Up from Edsel

A few years ago, jokes about the star-crossed Edsel were a part of almost every comedian's patter. For employees at Ford's Lincoln-Mercury Division, which produced the car, it only hurt when audiences laughed. Bedeviled by bad timing and uneven management, the whole division had become a career junkyard for faltering executives and a rugged boot camp for beginners. Beyond Edsel, Lincoln-Mercury's models offered little individuality. They were nothing but larger, costlier Fords. Sales fell so low that many Lincoln-Mercury dealers were forced to depend on used-car sales.

Today, Lincoln-Mercury is Detroit's comeback champion. It is the fastest-growing division in the auto industry, posting new sales records month after month. For the year as a whole, L-M sales are up 24%, and its share of the market has climbed from 3.8% to 4.3%.

Henry Ford slammed the brakes on the downhill ride in 1965 by ordering a complete overhaul of Lincoln-Mercury models. In the past five years, product development costs have risen 70%, and the investment has paid off with some of the most stylish lines in the business. The sporty Cougar, introduced in 1967, attracted young drivers to Lincoln-Mercury showrooms for the first time in a decade; today the Cougar outsells Pontiac's Firebird. The elegant Continental Mark III, brought out in 1968, has picked up 19% of the luxury-car market, which was once the all but exclusive preserve of Cadillac. The most rapidly rising model is the $2,400 German-built Capri, a sports compact that Lincoln-Mercury began importing last year. Estimated 1971 sales: 50,000 cars.

Shirtsleeves Boss. In 1968, Lincoln-Mercury's management was given fresh strength with the appointment of Marketing Specialist Matthew McLaughlin as division chief. Among other things, he supervised new styling changes before moving to a higher job. The present general manager, Ben Bidwell, 43, took the post 16 months ago and has proved to be an equally forceful executive. A dark, quick-smiling man who started as a Ford salesman in Boston in 1953, Bidwell usually works in shirtsleeves, tie at half mast. He played baseball at the Babson Institute of Business Administration, still looks like an athlete and talks in the competitive manner of a coach. Sometimes he sounds perilously similar to Pat O'Brien asking the team to win one for the Gipper. "I like competition," he says. "Free enterprise is competition in goddam near its purest form. I hate to lose--but I'm a gracious winner."

One of Bidwell's biggest victories has been to lift the spirit of his dealers. A Lincoln-Mercury dealer who sells one Mark III can now earn about as much money as a Ford dealer makes on twelve Pintos. Not surprisingly, though the number of U.S. auto dealerships is diminishing, Lincoln-Mercury's organization is growing. Bidwell himself signed up 47 new dealers in the past year or so. Says he: "You can't bull the public about cars. All the pizazz in the world can't hide an ineffective dealer organization or a poor product." Bidwell obviously thinks he has the right products. "Little cars and luxury cars are selling well," he notes, "and we happen to be one of the few divisions that have both." Lincoln-Mercury, it seems, has finally exorcised the ghost of the Edsel.

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