The Chrysler Corporation’s decision to shrink its big Plymouth and Dodge for 1962 occurred at a tumultuous time — the U.S. auto industry was reportedly considering even more dramatic changes due to soaring sales of imported cars. It’s true that some media speculations ended up being overblown, but the mere mention of out-of-the-box ideas showed that the status quo had been shaken.
We previously noted that in its November 1959 issue, Road & Track magazine speculated that by 1963 Chevrolet would switch its big cars to rear engines while Ford would adopt a front-wheel-drive layout (go here).
Popular Science magazine didn’t go that far, but it reported that General Motors was planning to add a rear transaxle — an automatic transmission integrated with the rear differential — to its big cars (Fermoyle, 1959). In addition, the February 1960 issue included an unusually long story about Ford’s interest in front-wheel drive.
“Reports that Ford will switch its whole line to front drive by 1963 have already been published,” Ken Fermoyle (1960a) wrote, but he added that rumors about the forthcoming Comet having the technology were not true. Indeed, this was as close as Fermoyle got to saying that full-sized cars would make the switch, although his article visually implied that this was a serious idea by including a cutaway drawing of a big sedan.
Ford did take front-wheel drive seriously . . . for a while
As it turned out, Ford was developing a front-wheel-drive subcompact — the aborted 1963 Cardinal/Redwing (go here for further discussion). In addition, a V4 engine was reportedly being considered as a basis for a family of four-, six- and eight-cylinder engines that would be used on a broad range of Ford vehicles.
“An educated guess is that there will be a good deal of parts interchangeability among the V-4, V-6, and small V-8, and that much of the tooling will serve for all three engines,” Fermoyle (1960b) reported.
Ford executive Robert McNamara has been pointed to as a champion of the compact Falcon and the Cardinal (Donnelly, 2018). Thus, it would make sense if he had considered using front-wheel drive elsewhere in Ford’s lineup.
That raises a fascinating scenario: Might Ford’s product planning have looked significantly different if McNamara had stayed at the automaker for a while rather than departing in early 1961 to become John F. Kennedy’s defense secretary?
At the very least, I suspect that McNamara would have protected the Cardinal from being axed in the United States. Might he have also pressed for Ford to switch its bigger passenger cars to front-wheel drive? And might that have spurred other automakers to do so?
I ask these questions while recognizing that reporting about Ford’s consideration of front-wheel drive may have been overstated by the automotive media. However, fact that the car-buff magazines were even talking about major engineering advances was a dramatic shift for an industry that only a few years earlier had been fixated on flashy styling.
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RE:SOURCES
- Donelly, Jim; 2018. “Robert S. McNamara.” Hemmings. Posted Sept. 23.
- Fermoyle, Ken; 1959. “What’s Coming in 1960’s Full-Size Cars.” Popular Science. July issue: pp. 76-78, 218.
- ——; 1960a. “Are U.S. Front-Drive Cars Coming?” Popular Science. February issue: pp. 96-99, 246-248.
- ——; 1960b. “New small V-type engine?” Popular Science. February issue: pp. 40, 48.
Would Ford have actually considered a 60-degree V8 developed from a pair of doubled up US-built Taunus or Essex V4s, never mind a narrow Lancia and VW VR6 type family of V4, V6 and V8 engines?
I remember hanging around the I.M.S. Gasoline Alley in the early 1970s around Sonny Meyer’s garage whom was looking after the Ford-Foyt V-8s, when there was a discussion of what engines Ford had been thinking about in 1963 before the Mustang II and III were released on the show circuit. The 1962 Mustang I was mid-engined with the German Ford Taunus V-4, but the thinking was using the new for 1962 Ford 221-cu.-in. V-8; however, the 1963 Indianapolis 500 260-cu.-in. destroked to 255 cu.-in. (4.7L) for the U.S.A.C. rules was quickly adopted for the 1963 for the Lola Ford GT (which became the original Ford GT40s) all to be used on gasoline. The 1964 D.O.H.C. Ford 255 V-8 was meant to run on gasoline but was eventually adapted to methanol for safety. I believe that to tool up an unproven engine when Ford had a new line of 221-260-289 cu.-in. thinwall OHV V-8s, Iacocca simply went to the parts bin and pulled out a Windsor, especially given the tight time-line Iacocca was under