November 8
1956 What's In A Name
On this day, the Ford Motor Company decided on the name "Edsel" for a new model in development for the 1958 market year. The new addition to the Ford family of automobiles would be a tribute to Edsel Bryant Ford, who served as company president from 1919 until his death in 1943. Edsel Ford was also the oldest son of founder Henry Ford and father to current company President Henry Ford II. The designer of the Edsel, Roy Brown, was instructed to create an automobile that was highly recognizable, and from every angle different than anything else on the road. In the fall of 1957, with great fanfare, the 1958 Edsel was introduced to the public. With its horse collar grill in the front and its regressed side-panels in the rear, the Edsel indeed looked like nothing else on the road. However, despite its appearance, the Ford Edsel was a high-tech affair, featuring state-of-the-art innovations such as the "Tele-Touch" push-button automatic transmission. Nevertheless, buyer appeal was low, and the Ford Edsel earned just a 1.5 percent share of the market in 1958. After two more years, the Edsel marque was abandoned, and its name would forever be synonymous with business failure.
1992 The Fastest Wheelie
On this day, daredevil Jacky Vranken of Belgium set a record for the highest speed ever attained on the rear wheel of a motorcycle. At St. Truiden Military Airfield in Belgium, Vranken reached 157.87 while performing an extended "wheelie" with his Suzuki GSXR 1100 motorcycle. The year before, Yasuyuki Kudo of Japan had set the record for the longest wheelie when he covered 205.7 miles nonstop on the rear wheel of his Honda TLM 220 R motorcycle at the Japan Automobile Research Institute in Tsukuba, Japan.
1956 What's In A Name
On this day, the Ford Motor Company decided on the name "Edsel" for a new model in development for the 1958 market year. The new addition to the Ford family of automobiles would be a tribute to Edsel Bryant Ford, who served as company president from 1919 until his death in 1943. Edsel Ford was also the oldest son of founder Henry Ford and father to current company President Henry Ford II. The designer of the Edsel, Roy Brown, was instructed to create an automobile that was highly recognizable, and from every angle different than anything else on the road. In the fall of 1957, with great fanfare, the 1958 Edsel was introduced to the public. With its horse collar grill in the front and its regressed side-panels in the rear, the Edsel indeed looked like nothing else on the road. However, despite its appearance, the Ford Edsel was a high-tech affair, featuring state-of-the-art innovations such as the "Tele-Touch" push-button automatic transmission. Nevertheless, buyer appeal was low, and the Ford Edsel earned just a 1.5 percent share of the market in 1958. After two more years, the Edsel marque was abandoned, and its name would forever be synonymous with business failure.
1992 The Fastest Wheelie
On this day, daredevil Jacky Vranken of Belgium set a record for the highest speed ever attained on the rear wheel of a motorcycle. At St. Truiden Military Airfield in Belgium, Vranken reached 157.87 while performing an extended "wheelie" with his Suzuki GSXR 1100 motorcycle. The year before, Yasuyuki Kudo of Japan had set the record for the longest wheelie when he covered 205.7 miles nonstop on the rear wheel of his Honda TLM 220 R motorcycle at the Japan Automobile Research Institute in Tsukuba, Japan.
