Varsity Stroke? Oo Er!

In the Nicolas Cage classic Peggy Sue Got Married, there's a great scene when Kathleen Turner's character first arrives back in 1960 and greets her father – home from work – for the first time. He comes into the house pretending that there's something exciting going on outside, and drags his family out to see. He's bought a car. Turner dissolves into hysterics as the childhood memory rushes back: "Oh, Dad! You bought an Edsel!"

I'm reading a most enjoyable book called Brand Failures. It's so great to read a collection of anecdotes about how the high and mighty have failed - expensively and publicly.

I never get tired of the New Coke story.

But probably my favourite is the one about the Edsel, a story of hubris and cock-eyed market research by parent company Ford (Edsel was supposed to be a sub-brand of Ford rather than just the name of the car). The short version is that Ford produced a car that just didn't appeal to people. It looked weird - and not in a good way - and it appeared to cost too much (because it was launched too early in the year), and it had a stupid name. Edsel, people said, reminded them of the words pretzel and weasel.

Ford had done a lot of market research on the name, but ended up with so many suggestions that everyone just acquiesced when some arse-licking corporate climber suggested they name it after the boss's father (and Henry Ford's son) Edsel. Edsel: weird name for a car; weirder name for a son.

One of the craziest things Ford did was to recruit the poet Marianne Moore to come up with names. They wanted her to evoke a 'visceral feeling of elegance, fleetness, advanced features and design.' Here's what she came up with:

"Resilient Bullet", "Utopian Turtletop", "Ford Silver Sword", "Mongoose Civique", "Varsity Stroke", "Pastelogram" and "Andante con Moto".

Now, is it me, or isn't there quite a lot of metaphors for cock in that list? Was she having a laugh? Utopian Turtletop? What has four letters and can resemble a bald man pulling on a turtleneck sweater? Don't all answer at once. As for Varsity Stroke, I love it. Sounds like a fraternity masturbation contest.

At the time, the Edsel's front end was variously described as 'an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon', or a 'vagina with teeth.'

Something tells me that Americans in the late 50s were consumed with obsessive sexual thoughts, seeing erotic suggestion in everything. Funny stuff.