When you think of German cars, Ford doesn’t usually come up. At least not around here.
Here, we think of Fords as Australian cars. And that was part of Ford’s strategy for many years - localized product, though usually with an American flavour.
This little Ford was most definitely a trans-Atlantic affair. The “P4” Taunus was designed in the US to compete against the flood of imported VWs - and production-ready for the 1961 model year. It was then called the “Ford Cardinal”. But Ford pulled the plug on the project at the last minute, as by then their calculations showed that it would not stand a chance against the VW.
The project was then moved - as it was - to Ford Germany’s Cologne factory. Apparently the German Ford branch was less than enthused about the whole deal, as the new car had nothing at all in common with previous Fords.
It featured a V4 engine and - shock horror - front wheel drive! The motoring press was equally unimpressed, saying that the handling was iffy and the engine rough. Ugh - really, compared to the VW? That seems a bit hard to imagine. The same Ford unit was also used in the Saab 96 and Matra 530. Ford had the capacity and was happy to shift a few more units.
In the end the cars was neither a great success, nor a failure. It sold about as many units as its main rival from GM, the also brand new Opel Kadett. But the VW comfortably outsold them both, despite being slower, noisier, thirstier and smaller inside and out.
As for the Impy model, with its rubber tyres, jewel headlights, and opening everything, you could almost confuse it with a 1/43 model of its time. Impys truly were the top quality models back then, a far more sophisticated approach to diecast than Matchbox. And their line-up of models will make any fan of 1960s cars drool:
I need to find more of them - if only they weren’t so expensive these days...