The Thrill Starts with the Grill
Beats me why in recent years we are seeing all these new cars with the huge open mouths. It’s supposed to be “hot” I suppose, an enormous air scoop gulping aspiration on the race track or something, what a crock, what a load of it. Both foreign cars and American cars have succumbed to the trendy.
They’re even doing it in China, above, the new Beijing E-Series. Hopefully the fad will fade soon enough. Not soon enough for me.
The first suggestion of such that I remember is the Edsel, the car FoMoCo brought out in 1957 for a couple of reasons.
It was to fill a supposed price gap between Ford and Mercury, and it honored Henry Ford’s only son Edsel, father of Henry Ford II.
The first Edsel cars were offered in two body series and price ranges, the cheaper a Ford body finished as an Edsel, the more expensive a Mercury body finished as an Edsel. The convertible was really nice. From the side.
Collector items today, the cars were fine same as any other Ford product, but the styling was widely ridiculed, became a laughingstock, so they didn’t sell, were discontinued after only three or four model years, and Edsel became an icon for failure.
Today’s cars with the huge black hole instead of a front grill remind me of Edsel.
However, there is one car that, though not for many long years a Chrysler enthusiast, I could get into and drive across the heavens, a 2015 Dodge sedan V8 with 707 horsepower. Yep, a cool sedan!
Mine is parked in that garage out back beside the 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass, where I keep a couple of dream cars. I’ll never know why I let that Olds get away from me. So a 707 hp Dodge hemi V8? Maybe. Mine is red. Dream on.
T
Collector items today, the cars were fine same as any other Ford product, but the styling was widely ridiculed, became a laughingstock, so they didn’t sell, were discontinued after only three or four model years, and Edsel became an icon for failure.
T