end. The fins are restrained for the year, but the dual rear bumpers are totally bonkers.
Those dual exhaust pipes are connected to the 352 V8 in its first year of production.

 I appreciate how they kept the wheels in the family, as these come from a recent Mustang. The Thunderbird emblem in chrome script looks so sweet.

What are the chances that this would be parked at (5)58?
Take a good look at this mug before the police drag him away. This car has no plates which is a scenario that can't last for long. I like the lines of this era 'bird a lot better than when I was younger, though every year of the following decade is superior in my own opinion. This is actually not an enormous car for the vintage, and sports lots of swooping awesomeness and relatively restrained chrome. Whoever's driving this beast these days is going full rat as illustrated by the leftover evidence of a sloppy repair. My guess is that this got smashed in the front pretty good and the owner got a replacement bumper and just pulled out the top panel.

 I was informed by Rob that the sticker on the front here is Dogtown as in the Z-Boys as in The Birthplace of Freestyle Skating.
Thunderbirds are GO!

Show Car Sunday returns with The Classiest Roadster You Will See All Day

DROP DEAD GORGEOUS DROP TOP

You really never know what you're going to get in this city. Somewhere out on the warehousey edge of Greenpoint and Queens sat this stunning little lady right here:

This is a 1955-1958 Mercedes Benz 190SL convertible with the optional removable hardtop. If this is close to the original color it was listed in the charts as Weiß (white in German), while the hardtop is Feuerrot (Fire Red). This is about as classy as a car can get!

From this peek inside the interior we can see it's pretty well equipped with the original Becker radio in the dash and a Kienzle clock mounted on the glove compartment door. The seats are out which makes sense as this seems to be going through a complete restoration.

In 1959 the hardtop window was enlarged from this size to a full wrap-around version which helps us to round down the year. The 190SL was introduced in 1955 and was built for 8 years with very little in the way of changes. These were meant to be the more manageable little sibling to the larger 300SL (which of course includes the famous Gullwing). Where the 300 series had a big straight six these had a smaller 4 cylinder.

The color matching hubcaps lend to the class on this sweet little ride.

While the mighty 300SL gets the multi-million dollar auction money these smaller cars are starting to catch up quick. In 2014 one of these sold at Sotheby's for a cool $341,000! Regardless, here it was parked amidst minivans and Mustangs above the oil slick that is Eastern Greenpoint. Glad I found it when I did!

Supersonic Jet from Outer Space

SPACE-AGE MASTERPIECE!!! 

I was riding the old bike up to Greenpoint recently when I stumbled upon a vehicle I've witnessed over the years, usually rocketing past me through a green light. To find it roosting on a beautiful day was exactly what I'd been hoping for! Without further ado:

YES! This wonderful colossus is a 1958 Desoto Fireflite in 2-tone Black & Pearl White. This is the exact make and model car that the main character drove in the comic strip Shoe (his car was always drawn with complete and consistent accuracy!). It is also obviously a jet powered spaceship about to gentrify outer space once it picks up enough Greenpoint/Williamsburg citizens.

This is such a damn cool car I don't even know where to start. Its height is about that of the Honda in front of it but it manages to tower over the other rides in sheer amazingness.

Desoto was one of the many nameplates that finally died off or were consumed by larger companies in the late '50s early '60s. By the time this beast rolled off the assembly line it was driving right into the recession of '58 which saw new car sales drop by 30%. By this time Desoto was a part of the Chrysler corporation. Since the two makes looked very similar in that era Chrysler decided to drop the Desoto name entirely by 1961.

Most of the late '50s Desotos have 4 headlights but curiously enough this was an option. Occasionally you will see this exact car with one large headlight on each side.

Sputnik was launched the year before this was built, heralding the beginning of the Space Age. Styling cues abound on this ride such as the triple rockets on the hood and fenders.

The shape of the headlight enclosure is so odd that I wanted to snap it from above. This design was penned under the leadership of the legendary Chrysler designer Virgil Exner. 

Another view of the middle rocket in lunch mode. The fact that the letters are done in gold tells you that this is indeed the top-of-the-line flagship model for Desoto.

There's SO MUCH WINDSHIELD wrapping around the front of this behemoth! The glass looks to have a faint green tint to it which probably came from the factory (I had a '63 Beetle that had factory green glass in it). Myriad tiny details are evident here such as the tiny scale of the vent window due to that sharp angle of the pillar, the chrome cap above the top of the windshield, and the fact that there isn't a straight edge to be seen. Even the door handles are a dynamic, rounded shape!

Just in case the driver forgot how lucky they were to be piloting such a cruiser, Fireflite is written in gold right on the dash under the speedometer.
The radio and clock are options but I can't tell if it has a/c or not. The transmission is hidden from view but it is a pushbutton model on the far side of the gauge cluster.

Even with the metal pitted these are some of the coolest mirrors even placed on a car. In 1958 it was rare to see a passenger side mirror at all.

You can't make it out but this glass covered emblem contains the stylized likeness of Hernando de Soto, the explorer who "discovered" the Mississippi (while pillaging and murdering the people who happened to already live in these undiscovered lands). Why there is a small keyhole and lamp present is beyond me. This sort of ignorance in automobile naming wasn't limited to honoring an explorer with blood on his hands; in '57 and '58 Studebaker named their beyond-cheap stripped down model the Scotsman as in "thrifty as a Scot". 

Looks like there are a couple of chalices on the emblem as well according to these original hubcaps. How is it that this sweet ride has been granted some special protection from the trials of car ownership in NYC? I've seen this for years driving around Manhattan and Brooklyn and the only thing I can surmise is that it commands so much damn attention that people leave it be.

Now we're talking! Next to the Cadillacs of this same era these are some of the most dramatic and impressive fins ever produced. 

The stacked taillights add to the Space Age look. If you saw a science fiction movie around this time the spaceship would look something like this. The Jetsons car was even similar.

Originally there was another chrome strip along the underneath of this one that angles upward. Underneath the E in Fireflite you can just make out the filled-in hole of one of the mounting points.

Why are there 8 vertical strips of chrome surrounding the license plate? Because it's totally awesome, that's why. I hadn't noticed the Mickey Mouse gloves in the back window until now, nor the section of string coming out of the trunk below the plate.

As if this thing needed one more detail to be cooler than cool, the exhaust is directed through the openings beneath the taillights. The opening is the same odd shape as the headlight surrounds which pleases me a great deal.

Well that's that. This is only the 2nd Desoto I've encountered in NYC but I'm always on the lookout. The fact that someone uses a car so impossibly irrational as a daily driver in the city is pretty incredible. Parallel parking this requires more room than is usually available, so hats off!