Ford Vedette

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Ford Vedette 1951
Ford Vedette Coupe (1950)

The Ford Vedette (French for "(film) - Star ") was one of Ford Societe Anonyme France ( Ford SAF ) in the automobile plant Poissy 1948-1954 produced cars of the upper middle class . The vehicle was presented at the Paris Motor Show in 1948 , but was entirely designed in Detroit . It was similar to the contemporary Mercury models, but had a 2158 cc V8 engine with side valves , which was sold in France in 1936 under the name Aquilon(Roman god of cold winds) had been introduced. The body was bolted to a separate, load-bearing ladder frame.

The "Aquilon" engine

The pre-war Matford already had this engine . Despite its considerable fuel consumption by European standards, it only developed 60 hp (44 kW). The reasons for the poor power output were the very low compression (6.8: 1) and the valves on the side due to the fluctuating and often poor quality of the fuels at that time. They caused the shape of the combustion chamber protruding beyond the circle of the piston and an unfavorable arrangement of the intake and exhaust gas ducts. The intake pipe had to deflect the mixture several times so that it could reach the cylinder from below through the cylinder block from the downdraft carburetor. The exhaust gases were directed to the outside through three ducts through the engine block. This resulted in a high cooling load and uneven heating of the cylinders.

Added to this were the restrictions that the crankshaft had only three bearings. Permanently high speeds, as is common when driving on the motorway, lead to crankshaft vibrations in this engine, which are clearly audible inside the car as a strong humming sound and cause increased wear and tear, including material fatigue or even destruction. That is why the engine was later modified by Simca for the 1961 model year of the Vedette Chambord : the crankshaft was fitted with a vibration damper. But not even 4000 of them were produced in France this model year. After that the production of this engine was finished in Europe. However, Simca do Brasil initially continued to build the vehicle almost unchanged. With a few changes that also affected the engine, production continued until 1969.

The landing gear

The front axle of the Ford Vedette of the first generation was different from the same old Ford Taunus G93A , which had a rigid axle at the front, as an independent suspension with upper and lower wishbones , coil springs and telescopic dampers. The rigid rear axle was guided and sprung with leaf springs. Only the successor to this first Ford Vedette with a self-supporting body, which came onto the market as Simca Vedette after it was sold to Simca in 1954 , received a new suspension with strut and wishbone according to Earle S. MacPherson . For the first time, the construction called MacPherson strut was installed in the English Ford Consul / Zephyr with a self-supporting body from 1950.

Difficult beginning phase

As Poissy was unable to start full automobile production immediately after the war as an assembly plant due to war damage, the first vehicles were manufactured by the French body manufacturer Chausson in Gennevilliers . At that time, Chausson was a specialist in buses, which remained the main product even after the takeover by the Renault subsidiary Saviem . Another well-known vehicle whose body was made by Chausson was the Opel GT , which was produced from 1968 . In the post-war period, the raw materials were of poor quality, and important supplier parts were also said to be of poor quality. This contributed to the model's limited popularity. During the six years of production, the Vedette was available in a wide variety of versions: four-door with hatchback and suicide doors at the rear, later a four-door sedan , a four-door convertible sedan based on the hatchback , known as the Sunliner , with a roll-up roof that could be rolled over the entire passenger compartment, a two-door coupé and a two-door cabriolet derived from it, called Décapotable . The construction with a separate frame made this variety of body variants possible.

Lehideux era

Under the direction of the new President of Ford France, François Lehideux , the model was revised in 1950 and it was given a stiffer frame. In 1952 the car underwent a thorough facelift with an undivided windshield , a redesigned interior with a cigarette lighter , better shock absorbers , brakes and a larger trunk , which did not make the car look any better. At the 1952 Paris Motor Show, a luxury version of the Vedette was presented, the Ford Vendôme , which was powered by a larger 3923cc V8 engine with 84 hp (62 kW) called Mistral , as used in Ford France trucks . In the same year, the five-door and five-seat hatchback model Ford Abeille ("bee") came out with a two-part, horizontally split tailgate . With its sheet metal clad rear window cutouts and a payload of 500 kg, it was considered a practical and comfortable station wagon . In the summer of 1952, three French drivers on a Vedette with a streamlined body on a tubular frame in Montlhéry broke several records in the class up to 2 liters displacement, which attracted some attention, which the advertising took advantage of.

Pigozzi era

Since the end of the war, in view of the unsatisfactory sales development and because of the strikes in Poissy towards the end of the decade, Ford had tried to sell the plant. A good opportunity arose in 1954 when Henri Théodore Pigozzi , founder of the increasingly successful French car manufacturer Simca , was looking for a new factory for his growing business. Ford France was Simca merged , and Ford both the factory in Poissy and all models produced there earned, including the renovated Vedette. The new model made its debut under the name Simca Vedette , but was sold in some markets (including Germany and the Netherlands) as the Ford Vedette until 1956.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gloor, Roger: Post-War Cars - Passenger Cars 1945 - 1960; Benedikt Taschen Verlag Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-8228-8994-X , p. 164

Web links

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