In my neck of the woods, this past Sunday was one of those amazing, picture-perfect weather days with sunshine, warm (but not hot) temperatures and low humidity. Optimal for being outside, and ideal for checking out local car shows. The beauty of these shows in the Upper Midwest is that people are especially thrilled to bring their cars out for display after hibernating for the long, cruel winter, so you will typically see enthusiastic owners with all manner of automotive treasures, from lovingly restored muscle cars to some truly rare machines. Like this 1960 Edsel wagon.
In this case, the show was located in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a short drive over the border from Illinois. The city was the longtime home to American Motors’ “Kenosha Main” manufacturing plant (it started as a Nash facility), and so my son and I headed-up to the show fully expecting to see a great array of AMC products, which we did. But the event was not exclusively dedicated to American Motors products, and there were plenty of other unusual and interesting cars on display. And there was one particularly rare car that caught my eye….
Basically, there’s low likelihood of seeing any Edsel from the 1960 model year, given that only 2,846 were built before production ceased in November 1959. Plus, since these Edsels were hardly “must-have” items when new (or used), good condition survivors are even more scarce.
This 1960 Edsel Villager wagon certainly fit the bill for a lovingly preserved example.
The unique Edsel trim pieces were in great shape.
The flanks were smooth and blemish free.
The distinctive Edsel tail lights, bumper and heavy chrome trim attempted to provide differentiation from the more mundane Fords that utilized the same body.
Though sharing dashboard design with Ford, the Edsel did sport special trim pieces and a standard electric clock.
In this particular car, the seats had clearly been recovered, but the specific Villager-only front door panels looked to be in pristine original condition.
A glance to the back revealed the glassy cargo area with ample room for kids and gear. A great family cruiser, even if it was from an unsuccessful, oddball brand.
A detail I always love to check-out at car shows are window stickers, and this Villager had one prominently displayed on the top of the dash, visible through the windshield. It is so cool to see what options and colors the car came with from the factory, as well as which plant produced the car and which dealer sold it. In this case, the Villager was nicely equipped, built (like all final Edsels) in the Ford plant in Louisville, Kentucky, and was apparently delivered to a dealer in Phoenix, Arizona.
But one detail gave me pause: the car was listed as a 2-door, 3-seat Villager. What an odd duck! Who could have wanted a 2-door wagon with 3 rows?!? This was indeed a very unusual Villager…. Unlike many of the cars at these shows, with an owner nearby to answer questions, this Edsel was all alone with no one in sight to offer more specifics on the bizarre build configuration.
After checking out the rest of the show, my son and I wanted to get another look at the Edsel. But like the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the fabled Unicorn, any glimpse of the 2-door 1960 Villager turned out to be fleeting, as the car had already departed, leaving us wondering “what the heck was that?!?!?!”
My son and I debated the rarity of various cars at the show as we headed back to the Land of Lincoln. A quick visit to The Brat Stop in Kenosha, famous for their amazing bratwursts and Wisconsin cheeses (their aged cheddar is to die for) had armed us with the perfect dinner for outdoor grilling, and while the coals got ready, the research into the Edsel began. I was convinced that this wagon was the rarest car of the day at the Kenosha show.
Sure enough, 1960 Edsel Villager wagon output was incredibly low. Only 216 2-seat models were sold, and a scant 59 3-seat Villagers were produced, making that wagon the least common 1960 Edsel. Even the convertible, at just 76 units, enjoyed higher output.
But there was one problem: all souces indicated that Edsel Villagers for 1960 were 4-doors only. There had been a 2-door Edsel Roundup wagon offered for 1958, but after that all Edsel wagons were marketed solely as 4-doors.
In fact, the only 2-door wagon offered by FoMoCo for 1960 was the Ford Ranch Wagon, a baseline, base trimmed model. The 2-door Ranch Wagon was not a particularly popular Ford wagon, with 27,136 leaving the factory (compared with 144,688 4-door wagons). Wagon buyers were showing a marked preference for the more practical 4-door configuration.
So how on earth could there have been any 2-door Edsel wagons for 1960? Was this car a fake?
When it comes to clones, likely candidates are usually high-value muscle cars, deliberately designed to deceive. Usually, the value of the finished “fake” typically exceeds the costs of parts needed to execute the artifice. But Edsel wagons? The market for those cars is remarkably small, and dollar values are quite low. Would someone actually go to the effort to create a non-existent 2-door 1960 Edsel wagon?
The answer, in a word: yes! Through the magic of the internet, I was finally able to discover more about this most unique Edsel. Thanks to edsel.com and site’s coverage of Modified/Customized Edsels, the mystery was solved. Turns out the car belongs to David Hooten of Wisconsin—remember that name? Hint: it was listed as the name of dealer on the (fake) window sticker. And speaking of “Hooten’s Motor Sales” in Phoenix, the street address was shown as 1960 Ranger Road. Clever!
Without question, Mr. Hooten did an incredible job replicating how a 2-door Edsel wagon would have looked had such a car been offered. So, yes, in this case, the car really is a unicorn—a one-of-one mythical creature that never was.
Additional reading:
Junkyard Classic: 1960 Edsel Villager – This Orphan Would Take A Village To Raise by AARON65
As a fan of the 58 and 60 Edsel (not all that crazy about the 59, though), I already knew the 58 was the only year for the 2 door wagon. As a consequence, I didn’t notice until I read the write-up that this was a 2 door wagon. I somehow never noticed a few of the many details about these cars, like the tail light housings, or the Edsel only rear bumper. I could have sworn the 60 Edsel used a lightly modified Ford rear bumper.
Love the 2 tone paint job, don’t wagons look great with contrasting tops. Surprised that there was a (nominal?) charge for the “electric windshield wipers”.
BTW, as a junior in high school I used to walk past a house that had a 58 Roundup 2 door wagon parked outside. Imagine my surprise when one morning I read the local classified ads and saw that wagon for sale for $700. I tried to talk my father into “loaning” me the asking price, but he knew better. A ten year old wagon from a defunct brand was the last thing he felt he should spend money on.
But I will always remember that wagon as the first in a long line of cars that I wish I could have bought.
It’s hideous. They should have kept the hoss colla grill. This car looks ugly and no wonder it didn’t sell. It’s a mismatch of design elements.
I disagree. In the context of 1960 cars, the last Edsel wasn’t that bad, certainly better than the horse collar car. If the whole Edsel project had been handled differently, the 1960 might have had a decent chance in the marketplace. But the goofy way the whole Edsel distribution network was conceived ensured it to be doomed from the very beginning. The polarizing appearance was really nothing more than the final nail in the coffin.
OTOH, Desoto was substantially more conventional in appearance and the way it was sold, as well as being in the same market category, and it fared no better.
The Edsel would have practically had the look of a 61 Continental compared with the 1960 Mercury that it was probably sharing a showroom with. But that Mercury still managed to sell about 150K units compared with 3k for the Edsel.
Kenosha is a car-crazy town, and not just AMCs. If it was ever built, or in this case not ever built, there’s probably one in Kenosha. This Edsel is more stunning in person than it is in photos, and it fooled me the first time I saw it too.
Glad you crossed the border, GN. Come up for the Labor Day weekend show downtown; it is unbelievable.
Nicely done wagon. Also, well done in your presentation of this automotive mini-mystery! Until your revelation at the end, the only thing that raised any doubt for me was the window sticker – I don’t think dot-matrix printing is period-correct. He should have used a typewriter! Also, he misspelled “differential,” though I could buy that being authentic.
Liquid Paper wasn’t used on window stickers either.
The dot-matrix printed window sticker seemed strange to me, too.
However… a few years ago I visited the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, and had my name printed from an early 1960s era IBM 1401 computer. It was dot-matrix printed on that old green and white striped computer paper. The museum’s web site says that computer was introduced in 1959, although it doesn’t say when the printer dates from.
http://www.computerhistory.org/exhibits/ibm1401/
So it’s possible that dot-matrix printers existed at the time. But I doubt an individual dealership would have had the resources to buy its own computer back then. Ford probably had one, though. But I assume it’s the dealer that actually writes up the window sticker.
The 1401 computer used a 1403 printer, which printed complete characters. I assume it printed your name in large block letters – this is done by a program.
A more authentic window sticker would have had the letters misaligned vertically by the drum or bar printers of the day.
This is represented to be an original sticker from a 60 Thunderbird. It is much closer to the Studebaker sample I put up a bit ago.
I had to go look at the printout I got from the museum, and I clearly had misremembered it being dot-matrix. You are correct, it was obviously a drum printer or possibly a daisy wheel (wait, no, daisy wheels weren’t invented until 1969 according to Wikipedia).
It is surely a replica, but I would suspect that this would be a replica of some kind of factory/production documentation rather than something that came from a dealer. I wondered if they were doing Monroney stickers that early, but it appears that the Federal requirement took effect in 1959.
No the dealer doesn’t and didn’t “write up” the window sticker, those were produced and applied at the factory. Today of course you’ll sometimes see the dealer’s “second sticker” where they charge you for their mandatory pin stripe and Tru Coat or just call it what it is Additional Dealer Profit or ADP.
Seems like there’s some collusion between dealers and the factory regarding the Monroney sticker these days. I’d go so far as to say that dealerships now have the ability to have ‘dealer added’ line items added to window stickers. I can’t remember which manufacturers, but it seems like Toyota has been doing this with their dealer-added floor mat scam for years, making it look like it’s a factory RPO when it’s really from the dealer, as well as Subaru doing it with all manner of dealer accessories.
That particular printer may be newer but it would not surprise me that some computerized printer was in use in 1960. I don’t know the Ford stuff, but a look at a 1960 Studebaker production order shows that it was not done on a typical typewriter. The typeface is a little different, but not all that different.
Pretty neat unicorn. The grille of the 1960 Edsel looked alright but the taillights always looked tacked on (which I’m sure they were by the stylists. The wagon actually wore them best, especially with the unusual chrome trim. Now my question – was the 1961 Canadian Meteor originally supposed to be the 1961 Edsel? The front and rear styling changes compared to the Ford were more extreme on the ’61 than on the Meteors that came before.
That was my thought, too, when I saw pictures of the Meteor.
I remember very clearly an issue of Car Collector, ca 1979, with antes article called more or les 1960-Edsel the last_____,the last laugh “. It had an ad about low priced brand new Edsels by a dealer who invited prospective buyers to take a look at stock with heavy discounts..”It died, you Knowl”.
One of the several photos was of what I think is this same car, correctly identifying it as a fake.
I was driving along Tamiami Trail, north of Ft Myers, when I came across this, the only 1960 Edsel I’ve seen in the flesh during my 66 years.
Right up my alley, as a serial car rebrander. Love it!
A “faux unicorn”. Brilliant. Enjoyed the “1960 Ranger Road” delivery destination. Now if this beast had had A/C with its 1960 destination in Phoenix, then the illusion would have been heightened. Dave Hooten’s masterpiece is a “hoot”, a real belly laugh. Bravo, and a good day’s smile.
Once AC left the trunk mounted era it became very ubiquitous in Arizona and I’m sure other southern tier states. I happen to know because my family moved to Sierra Vista AZ in 1960. It’s at about 5000 feet so the temperatures are well below Tucson which is below Phoenix. We brought our awful (the cheap Big 3 cars were pretty grim in those days) base model 1958 Chevy Yeoman station wagon along from the Northeast. Most of the neighbors in the middle class subdivision had AC in their cars. Who can forget a summer trip to LA through Yuma? Not me. It was at least 100 degrees F. We had wet towels on our heads while sticking to the vinyl upholstery. I think I fell asleep for as much of it as I could.
The Chevy was eventually replaced by a slightly used 1963 Falcon station wagon with hang-on Ford AC. At least it wasn’t the base model. Falcons (like their spawn Mustang) did not offer integrated AC. It did come with a different radiator and fan though.
Anyway, on a trip back to NY in summer 1965 I was watching cars going the other way on the Thruway. Most cars other than high end or at least Buick level ones had their windows down, so they didn’t have AC yet. It is interesting that given the hot humid NE summers the idea of spending some extra bucks for something we think is essential today hadn’t sunk in five years later.
AC (integrated) on a 1965 Plymouth Satellite was $345.70. That’s $2,787.63 today. So a big bucks item. But still….
I found this out by Googling 1965 car window price sticker. It turns out that there are also people making facsimile stickers.
I first read this earlier this morning and did not even notice the lack of rear doors until I got to that part of the text. I have never been well versed on just when each individual 2 door wagon dropped out of the lineup of the various manufacturers, so assumed that this was genuine until you solved the mystery.
I have mixed feelings on a car like this. It is great that the owner can indulge his fantasy of having an ultra-rare 2 door wagon instead of a just regular rare 2 door Ranch Wagon. But I imagine owners of real Edsel wagons that would kill for some of those wagon-specific trim pieces. I guess I am too much of a friend of the ordinary unloved car – I would love it even more as a Ranch Wagon.
As for the 60 Edsel wagon itself, the general shape and trim remind me more than a little of the 61 F-85 wagon we had when I was a kid. The heavy side sculpting, the chrome trim that droops down behind the back wheel and even the way the rear makes a fin that goes around then straight out from the taillights make the Olds look like a downsized, cleaned up version of this Edsel.
He also misspelled “metallic,” but it’s a great forgery, if forgeries can be called such a thing. Obviously, this was a labor of love for Mr. Hooten, who possesses a mischievous streak that brings a smile to my face.
1960 “Starliner” type Edsel I spotted in Dover NJ in 1991:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/147108383@N02/37066100510/in/album-72157690078188245/
1960 Edsel rear. Verner-Cadby Ford is still in business!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/147108383@N02/37066105060/in/album-72157690078188245/
The front isn’t too bad but the rear is just bizarre looking with those tortured trim pieces. And who’d want a 2-dr wagon in ANY size? So impractical, it defeats the purpose of a station wagon to begin with.
Two door wagons were quite popular back then. In fact, Ford only built 2 door wagons in 1949-1951, including the 3 seat version, which had a front facing third seat. Folks were more limber back then.
The reason 2 door wagons were popular is the same reason 2 door sedans were: folks worried about little kids accidentally opening the back door.
This car has been around Chicago/Milwaukee area, in this form, for decades. I saw it on more than one occasion in St. Charles, Illinois in the early ’90s.
There is also a ’56 Mercury two door wagon “unicorn” in orange & white that you may see somewhere. I last saw it at a Colorado Springs show in 2008. It looks, like the Edsel – factory correct – and like the Edsel it is a Ford. The Mercury serial number presented a great automotive detective exercise.
I was completely taken in by this unicorn and left smiling. 🙂
If the 3rd seat is rear-facing, the two-door body style isn’t quite as illogical. (Although only children would appreciate entry and exit through the conventional tailgate hatch.)
If you had a 2dr wagon you wouldn’t have to worry about your little ones opening up the rear door(s), but I agree it defeated the versatility of owning a wagon.
I saw an actual 1960 Edsel wagon in northern Wisconsin when I was around 12 back in the ‘70’s. Having checked out “Fifty years of Lincoln-Mercury” (1971) multiple times from the public library I knew of it’s low production numbers. As I recall the Villager was filled with middle aged ladies, maybe nuns.
I like the looks of 1959 & ‘60 Edsel. Pontiac had a great deal of success recycling and updating 1958 Edsel design themes (grill & taillights) on their 1968 full size models.
About ten years ago there was a 1960 Edsel 4-door sedan just north of Pittsburgh. It was in a residential neighborhood and looked to be still driven on a regular basis.
Assuming there’s at least some sort of truth left in the window sticker… How would one clear off the rain if the $8.40 electric wiper option wasn’t added? Did the base model have vacuum wipers?
Probably, vacuum wipers were standard equipment on Ford products through the early sixties. I could make the wipers come to a complete stop in my 1961 Ford by flooring the gas pedal; not much vacuum at wide open throttle. My car had the 223 CID six/Fordomatic combo so I tended to treat the gas pedal like an on/off switch; this made for some interesting experiences driving in the rain.
My dad’s 61 Ford Fairlane sedan had vacuum wipers, and with the 6-cyl engine, upgrades on our road trips out west were challenging if it was raining. Dad was of the opinion that anything electrical on a car was just something that would break, so besides the appeal to his cheap side (Dad would have given Paul’s dad a run for the money in the cheapskate department) there was to him a practical reason to favor vacuum wipers.
50’s Cheapskate Dad. I think there was an article about the phenomenon here a while back. Trust me, it’s a thing.
Yes, vacuum wipers were standard, obviously.
What impressed me was the upcharge for white wall tires: $35.70. That’s $300 in today’s money!
They were about $32 on a 1990 Horizon, about $63 today.
What no one seems to have noticed too is that this 2 door wagon appears to be a 9 passenger wagon, based on the split middle seat back (all Ford 9 passenger wagons had a front facing third seat at the time.)
But the 9 seat wagon only came in the four door versions of the Country squire and Country Sedan, not the 2 or 4 door Ranch Wagon. So this fellow went to great lengths to create what is apparently the only 9 passenger 2 door Ford/Edsel wagon in existence. Which strongly suggests that this wagon was built from donor parts from an Edsel 4 door 9 passenger Villager, presumably damaged.
Climbing into that forward facing third seat through the front door is probably not exactly easy, but then kids were more limber back then. ?
No evidence of the third seat except on the fake sticker. But anyway, front or rear facing, no one in the US ever made a two door three row station wagon.
The very visible evidence is the split middle seatback; that was only used on three seat wagons to give access to the forward facing third seat. But of course that doesn’t guarantee the third seat is actually there. Since the donor car was obviously a three-seat Villager, it depends on whether he swapped over the third seat too along with the split seat back. I’d like to think he did, given how thorough he is.
Mr. Hooten must be a true, hardcore Edsel enthusiast to go to all the effort and expense to create this ’60 ‘unicorn’. Good for him! He gives show attendees a car far more interesting and intriguing than the usual fare. Love these ‘what if’ customs created from factory components in combinations never offered when new.
+1.
Good on Mr. Hooten. I appreciate the time and herculean efforts it must have taken to make this faux Unicorn. As a “what if” come to life, it really makes one appreciate how hard it is to create something that never really existed. Clones, while well and good, are recreations of cars that do exist in small number. This is a “one of none”. I have also seen photos of several Edsel Rancheros, some also done to this quality.
And it came with the famous Mile-O-Matic transmission. How could you pass that up?
It’s amusing to look back at the fifties mania for coming up with fancy names for mundane options.
My 2018 Subaru has a Lineartronic transmission and Symmetrical All Wheel Drive.
Hey where is the edit function? It’s been like 20 seconds.
Anyway, yeah. The same Ford-O-matic was a Merc-O-matic and in Lincolns, Turbo Drive (when they switched from GM HydraMatics in 1955), besides being a Mile-O-Matic.
I was a kid when the ’60 Edsel was, briefly, a new car. Oddly enough, the town in Southern Indiana with a population of 3000 that I grew up in had two ’60 Edsel two door sedans when they were new. I rode in one of them once and noted how similar it was to my Dad’s ’60 Ford. In the next town was one of those Starliner like two door hardtops. Every summer back then my brother and I would spend a couple of weeks with out aunt and uncle in Peoria, Illinois. Every evening we would see someone pass in a red ’60 Edsel convertible.
AMT actually made a model of the ’60 Edsel as part of their annual new car series. I have three of them in my collection.
I have always liked the looks of them.
Interesting “phantom car”. 🙂
That Edsel 2-door wagon reminds me of another guy who created a “phantom” 1965 DeSoto.
http://www.lewisdesoto.net/DESOTODESIGNHOME/THE_CARS/Pages/DeSoto_Conquest.html
I saw this thumbnail art showing a phantom 1961 Edsel Corsair from the defunct whatifcars.com website.
https://imgur.com/a/H5RHgnQ
Speaking of 1961 Edsels, I wonder if someone had saved a 1960-65 Comet from the wreckyard/scrapyard to create a phantom Edsel Comet? 😉
https://imgur.com/a/H5RHgnQ
And if the “Aerowars” between Ford and Chrysler in NASCAR had continued, some folks created phantoms 1971 Charger Daytona and Plymouth Superbird.
http://www.71wingcars.com/the-cars
Photos exist of the 1960 Edsel Comet design that was close to approval for production before the brand was killed off. It would not be hard to build one. The differences are only in the grille and hood. I believe the “E D S E L” lettering from a production 60 Edsel would fit on the rear panel where “C O M E T” is spelled out. Someone must have done it already.
In terms of later Comets, I think the ’67 is a good candidate for Edselfication, because the grille already has a central styling element — it just needs to be reshaped some.
I have always also thought that the ’61 Canadian Meteor is a good hint at what a ’61 full size Edsel might have looked like. Especially the taillights.
Also, another good candidate for Edselfication would be the 1971-72 Ford Custom/Galaxie/LTD The front end go a bit of Edsel wannabe compared to the 1969-70 and 1973-74 models.
SINCE THIS IS AN EDSEL THREAD:
New-to-me 1987 footage (Owners Club gathering w/Brown & Warnock); has some early Edsel design treatments we’ve all seen, but then some entirely new to me:
I don’t know who came up with the design for the front and rear end of the car but they are downright ugly. How this got past the clay model stage, much less the rough sketch stage, is beyond me.
Running somewhere around Denver [sorry, no pix], there’s a tricked-out ’60 Edsel wagon that’s been modified into a sedan delivery, another post-factory mutation.