David Wallace (executive)

David Wallace (October 6, 1908 – October 6, 1974 in Taormina, Sicily), was hired in 1955 by Ford Motor Company as manager of product planning and merchandising its protégé car debuting in 1957. At the end the name chosen was Edsel.

Given the responsibility of researching potential names and being frustrated by conventional research, Wallace secured the aid of poet Marianne Moore who did not disappoint with such suggestions as Mongoose Civique, Resilient Bullet, Andante con Moto and Utopian Turtletop among others. The entire correspondence was later reproduced in The New Yorker (April 13, 1957, pp 130–136). It was up to Wallace to inform Miss Moore of Ford’s final choice which he did in this pungent letter:

November 8, 1956

Dear Miss Moore,

Because you were so kind to us in our early and hopeful days of looking for a suitable name, I feel a deep obligation to report on events that have ensued.

And I feel I must do so before the public announcement of same come Monday, November 19.

We have chosen a name out of the more than six thousand-odd candidates that we gathered. It has a certain ring to it. It fails somewhat of the resonance, gaiety, and zest we were seeking. But it has a personal dignity and meaning to many of us here. Our name, dear Miss Moore, is—Edsel.

I hope you will understand.

Cordially, David Wallace, Special Products Division (The New Yorker, April 17, 1957, p 136)

Wallace later wrote of his experiences with Ford Motor Co. in Automotive Quarterly, "Something went wrong. History had never witnessed anything like it before. More money was spent in its launching than any other previous product offered upon the consumer market anywhere – a quarter of a billion dollars. It was to be the most perfectly conceived automobile the world had ever seen – every part of its planning guided by public opinion polls, motivational research, Science. It did not work out that way…" (Automobile Quarterly, 1975, Vol. XIII, No. 2, “Naming the Edsel”, p. 182-191)

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