The Story of "Edwina" the Canadian-Built '58 Edsel...

[Lebowski]

“Edwina the Edsel”
The story of my acquisition of a rare Canadian-Built Edsel

By Ken Livingston

This is the story of my Canadian-built 1958 Edsel 4-door Corsair. Of all the cars I could have owned if the opportunity had come up, I would not have thought it would be an Edsel. I’m old enough and enough of a gear-head to have known the basic story of the infamous Edsel, but never looked into them or frankly had even seen one in person before.

A bit of my background/situation: I’ve been “into” cars and motorcycles all my life. Grew up as a Chevy guy, but was also lead technician at a Ford dealer in the ‘90s. (I am a licensed auto, motorcycle and heavy equipment mechanic) For the last 15 years I’ve made my living as a Ducati motorcycle specialist, recently opening my own small shop “Ken’s MOTOWORKS” and living the dream.

It’s this Motorcycle connection that brought “Edwina” and me together (as I’ve named her; I name all my vehicles!) I got a phone call out of the blue this past February from a guy handling the sale of a family friend’s grandfather’s estate, and there were “a lot of motorcycles and parts” that were available and “ it would be a shame if they went to scrap.” Well those words were enough to make me interested.

So the next day I was off to check this out, 2 1⁄2 hours from home in the middle of a Canadian winter. Now I was expecting a small personal garage or such. Boy, was I mistaken! This was a 40,000 sq ft machine shop/personal space of the departed grandfather! Walking inside was walking into an episode of American Pickers! Stuff/crap EVERYWHERE. My contact explained that the entire building had to be vacant within the next 6 days as the family had sold the build- ing (sadly, no one wanted to continue the grandfather’s lifetime of successful machine shop work).

So he shows me all the motorcycle-related items, from complete bikes to boxes and boxes of parts, scattered throughout the building. I’m sizing it all up silently, remembering his words of ‘scrapping everything,” when he moves us on to the next section of the building. And there, in the midst of a crew tearing apart metal structure, un-hooking the many, many shop machines that had already been sold for scrap.... was a ’67 Corvette, a ’64 Continental ...and Edwina - sitting on four flat, rotted-out tires. 

I was really overwhelmed. I had never actually SEEN an Edsel in person, and there one was. And as I got a closer look, I could see that it was really, really nice for its age and considering it was a Canadian car. (built in Oakville, and sold in the Harvey’s dealership in Toronto, that was the impetus for the Harvey’s restaurant chain here in Canada).
I did some very rough quick mental calculations on worst-case scenario on what I could sell ALL the bike stuff and the Edsel for, and made the rep. a very low offer on the Corsair and all the bike stuff. And after a quick call to the family, my offer was accepted!

After four panicked days arranging a storage unit for all the bikes and parts, a flatbed to haul the car to my shop (and of course the moving day turned into the biggest blizzard of the season!) I was the new owner of this strange, rare, wonderful car.

She sat covered up and soaked in oils outside my bike shop until the weather finally broke early April. Then I uncovered her and assessed what I had gotten myself into. Luckily, I had sold off ALL the bike stuff during that time and ended up actually ahead of my expenses and the Edsel for free! So I had some wiggle room in my ‘get her on the road’ budget. This turned out to be a very good thing as the engine that had been ‘rebuilt’ was seized. Bummer. But perseverance, money, internet searches and a bit of luck I had her ready to run by the end of April. Then I pushed her inside and onto my one-car hoist for the next phase.

Once on the hoist I could see just what kind of shape the basic structure was in. I was pleasantly surprised; the frame was completely sold, basically no rust. There was one hole in the floor pan of course under the throttle pedal, one actual hole in front of the left rear wheel, and almost no other serious rust. Amazing for a 61-year-old Canadian car.

I finished the engine work, added a Classic Disc Brake front power disc conversion, rebuilt/replaced this and that, patched up the one hole and she was then mechanically sound. Very little hardware gave me any fight. A bit of WD40, etc...and off everything came. It was like working on a 7-yr-old car, not a 61-yr-old car. Nice. I even found a commercial vehicle battery that is identical to the factory one too!

I should add that I had a particular vision of what she would look like on the road when I first saw her. Since she wasn’t perfect, I was- n’t going to consider a full restoration as it would be far too costly and I would NEVER get a return on that kind of investment. In the first hours after I made the deal I’d researched enough to realize that although extremely rare, there was no big value in these cars as there is in some classics.

I decided she was going to be visually as found, patina and all. She was 99.9% original. So I made my own dual exhaust and ordered classic Cragar wheels with old-school BFG Radial TA’s. Dressed up the engine a bit with basic Accell wires, and an old school Hillborn- style air cleaner.

When all ready she started up pretty easy, and besides a bit of a ticking lifter there is (so far) no problems with this formerly seized

engine. Doesn’t burn a drop of oil.

The transmission is working well, although I had to do the ‘inhibitor bypass’ trick to get Park to work. There have been a few teething

issues of course and there are a few minor electrical things to finish but in general, she runs great. The original radiator decided it had had enough on the first trip home from the shop! I replaced it with a modern Griffin radiator that cools way better!

So I have the car looking the way I envisioned, but nothing has been permanently altered, and I have every single original part should

some future owner decide to make her 100 % factory again.

But I’m loving this car. So does everyone else it seems. Of course I’m now “fully versed” in the Edsel story. (The car came with ALL the factory service manuals too!) To anyone who does not know the Edsel, I tell them to look up “automotive failures” on the Internet. But in my opinion these are great cars that didn’t deserve that bad reputation.
I consider myself a lucky man and I’m looking forward to many happy miles with Edwina!

 

This article is courtesy of "The Big E" which is the bi-monthly newsletter of the Edsel Owners Club. There was a photo of the car in the article but I couldn't figure out how to transfer it here. Sorry.... 

 

 

[Billy Kingsley]

Great story. I hope to own an Edsel some day. 

[Rusty_OToole]

Do yourself a favor and keep the parts you took off like air filter, brakes, radiator. In case you or someone else decides to restore it properly in the future, those things are very hard to replace, why not keep them when you have them.

[ejboyd5]

Save your effort and advice. Lebowski isn't even the principle in this story. It's just a rehash of something that appeared in an Edsel owners' magazine.

[Lebowski]

6 hours ago, Rusty_OToole said:

Do yourself a favor and keep the parts you took off like air filter, brakes, radiator. In case you or someone else decides to restore it properly in the future, those things are very hard to replace, why not keep them when you have them.

 

"I have every single original part should

some future owner decide to make her 100 % factory again."

 

Did you even bother to read the story? Apparently not.... 

 

 

[8E45E]

22 hours ago, Rusty_OToole said:

Do yourself a favor and keep the parts you took off like air filter, brakes, radiator. In case you or someone else decides to restore it properly in the future, those things are very hard to replace, why not keep them when you have them.

I agree with this.

 

The original parts should be retained, and sold with the car when the time comes.   And there are more than a few I know who run their cars on modern alloy wheels with radial tires for cruises, and have original style bias-ply tires on the steel rims that came with the car that they keep in the garage for actual car shows where they want originality.

 

Craig