What if... Henry I had died in 1938 and Edsel had lived another 20 years?

[Mark B. Morrow]

It has been well documented that Edsel Ford was a far more astute car guy than Henry was. He was a better engineer and stylist and was more open to the public's needs and desires. Unfortunately, his career at Ford was stifled by Henry and his chief thug, Harry Bennett.

 

What if Edsel had taken control in 1938 and lived another 20 years or more? Any thoughts?

[Ovaltine]

I have a better one. What if the United States didn't rebuild Japan and Germany's industrial infrastructure after World War II.

That's an easy one to imagine. That approach was tried at the end of WWI. It was called the Weimar Republic.

 

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic

 

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versailles_treaty

 

Key quotes:

"This first attempt to establish a liberal democracy in Germany happened during a time of civil conflict, and failed with the ascent of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933."

 

"The economic problems that the payments brought, and German resentment at their imposition, are usually cited as one of the more significant factors that led to the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, which eventually led to the outbreak of World War II."

 

 

I think this is one case where we DID learn something from mistakes made the *first* time.

 

-Ovaltine

Edited December 4, 2006 by Ovaltine

[MROLDV8]

It has been well documented that Edsel Ford was a far more astute car guy than Henry was. He was a better engineer and stylist and was more open to the public's needs and desires. Unfortunately, his career at Ford was stifled by Henry and his chief thug, Harry Bennett.

 

What if Edsel had taken control in 1938 and lived another 20 years or more? Any thoughts?

 

 

I think we would have seen something like the '49 Ford about ten years earlier. Old Henry was about the only one who didn't want to get rid of the buggy suspention and the torque tube, from what I read.

 

MR

[grbeck]

Another interesting topic...

 

Edsel still would have had to oust Harry Bennett even if old Henry had died in 1938. Whether he could have achieved this is open to debate. Bennett wasn't going anywhere unless he was forced to leave, and Edsel wasn't one for confrontation. His son, Henry Ford II, had more aptitude for that sort of thing.

 

As for the cars - Edsel would have undoubtedly pushed for a more modern chassis on Ford products. He also would have done more to improve Lincoln's competitive position with Cadillac, which was making hay with its 60-Series that appealed to the wealthy owner-driver. Cadillac pretty much owned the luxury market by 1941. Lincoln did not have a full range of models, and its mechanicals were antiquated compared to those of Cadillac. Edsel may have changed this.

 

Ford styling was good during the 1930s and 1940s. Edsel kept the Ford line up-to-date in the styling department by working closely with Bob Gregorie. One could say that in the prewar years, Ford was the styling leader among the low-priced three in every year but two - 1941 and 1942, when Chevrolet came up with a winner, and the standard Ford looked awkward and dated. The Chevy looks stylish, with design cues from the Buick, while the Ford looks like a badly facelifted version of the 1940 model.

 

It's interesting to speculate on what would have happened after World War II if Edsel had been around. His postwar plans - drawn up with the aid of stylist Bob Gregorie - called for the Ford lineup to have two cars, a "big" Ford and a "little" Ford. This approach to the low-priced market was almost 15 years ahead of its time. It predicts Ford's 1960 lineup - a big Ford (Galaxie, etc.) and a little Ford (Falcon). This would have bracketed both Plymouth and Chevy at the time, which were planning "standard" cars that were smaller than the proposed "big" Ford.

 

The "little" Ford may have headed off the import invasion, or at least given Ford a head start over GM and Chrysler in responding to it. At the same time, the "big" Ford with its V-8 would have been an early attempt by a member of the low-priced three to invade the medium-priced segment in size and style. Thus, Ford could have started the process that began with the 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 in the late 1940s. Given Ford's historic weakness in the medium-priced market, this may have improved the company's competitive position, especially compared to GM. Even more importantly, Chevy would have been forced to respond. More luxurious Chevys would have ultimately undermined GM's BOP divisions. This eventually did happen by the early 1970s, when Chevrolet's Caprice and Monte Carlo were competing with offerings from Pontiac, Olds and Buick. This intra-corporate competition was a big factor in GM's decline. Ford could have started the process even sooner if it had stuck with the Edsel Ford-Bob Gregorie postwar plan.

 

Unfortunately, with Edsel gone, Henry Ford II hired ex-GM man Ernie Breech, and he decided that the "big" Ford was too big for the low-priced field, so it was rebadged as the 1949 Mercury. He further decreed that there was no market for the "little" Ford in the United States, so it was sent to France as the French Ford Vedette.

 

It was Ernie Breech who initiated the crash program that led to the 1949 Ford, which was a huge success. On the other hand, because of the rush to bring this car to market, it suffered numerous problems with body panel fits and leaks. This would tarnish Ford's reputation for several years in the 1950s. If Ford had stuck with Edsel's original program, which was moving along nicely before Breech changed the company's plans, it could have avoided the quality problems.

 

And instead of "lead sled" custom Mercurys, we may have had "lead sled" custom Fords, as this body style became the legendary James Dean Mercury!

 

What Edsel would have done in the postwar years to keep Lincoln competitive with Cadillac is a good question. The 1949 Lincolns were developed by Edsel and Bob Gregorie, and were total dogs. Ernie Breech escapes the blame for those. They were ugly, especially compared to the first of the tailfinned Cadillacs, and their flathead V-8s were completely outclassed by the new Cadillac ohv V-8. To keep up with Cadillac, I can see Edsel approving a program in the spirit of the 1961 Continental - elegant simplicity and a strict emphasis on quality - for Lincoln in the early 1950s.

Edited December 5, 2006 by grbeck

[Roadrunner]

That's an easy one to imagine. That approach was tried at the end of WWI. It was called the Weimar Republic.

 

Semi-excellent point. I did not think of that.

 

If you leave a country screwed over, the wrong people coud persaude a desperate population easily.

 

The question is, is this applicable with post-WWII Japan and Germany?

[silvrsvt]

Semi-excellent point. I did not think of that.

 

If you leave a country screwed over, the wrong people coud persaude a desperate population easily.

 

The question is, is this applicable with post-WWII Japan and Germany?

 

 

Another reason why Germany and Japan where reconstituted was that the UK and US saw that Soviet Union at the time was going to be the next threat to them. Why have your conquered enemies become your new Enemies as allies for the Soviets?

[Edstock]

"If you leave a country screwed over, the wrong people coud persaude a desperate population easily.

 

The question is, is this applicable with post-WWII Japan and Germany?"

 

Yes. The destruction of the countries' infrastructure was incomparable to what was suffered by the combatants in WWI. As well, in Europe, in 1945, there were millions of displaced people scattered all over central Europe, unlike WWI.

 

And by 1948, and the Berlin Airlift, we had Stalin to think about, so restoring the strength and fortunes of W. Germany seemed to be an obvious thing to do.

 

If you've never seen it, Jimmy Cagney's penultimate movie, "One, Two, Three . . ." is great fun. He plays the head of Coca-Cola in West Berlin, in 1960 or so. The teenage daughter of the CEO of the Head Office in Atalanta, who is coming to visit, has taken off with her East German boy-friend. The closing shot of the movie has Cagney putting a dime into a Coke machine, and a bottle of Pepsi pops out.