Ford spent a decade and a quarter of a billion dollars researching what Americans wanted, built exactly that, and could not give it away. The Edsel is not a story about a bad car - it is a story about the limits of asking people what they want.
ON THE FLOOR
Charles Horton Cooley
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“You learned who you are by watching what other people reflected back at you. The mirror, it turns out, was people all along.”
ON THE FLOOR
Edward Soja
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“Space is not the stage the story happens on - it is one of the actors. Ask WHERE, and half the mystery answers itself.”
ON THE FLOOR
George Herbert Mead
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“The self is a conversation: the I speaking, the Me listening with everyone else's ears. You rehearse society every time you think.”
LAB1-001 · The Edsel — Open the drawer
A steering-wheel-mounted control panel with illuminated push buttons replacing the traditional gear shift lever, designed to let drivers select forward, reverse, and park without leaving the wheel.
LAB1-002 · The Edsel — What is this thing?
A steering-hub mounted transmission selector from the 1958 Edsel, featuring illuminated push buttons for Drive, Reverse, Neutral, and Park—a centerpiece of Ford's market research into driver convenience that proved ergonomically problematic and mechanically unreliable.
LAB1-003 · The Edsel — Read the source
A full-color promotional brochure from Ford's 1958 Edsel launch, promising buyers a car that bridges the gap between standard and luxury sedans through advanced engineering, distinctive styling, and social aspiration.
LAB1-004 · The Edsel — Map it / time it
A Ford dealer network distribution chart showing planned Edsel market penetration across US regions in 1958, color-coded by launch phase and sales quota, revealing the mismatch between aspirational geography and recession geography.
LAB1-005 · The Edsel — Two sources disagree
A full-color promotional brochure from Ford's 1958 Edsel launch, promising buyers a car designed by market research to match their desires. Students compare its claims against historical failure narratives.
LAB1-006 · The Edsel — State the claim
A full-color promotional brochure from Ford's 1958 Edsel launch, featuring market-research claims about consumer desires and the car's engineered responses to them, now a primary document of misalignment between predicted and actual demand.
LAB1-007 · The Edsel — Take the other side
A Louisville plant supervisor's weekly quality control log from September 1958, documenting paint defects, electrical failures, and trim misalignment in newly assembled Edsels—evidence that production problems, not market research, drove early customer dissatisfaction.
LAB1-008 · The Edsel — Weigh it
A dashboard-mounted transmission selector featuring Ford's signature push-button interface, representing the Edsel's market-researched innovations that consumers said they wanted but adoption rates revealed they did not.
LAB1-009 · The Edsel — Build the answer
A 1958 owner's manual for the Edsel's signature Teletouch dashboard-mounted transmission control, demonstrating Ford's decade of consumer research translated into a single, tangible feature students can examine to test whether innovation or execution failed.
LAB1-010 · The Edsel — For the file
A representative consumer survey form from Ford's extensive mid-1950s market research program that gathered preferences on styling, features, and brand personality from thousands of American households, becoming primary evidence in debates over whether research methodology or external factors determined the Edsel's commercial failure.
LAB1-011 · The Edsel — Go and look
A steering-wheel-mounted transmission control dial featuring push-buttons arranged in a circle, representing Ford's decade-long consumer research into convenience features that buyers claimed they wanted but rejected in practice.
LAB1-012 · The Edsel — Now, today
A steering-wheel-mounted electronic transmission selector representing Ford's decade-long consumer research effort. The Teletouch epitomizes the gap between what focus groups said they wanted and what the market would accept.
LAB1-013 · The Edsel — Teach it back
A center-mounted steering-wheel hub featuring push buttons for automatic transmission control, designed from consumer research showing drivers wanted simpler, safer gear selection without a floor shifter.
LAB1-014 · The Edsel — The other place
A full-color sales brochure from Ford's 1958 Edsel launch, featuring regional market segmentation claims and aspirational family imagery designed to reflect consumer research findings about American automotive desires.
LAB1-015 · The Edsel — One object, close
The full-color cover of Ford's 1958 Edsel sales brochure, featuring the car's distinctive front grille and marketing promises of innovation, style, and American prosperity—a primary document of consumer desire and corporate confidence before the market rejected the vehicle.
From the gallery’s own wall — “LAB1-001 · The Edsel — Open the drawer”.