ATLANTA — The Edsel, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer, was a marketing flop in its day, but you’d never guess it by driving through the Quail Hollow subdivision between Griffin and Orchard Hills.
At any one time there are at least a dozen Edsels in garages there, thanks to Frank Harris and Steve Durham, who share a passion for the chrome-laden cars that have become cherished by collectors despite their initial unpopularity.
Production ended early into the 1960 model year after just two years and one month on the market. Only 110,000 were built, far fewer than Ford Motor Co., Edsel’s parent, had hoped to sell in that period.
The failure is reported to have cost Ford more than $350 million.
Too bad for Ford there weren’t more car buyers like Harris and Durham.
Harris, a machine-shop owner and operator, has the larger of the two collections, about 20 in all, including a dozen or so parts cars.
His most prized car, a red 1960 convertible that was the first of its kind built that year, has won awards across the nation, including “Grand National” honors in 1994.
He also has a ’58 Edsel Pacer street rod with a chopped roof and modern supercharged engine, as well as several others including his daily driver, a sporty 1960 Villager station wagon that is one of 59 produced that year.
Durham, a Griffin dentist, has a top-of-the-line ’59 Corsair, a ’59 convertible and ’59 wagon. He’s a lifelong Edsel lover and is a walking storehouse of production numbers and other Edsel statistics.
“I’ve always loved them and been fascinated with them, even back in the ’60s as a youth,” he said. “I did my high school thesis on the Edsel. Got an A-plus on that puppy.”
Harris grew up a Ford man but became interested in Edsels after helping his father, the late Howard Harris, restore the ’60 convertible, serial number 00008, that he now owns.
Like Durham, Harris strongly disagrees with the criticism that dogged the Edsel in the ’50s.
The most notable dig at the Edsel came in a Time magazine article that said the Edsel’s trademark horse-collar-shaped grill “resembled an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon.”
“It wasn’t a flop,” Harris said. “It was a beautiful automobile. Everybody that sees an Edsel today says, ‘That’s beautiful.’ That’s all you hear today, but back then they had all kinds of stupid names for them.”
