Monday, January 3, 2022

Jack Telnack's "New Edge" Styling Theme

Jack Telnack (b. 1937) was Vice President of Design for Ford 1980-1997.  His brief Wikipedia entry is here.

Towards the end of his time at Ford, Telnack and his stylists came up with a visual theme they called New Edge.  It was mostly used on some European brands, though an echo found on a later USA Ford model.  So the theme never really caught on.  It was not seriously continued by Telnack's successor, J Mays.

New Edge is difficult to explain verbally, so view the factory-sourced images below for examples.  

Gallery

1997 Ford Ka
A dash of New Edge can be found on the Ka's front where the upper grille frame curve is carried over into the turn indicator lights and the hood cut line passes along the inner edge of the headlight assembly..

At the rear, there are New Edge curves associated with the aft door, tail lights and bumper cladding.

1998 Ford Focus Coupe
Here the theme seems to be expressed in the hood cut line and headlight assembly.

At the rear, it's most visible with respect to the tail light assemblies and their surroundings.

1998 Ford Focus Sedan (Europe)

The same applies to the European sedan.

2000 Ford Focus Sedan (North America)
Focus sedans for the U.S. and Canadian markets received bustle-back rear ends instead of fifth-door rears that for some reason were not popular here.

As a result, New Edge essentially disappeared in its true form.

2005 Ford Five Hundred
A faint echo of New Edge styling in Ford's J Mays era can be seen in the shape  of the Five Hundred's grille.

1 comment:

emjayay said...

Ford did sell two and four door hatchback versions of the Focus in the US in addition to the notchback and also a station wagon. A later odd decision was to do a whole body facelift (I doubt that many buyers noticed that it wasn't an all new car) on the original when the next version came out in Europe. There were no hatchbacks or wagons in that US version.