This 1960 Edsel Is the Ford-Made Ranger Almost Everybody Forgot

Edsel Ford is considered the driving force behind the company's departure from the Model T era. He is largely responsible for the coming onto the market of the Model A, he helped set up the Mercury division, and supervised the line of luxury vehicles that became known as the Lincoln-Zephyr and Lincoln Continental.

Given his status in the business, Edsel is still being praised by Ford through various model releases, but perhaps not as much as the man would deserve. In fact, if you come to think about it, only once in Ford's 120 years of existence did Edsel get proper corporate recognition.

That happened back in 1956, when the Edsel sub-brand was created. It was envisioned as a tool for Ford to expand into the markets dominated by rivals General Motors and Chrysler. It was incredibly unsuccessful, and just three years after being set up, in 1959, it was discontinued.

The reason for that was, more or less, bad timing. Edsel cars were to be sold as the cars of the future. They used reworked bodies borrowed from Ford and Mercury, and generally sold in the same price range as the Mercury. Somehow, perhaps because it arrived at a time when Americans were not doing so well financially (the so-called Eisenhower Recession), the idea didn't stick.

During its short years on the market Edsel tried its best to snatch as much of the market as possible. It lined up no less than seven models in its first year: Pacer, Corsair, Citation, Roundup, Villager, Bermuda, and Ranger. By the time model year 1960 got here, just the Villager and the Ranger remained standing.

While the former was offered as a wagon, the latter was the backbone of the brand, selling as a sedan, hardtop, and convertible. Given how 1959 was the last production year for the range, and a shortened one at that, not many Rangers were made: close to 2,600 of them.

Of that, just 76 came in convertible form, so coming across one in our time is not something that happens every day. It so happens that we did just that, as we were going through the list of cars auction house Mecum is sending under the hammer in Las Vegas in early November.

The car is, in fact, much rarer than that, as it supposedly is the only one to have been specced in black over red. Granted, the exterior color you see on the body panels is not the original one, but the result of a repaint conducted as part of a professional restoration completed in the 1990s, but it falls perfectly over the fender skirts, sharp edges running the length of the car, and even over the chrome bumpers.

The black and beautiful body of the car makes use of a white convertible soft top, which once out of the way leaves room for the eye to bask in the warm red on the seats, door panels, and dashboard (offset by patches of silver).

The original Rangers were powered by a variety of engines, with displacements going from 223ci to 361ci. The unit installed in this one comes close to the top, as it's a 352ci capable of releasing 300 horsepower into the wild. The troop is controlled by means of a column-shift automatic transmission.

The car makes contact with the ground through the factory wheels, polished and gifted with whitewall tires and red center caps for the perfect contrast.

As you see it, the Edsel Ranger has barely been used, despite its age. The car's odometer reads only 22,600 miles (36,400 km), and there's not a single wrinkle on it.

Mecum does not provide any details as to how much the owner hopes to get for their unique Edsel Ranger, but the car is listed as a star of the Las Vegas auction and there also seems to be a reserve on it.

We did some digging, though, and we were able to find out the last time this car sold was in 2015, at the hands of RM Sotheby's, and it went for $60,500. That's significantly more than valuation specialist Hagerty estimates one in Concours condition to be worth ($39,600).

Even so, the sum is probably a lot less than what it will actually go for now – if you adjust the $60,500 to inflation, you get almost $80,000 today. We will of course keep an eye out for this particular Edsel, and report back if it manages to make a noticeable splash over in Nevada.

In the meantime, make sure you check out the gallery to see what the original Ranger Ford used to make looks like.