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Posts Tagged ‘Ford’

Ford Part 4

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

But even though Ford had the V8 they were still overtaken by Chevrolet in 1936.

Hydraulic brakes weren’t offered until 1939 and independent front suspension until 1948, over a decade after having been adopted by most American cars.

1959 Ford Thunderbird © exfordy/flickr.com

Attempts were made to offer a smaller and cheaper V8 with 137ci (2245cc) and a 227ci (3720cc) straight-six but neither was successful.

In 1943 Edsel Ford had dies of cancer and Henry Ford, being in his 80th year, took over again. That meant a growing empire with little leadership or financial control. In the late 1945 things began to change though when Henry Ford II, fresh out of the navy, took over as president. He even brought a group of high-flying business brains from the air force and business became profitable again.

For the cars the only improvement in 1945 was a larger version of the V8, now with 240ci (3933cc). The new Fords weren’t launched before 1948. The new cars did not only have a new styling but also independent front suspension. To keep up with the other car manufacturers a new overhead-valve V8 engine was also needed. It didn’t arrive until 1954 though.

In 1955 the Ford Thunderbird was launched and became the most exciting car for that year. It had a standard V8, manual transmission and wind-up windows which made the Thunderbird a more complete car than the Chevrolet Corvette. It was named a ‘personal car’ by Ford and had a pretty good performance thanks to the 198bhp V8.
The Thunderbird outsold the Corvette by huge numbers and even the 1958 four-seater was more popular than the Corvette.

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Ford Part 3

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

The new Model A was announced seven months before it was launched in December 1927.

During those seven months Chevrolet took over Ford and thousands of Ford stuff lost their jobs. But hardly anybody cared in the end as this was the first new Ford for nearly 20 years.
It caused such excitement outside the Ford showrooms in Cleveland that police had to be called to control the crowds.

930 Ford Model A © Collector Car Ads/flickr.com

The elegant little Model A was influenced by the Lincoln and for sure an improvement. It had been extended to 18 styles within a couple of years and the estate car launched in 1929 was quickly copied by other manufacturers.
The 202ci (3310 cc) four-cylinder engine produced 40bhp and the transmission was changed to a conventional three-speed sliding gear unit and the car by now also had four brakes.

Half a million cars were ordered before the car was launched and in 1929 1.3 million were sold. But Ford was still affected by the Depression and sales in 1931 dropped to less than for 1929. Tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs and factories were temporarily closed. Besides that the Model A was soon suffering the effects of competition from the Chevrolet six.

Fords answer to that was the 1932 Model 18 with a 22ci (3638cc) eight-cylinder engine producing 65bhp and a top speed of more than 80mph. It was equipped with mechanical drum brakes and transverse leaf suspension. The engine inspired a whole generation of hot rodders and would see Ford right through the 1930s.
The half-hearted attempt to make a four-cylinder Model 18 was dropped after only seven months as the American public seemed to have outgrown fours.

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Ford Part 2

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

The Model A was followed by the Model AC, the Model C and the Model B.

The Model AC had a larger engine than the original, the Model C had a front hood and a vertical radiator and the Model B at last was totally different as it reflected Alexander Malcomson’s ambition for a larger, more expensive car. It was a four-cylinder tourer with a 285ci (4670cc) engine. Henry Ford didn’t like the car at all as he wanted to build as many cheap cars as possible. The problems between Malcomson and Ford could only be solved by Henry elbowing his partner out of the company.

1923 Ford Model T © bsabarnowl/flickr.com

By 1906 100 cars were produced per day in the new factory on Piquette Avenue, Detroit. There were still three models on offer with the Model F being the final development of the Model C. The future though was lying in the Model N, because despite of having a 150ci (2458cc) four-cylinder engine it was not even half the price of the F. The big Model K with its six-cylinder engine was an expensive luxury car that again didn’t accord with Henry Ford’s ambitions. It was a hangover from the Malcomson days and Ford had to make the dealers take one for every ten of the Model Ns they ordered. In two years less than 600 Model Ks were sold.

The Models R and S were again keeping up more with Ford’s philosophy.

But all of these were dropped in October 1908 when the new car was launched – the Model T. It rather conventionally really, even though the new 178ci (2917cc) four-cylinder engine had a detachable cylinder head. But the very same two-speed epicyclical transmission was used as in every other model. A choice of different body styles, from a two-seater runabout to a seven-seater town car was available, and the Model T soon proved to be the most popular Ford yet.

Even though Henry Ford wasn’t the sole owner of his company, he was in full control and the ace up his sleeve was the new factory at Highland Park, outside Detroit. From August 1913 the Model T was produced there on moving assembly lines. Productivity boosted dramatically and the costs went down. In 1913 over 200,000 cars were built. In 1914 it was 300,000 cars and two years on even 738,811.

A result of the savings being made due to this mass-production, Ford was able to double the workers’ wages and the famous ‘Five Dollar Day’ gave Henry ford huge publicity. Crowds of job-seekers came to Detroit to work at the Highland Park plant even though the work was pretty hard as the pace of work was now dictated by the speed of the assembly line.

The cars also got cheaper of course. By 1915 the Model T tourer was only $440. The best year for the Ford Model T was in 1923 with over 1.8 million built and in 1924 it only cost $260. But even though in the early days people were happy to buy any car as long as it was cheap, customers became more demanding and now demanded four-wheel brakes, six-cylinder engines and a choice of different colours. So even Henry Ford had to admit that the Model T could not last forever and production was stopped in May 1927.

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Ford Part 1

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

Even though Henry Ford neither invented mass-production, nor the car, he was producing cars at a cheaper price than anyone else and therefore made them accessible to more people than ever before.

Ford was a more or less typical self-made man with a dominant and even autocratic character, maintaining a tight grip on his industrial empire right into his 80s. And even though General Motors became a bigger corporation, hardly anybody today has ever heard of its founder William C Durant. Henry Ford though is a household name throughout the world. A reason for this probably is the fact that the industrial dynasty has maintained the family name to this day. After having been assisted by his son Edsel, Henry Ford was succeeded by his grandson and today’s head of the company is William Clay Jr. a forth-generation Ford.

Ford Model A © LaertesCTB/flickr.com

Born in 1863, Henry Ford was the son of a farmer, fleeing the potato famine in Ireland, and grew up on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan. Henry Ford had no ambition to take over the family farm as the sight of a steam traction engine at young age encouraged his natural aptitude for mechanical things. From school he went straight to a machine shop in Detroit and later became chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Co.

Unlike his fellow pioneers who were still pretty young, Henry Ford already was in his 30s when he built his first car and 40 when finally settling down to series production.

He built his first car, a quadricycle with a simple two-cylinder engine driving through a two-speed epicylical transmission and chain drive in a workshop behind his house. In the end Ford had to use a sledgehammer to get it out there as is was too big for the door.
The car being capable of 20mph was soon sold and Henry Ford started to build a more sophisticated version. He had a proper financial backing and the car could have gone into production. But the newly founded Detroit Automobile Co. flopped as Ford fell out with his backers.

The Henry Ford Company followed and the famous 999 built there broke several records. Even Henry Ford himself drove it to 91.37mph on frozen Lake St Clair. But once again disagreements with his backers ended the cooperation.

In 1903 Alexander Young Malcomson agreed to finance Henry’s third company and this was the breakthrough. Another simple chain driven car was built which was very similar to a Cadillac recently built by the Henry Ford Co. Hardly surprising as both cars were designed by Henry Ford. Even though the Model A was a car made of bought-in parts, it was a success and 670 cars were sold over the next 15 months.

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1958 Ford Nucleon

Monday, June 7th, 2010

The 1958 Ford Nucleon was a concept car built by Ford and there was only one ever constructed.

The car was supposed to be powered by a small nuclear reactor which was placed in the rear. The passenger compartment was situated close to the front of the car, extending beyond the front axle, to protect the passengers from the reactor.

The Ford Nucleon had a one piece windscreen with no pillar, a compound rear window and the aerodynamic styling looked very futuristic. Air intakes at the leading edge of the roof and at the base of the roof supports were meant to be part of the reactor’s cooling system.

The capsule with the radioactive core for motive power could easily be changed and it was said that the car could travel about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometres) without recharging. That was depending on the size of the core of course. At the end of its life the core would be taken to a charging station. The reactor was similar to the ones used in nuclear submarines but of course much smaller.

A working prototype of the Ford Nucleon never was built but it is an icon of the Atomic Age and shows that designers thought everything was possible.

A mock-up of the car can be seen at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

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SIMCA

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

SIMCA (Société Industrielle de Mécanique et Carosserie Automobile) was founded in 1934 by Henri Théodore Pigozzi.

In 1935 the company started producing FIAT cars under license. First the Fiat 500 Topolino which was sold under the name of Simca 5 in France. Untill 1950 the Simca 8 and the Simca 6 followed. Under German occupation during WW2 SIMCA amongst others had to produce parts for the NSU-Kettenkrad, a small military vehicle.

Simca 1000 GLS©flickr/Joost J. Bakker IJmuiden

In 1954 SIMCA bought Ford’s French branch and it became the most modern car factory in Europe. With 15 percent of shares Ford became a shareholder of Simca.

The former Ford models Vedette and Comète became Simca Vedette and Simca Comète Monte Carlo. One year later the production of the Simca Comète Monte Carlo came to an end but the Simca Vedette was produced until 1961, in Brazil even until the end of the 1960s.

In 1951 the Simca Aronde was first sold followed by the Simca Ariane in 1957. In 1961 the Simca 1000 was produced and from 1963 on the 1300/1500 series. The Simca 1100 built in 1967 was the first model with front engine and front wheel drive.

In 1958 Chrysler bought the 15 percent shares held by Ford and in 1959 Simca bought the French Talbot-Lago company. In 1971 Chrysler owned almost 100 percent of the Simca shares mostly by purchasing them from FIAT. The company now was officially called Chrysler France but the brand name Simca was still used.

In 1978 Simca was sold to Peugeot S.A. which still built the models until 1986 under the brand name Talbot. The last Simca design was the Talbot Arizona which was sold as the Peugeot 309.

The Aronde, the Simca 1000 and the front engined 1100 compact car were the most popular pre-Chrysler models.

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The Ford Edsel

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

I’m not sure if “Every day something else leaks.” should be the right description for that certainly very unique car.

The Edsel was a brand of the Ford Motor Company but from 1957 to November 1959 only 118,287 cars were built, 2/3 of them at Louisville Assembly Plant and 7,440 in Ontario, Canada.

Of course the Edsel was different than others and it was designed to be this way. 18 different body styles were available among them a full line of station wagons. You could get the cars in 90 colour combinations, such as Alaskan Gold, Sunset Coral or Sahara Beige. The oval grill was a lot talked about as it in a way looked like a horse collar, a toilet seat or even a woman’s genitals.

Some drivers had problems with the push button transmission system which was located on the steering wheel were normally the horn was. Many drivers shifted gear instead of honking the horn. And it was prone to shift unexpectedly from “park” into “drive”, so it was wise not to walk in front of an Edsel.

But even though the car looked different and was different, it only was a car with four wheels and four doors. And this seemed to have been part of the problem. Even though it was a great car to drive it only was a kind of ordinary car that just looked a little different. It might have sold better if it had been able to fly or anything like that.

Even with a grill looking like a toilet seat. I still think it is a great car in a way and the many different colours really are marvellous.

Anyway the Edsel was a marketing failure and the Ford Motor Company spent $ 350 million to design, launch and prototype the car. Fewer than 6,000 Edsels seem to have survived but now are a highly collectible item amongst lovers of vintage cars. :-)

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Jaguar, A Short Story

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

In 1922 William Lyons and William Walmsley founded the Swallow Sidecar Company in Blackpool.

The company was producing motorcycle sidecars and coachwork. In 1928 the factory moved to Coventry to meet the demands for the Austin Swallow.

In 1931 the first car was presented with a chassis manufactured by Standard, exclusively for Swallow.  This was the beginning of the S.S. cars.

The first models were the S.S. 1 and the S.S. 2.  In the following years they were the basis for several successors.  In 1934 William Walmsley left the company and William Lyons started to cooperate with Harry Weslake.

Harry Weslake started to improve the engines and founded a construction department under the responsibility of William Heynes. The S.S. 90 was introduced in 1935. It was a Roadster on the basis of the S.S. 1. In 1935 the name Jaguar was first use for a car. It was the S.S. Jaguar, a 4-door saloon with 2.5 L engine.

The smaller version was the 2-door S.S. Jaguar 1.5 L and the successor of the S.S. 1 and S.S. 2. During WW2 the company again produced motorcycle sidecars for military use. After WW2 and due to the unfavourable connotations of the S.S. initials the name was changed to Jaguar Cars Ltd. In the 1950s Jaguar produced a series of elegantly-styled sports cars and saloons.  After several changes of the ownership the Ford Motor Company acquired the company in 1989. In 2008 Jaguar was sold to Tata Motors in India.

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Ford Köln and Ford Eifel

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

In 1931 the people in charge of the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan found it necessary to produce a smaller car for the European market.

The Ford Model Y was designed. It was first presented in 1932 on the Ford Motor Exhibition in London’s Royal Albert Hall. In August of that very year the production in started in England and in 1933 in Germany.

There the car was named Ford Köln, as Köln is the German name of the city of Cologne, where the cars were manufactured. The Ford Köln had a 4-cylinder engine, 21 hp (16 kW), with a top speed of 85 km/h (53 mph).

The cars built in Germany were more luxurious than those produced in England. A saloon and a convertible were available. But the Ford Köln wasn’t a great success due to the competition with the Opel, DKW and Adler. In 1935 it was replaced by the bigger Ford Eifel.

The Ford Eifel was produced in Germany from 1935 to 1940. It was available as 2-door saloon and 2- and 4-seat convertible, 2-sear roadster and light truck, with a 4-cylinder engine, 34 hp (25 kW), with a top speed of 105 km/h (65 mph). This car was a real success with more than 61,000 units sold. The Ford Eifel was derived from the Ford Model C platform and related to the Ford Anglia and Ford Perfect.

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Ford Model T

Friday, November 13th, 2009

The first time I read about the Ford Model T was in my English book in school. It really impressed me, to read that the Tin Lizzy was able to pull a tractor out of a ditch. :-)

In September 1908 the first Ford Model T was sold in Detroit. By that time it was still handmade. The car had a front mounted engine and rear wheel drive. It became the first mass produced car on assembly lines ever, with interchangeable parts.

With 15 million units it was the most sold car, until in 1972 the Volkswagen Beetle took over. It was a middle class car and even though most of the cars were black, different colours were produced from 1908 to 1914 and from 1926 to 1927 when production ended. The Tin Lizzy not only was the first car built on assembly lines, but the first car produced world wide.

From 1911 on the Ford Model T was assembled in Canada and Manchester, England and later in Germany, Argentina, France, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Brazil, Mexico, and Japan. Due to the efficiencies of assembly lines the prices of the Tin Lizzy fell and even more people were able to afford one.
Specifications:

  • Class – Full-size Ford, economy car
  • Body styles – 2-door touring, 2-door roadster, 2-door roadster pickup, 2-door ton truck, 2-door closed cab ton truck, 2-door coupé, 2-door wagon, 4-door wagon, Center door wagon, 2-door convertible, 4-door sedan
  • Engine – 177 in3 (2.9 L) 20 hp I4
  • Transmissions – 2-speed planetary gear, 3-speed planetary gear
  • Wheelbase – 99.0 in (2515 mm)
  • Kerb weight – 1,200 pounds (540 kg)
  • Fuel capacity – 10 US gallons (38 L)

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