The New Edsel

From the cover of the October 1957 issue of Science and Mechanics. Be glad that you can't smell the original after forty years of being in the basement of my parent's old house. They stink.

When I was a kid, the neighbor up the street had a pink and beige '57 Edsel. At least he did until the brakes started to give out and he couldn't park it on the street anymore for fear that it would roll down the steep hill and end up straddling a lane or two of Route 17 at the bottom. It was a big, unimpressive car, except for the color which was of the sort of shades that made the cars of the 1960's look serene by comparison. For all the nostalgia about chrome and tail fins at car shows, I doubt any car maker will ever again offer the sort of demented combinations of flat pepto and canned mushroom soup of the Edsel. Or the buttons on the steering wheel as shown in the scan. Please note the test driver is doing a hearty 55 or so, a speed at which a real Edsel would be vibrating like a harp...