Spotted this rare beast while out for a walk last week. I hope the owner is around sometime - would love to know more. It's funny that it doesn't have collector plates - hard to believe it's a daily driver.
Vehicle sighting - 1958 Edsel Pacer
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Those are interesting cars. They were quite quick for their time. That is one of the short wheelbase models that came standard in '58 with the 361 4 barrel FE block engine with 10.5:1 compression, 303 gross horsepower and 400 foot pounds of torque. It was dubbed the "E400" engine based on the gross torque output.
Agreed, I doubt it's lived here for most of its life.
I think it was the styling that put people off; that engine sounds pretty competitive for the day. The horse-collar grille was weird, as was the split front bumper. When I was young I always noticed cars, especially weird ones. I asked Mum about the Edsel, and she said that when it was introduced, people had described the front end as being "like a Plymouth sucking a lemon".
The dash was very strange, even for then, and the tail lights were also weird.
Also, it was introduced right during a recession, and it was somewhat upscale, so the timing was off.
OMG! Why isn't that beauty in a heated building, under wraps?
Okay, so she needs some make-up and some new shoes but still!
Okay, so she needs some make-up and some new shoes but still!
Nice blast from the past!
I always liked the Edsel's styling. When I was small I had a friction toy Edsel, about 1/25 scale, in a bathroom-tile green and a white top, with the interior the same colors. To this day I can remember how nice the plastic smelled.
It's salt that rots out cars, not snow. I don't think they use much salt up there.
And you call the Mirai ugly?
The city uses a lot of salt here. Although it's ineffective at our normal winter temperatures, it is mixed with the sand spread on the roads, to help keep the sand from freezing in clumps.
Thus, down to about -10 C, the roads are covered with a slushy brownish mixture of ice, snow, sand, and salt. (The snow ploughs do not get everything.)
If you're one of those silly winter cyclists, you'll get covered in brine when riding through slushy puddles in March.
Rust is a bad problem here, though not as bad as in southern Ontario and Quebec, which would be more like New England, Ohio, Michigan, etc.
This is more comparable to North Dakota and Minnesota.
I was referring to the condition of the Edsel.And you call the Mirai ugly?
Maybe I've watched too may episodes of Ice Road Truckers but have assumed once you get out of town, most roads are snow covered all winter so there is no need for salt. As long as it's pretty cold, packed snow isn't much slipperier than gravel.
The highways are ploughed clear here - they don't have a layer of packed snow on them.
It's in the city here where the salt-sand mix is used and takes its toll.
There are so many cars of that era where the front wheel cutout is gaping and long.
I'm not that picky but those openings are gross and ugly.
That there's B-pillar material seen between the doors is cool.
I'm not that picky but those openings are gross and ugly.
That there's B-pillar material seen between the doors is cool.
My dad always marveled at the marketing and styling flop of the Edsel. He had a degree in EE and they studied this car (I think) because it had a lot of solid engineering and performance for the day… a lot went into it… but due to the styling It didn’t sell. Dad was intrigued by it … how can such a mechanically well-sorted vehicle find no market share? To him, there were no luxuries… could never afford a luxury, so if the bones were solid and it was mechanically robust he just couldn’t fathom people turning it down based on looks.
When I was young, Mum used to refer to unreliable vehicles as "Edsels" rather than lemons. But I think you're right - they were likely fine mechanically, but introduced some very radical styling and gimmicky features. (I wonder how well the connections for the steering-wheel-hub-mounted gear-selector buttons held up, for example.) The speedo, in which a numbered disc turned behind a window with a fixed pointer, was a bit over the top too.
I remember my neighbor had one of those back in the trees when I was a kid. I always wondered who bought his stash of old cars. It's nice the owner is actually driving the car.
I am more interested in seeing snow in late may lol. It was 101f here today.
