A few days ago Aaron Severson (2024) posted an epic story about the aborted Ford Cardinal. His 22,000-word piece deepens the dialogue about this important car. In a moment we will debate some of his more provocative conclusions, but first I want to make the meta point that Severson’s article represents a challenge to American automotive history.
In recent years the field has been increasingly dominated by clickbait. I am not just talking about cut-and-pasted trivia posted on Facebook pages and websites whose content is mostly written by volunteers with uneven skills. Even Mac’s Motor City Garage, which won an award from the Society of Automotive Historians last year, tends to post stories under 600 words in length. Publisher Bill McGuire is quite knowledgeable, but even he can’t manage to squeeze much more than basic information into such short stories. This practice may entertain bored retirees but does little to advance the field’s knowledge.
Also see ‘What would happen to auto history media if they outlawed clickbait?’
The biggest culprit appears to be that most auto history websites depend primarily, if not entirely, on ad revenue to survive. That puts them under enormous pressure to pump out a continuous stream of short and breezy stories that maximize page views.
In contrast, Severson illustrates what can be done when a professional writer relies upon revenue generated from reader subscriptions. He devoted what appears to be many weeks of research into the Cardinal’s complex history. That resulted in an exceptionally detailed narrative posted on his Ate Up With Motor website, which you can read for free. And if that isn’t enough for you, his Patreon page also includes an 8,000-word set of “Notes” that costs $8 (go here) regardless of whether you are one of his Patreon subscribers.
Was the Cardinal’s dowdiness a fatal flaw?
Indie Auto is on a tight budget so the comments that follow focus solely on the main story. Severson (2024) concludes that Lee Iacocca was probably right in the short run that the Cardinal might not have been a strong seller in the U.S. because of its “dowdy Rambler American vibe.” And even if the subcompact had not been as unprofitable on a per-unit basis as Iacocca had argued, Severson points to the risk of cannibalization.
Also see ‘Data on imports sheds light on their dramatic gains from 1964-80’
I agree that styling was not a Cardinal strong point, but the same could be said for pretty much all of the subcompact foreign competition through a goodly portion of the 1960s. Indeed, one could reasonably argue that the unorthodox design of imports was a major part of their “mystique” with U.S. buyers.
In addition, most of the Cardinal’s styling quirks could have been fixed with a reskinning, which would have occurred in 1966 if it was on a three-year cycle. Much the same could be said about many of the Cardinal’s engineering weaknesses, which Ford’s German subsidiary gradually addressed after it was given sole responsibility for producing the car.
The Cardinal may not have ever had the sporting appeal of a Datsun 510 in its prime, but it could have at least given Ford — and the U.S. auto industry — a foothold in the subcompact market.
The above graph shows how the market share of foreign makes soared between 1965-70. A U.S.-produced Cardinal might have plausibly held back the import tide at least somewhat, regardless of whether its introduction led General Motors to follow Ford into the subcompact field.
How big was the danger of cannibalization?
The luxury of hindsight suggests that cannibalization wasn’t an insurmountable problem. It’s true that in the first half of the 1960s the Ford brand’s overall production didn’t increase much despite adding compact and mid-sized cars. However, by mid-decade product proliferation was playing an important role in expanding Ford’s market.
Once the Falcon was bumped up to the mid-sized platform in 1966, the Cardinal would have had more room to anchor the bottom end of the market. Even so, that proved to be a temporary situation. By 1971 it was considered essential for a high-volume brand like Ford to field entries in the subcompact, compact, mid-sized and big-car markets even if that resulted in cannibalization.
What if McNamara hadn’t left Ford so quickly?
Severson (2024) notes that Robert McNamara “had been the Cardinal project’s most powerful supporter” while Lee Iacocca “would be its most formidable nemesis.” Once McNamara stepped down from his position as Ford Motor Company president to join the Kennedy administration in early 1961, that presumably left a power vacuum which Iacocca was able to exploit.
The U.S. version of the Cardinal was cancelled only four months prior to the scheduled start of production in the fall of 1962. I am hard pressed to recall another American car that was killed so close to its introduction. This just wasn’t done, in no small part because an 11th-hour cancellation could be quite costly.
McNamara had been a formidable political player at Ford, so if he were still president I could see him aggressively responding to any attempts by Iacocca to undercut the Cardinal. And given McNamara’s attentiveness to the Falcon’s development (Severson, 2008), I wonder if he might have put pressure on the Cardinal project team to better address problems with the car, such as overshooting weight and price targets.
Also see ‘Should the Automotive Hall of Fame present accurate information about inductees?’
Ford quickly spun off a variety of other products from the Falcon platform, so I could see management applying a similar strategy to the Cardinal. In order to avoid too much overlap with the Falcon, it would have made sense to emphasize new models that maximized the advantages of front-wheel-drive components, such as with a mid-engined sports car or a direct competitor to the VW bus.
The Cardinal’s cancellation was a pivotal decision
I have previously suggested that Ford might have done better — both in terms of sales and profits — if it had introduced a rear-wheel-drive subcompact similar to the British Ford Cortina rather than the front-wheel-drive Cardinal. Even so, if the choice was between doing nothing or proceeding with the Cardinal, the latter strikes me as the more promising option.
The cancellation of the Cardinal was one of the most consequential decisions by a U.S. automaker in the 1960s. For all of its flaws, this car had the best chance of responding to the rising popularity of subcompact imports in the second half of the decade. It’s fascinating to consider that such an important decision would end up being influenced by a presidential election so close that Kennedy won by only 118,000 votes (Library of Congress, 2024).
NOTES:
Market share figures are from Wards Auto (2017). The Cardinal was renamed the Redwing at the 11th hour and was given a variety of other names when produced in Germany. However, for simplicity’s sake this story refers to the car solely as the Cardinal.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Gunnell, John; 2004. Standard Catalog of Volkswagen, 1946-2004. KP Books, Iola, WI.
- Library of Congress; 2024. “The Presidential Election of 1960.” Accessed July 26.
- Severson, Aaron; 2008. “The Salesman and the Statistician: Robert McNamara, Lee Iacocca, and the Ford Falcon.” Ate Up With Motor. Posted Nov. 2.
- ——; 2024. “Ford Cardinal, Taunus 12M, and Prelate: The First FWD Fords.” Ate Up With Motor. Posted July 20.
- Wards Auto; 2017. “U.S. Total Vehicle Sales Market Share by Company.”
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Ford (1962)
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Banner image is a 1965 Ford Taunus P4 taken by Berthold Werner via Wikipedia (public domain). Photo has been lightly edited to reduce background shadows.
- Robert McNamara’s official portrait as Secretary of Defense dated Jan. 12, 1961 via Wikipedia (public domain).
Have the Cardinal got the green light, I think they would have made some variants. If was sold in Australia, chances there would have been a Cardinal Ute Down Under and would Ford do Brasil have offered the Corcel if the Cardinal was sold in Brazil?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/cohort-sighting-ford-corcel-an-undignified-retirement/
Ford missed the proverbial boat in cancelling the Cardinal as a U.S. vehicle. I think that perhaps introduced as a front engine, rear-drive sub-compact, Ford would have had a world-class Pinto-sized car before 1971 with a track record of reliability (if McNamara had stayed at Ford). I remember how smitten I was with the 1967 Ford Cortina and how well that car drove with its Ford Kent engine and handled (although it probably would have rusted though within months given the stuff Indiana puts on roads). Even though the first Falcons were under-powered, Ford rectified that in fairly short order. With Jim Clark and later Jackie Stewart advising Ford on vehicle dynamics, Ford (if not Iacocca) did have expert input. One thing that H.F.II shared with his “Whiz Kids” were results-oriented numbers: Controlled costs and more sales !
The FWD Cardinal itself should have either remained an Americas (plus non-Europe) exclusive phenomena without appearing at the expense of Ford Germany’s Kadett A-sized front-engine RWD NPX-C5 or been more like the conventional RWD Mk1-Mk2 Cortina & Consul Corsair (essentially a smaller Falcon).
In the case of the latter there is room for variance on what engines to use, it could carry over the V4/V6 with the V6 filtering over to the Falcon and other North American / Oz Fords or a 4-cylinder version of the Thriftpower Six.
A Thriftpower Four (essentially a hypothetical Ford equivalent of the 1.8-2.5-litre Chevy 153) could emulate the Ford Kent as a big block brother in also making use of a Crossflow cylinder-head amongst other advances that would filter to the Thriftpower Six, some 2 decades before Ford Australia in conjunction with Honda developed a Crossflow alloy-head.
According to the Ateupwithmotor article, the original version of the German Taunus 12M displayed some tricky handling at the limit. A starkly trimmed economy car with tricky handling sounds like the 1960 Corvair…I’m not sure that Ford would have wanted that.
As you noted, a subcompact based on the more conventional (and, quite frankly, much better looking) English Cortina was a much better bet.
Regarding concerns over a Ford subcompact cannibalizing sales of the Falcon – note that Falcon sales dropped considerably as the 1960s progressed. And that was without the Ford offering a subcompact in North America.
Initially the six-cylinder versions of the Mustang stole some of those sales, but Mustang sales also dropped after peaking in 1966. More competition was one factor, but the car also got bigger, more powerful and more expensive, which meant that it walked away from a large portion of the original “Mustang market.”
A viable subcompact could have shored up Ford’s position at the bottom of the market. And a small van spun off the Cortina platform could have filled a slot when the larger Econoline debuted for 1968.
Regardless of the Cardinal’s profitability, I think the “foot in the door” argument is not a valid one – Ford proved itself able to enter the subcompact car market later and be very succesful on its own terms in all the fields it entered.
Regular car? The Pinto managed to outsell the Beetle and become the US’ #1 subcompact in just its first year, and by 1973 Ford was making more Pintos than any import brand could sell of its entire range.
Captive import? By 1973 Capri sales were in the six figures, about equal to Opel and Dodge Colt put together, making it the #2 most successful import model after the VW Beetle.
Specialty car? In 1974 the Mustang II reignited the pony car segment, with its 296k units putting it ahead of any import subcompact (led by the 244k Beetle and the 103k Corolla) and only behind the Pinto and Vega, despite having an inflation-adjusted base price higher than its compact predecessor.
70s Ford wasn’t in need of momentum in the subcompact segment – it shot up like a rocket as soon as it put its mind to anything more serious than 20k Cortinas a year. Ford’s problem was carrying that potential into the late 70s, instead of losing over 400k Pinto/Mustang II sales in 1975 alone.
It’s fine to disagree but it strikes me as reaching to say that my argument isn’t “valid” — particularly when you didn’t address my key point: That by waiting so long to come out with subcompacts, Detroit allowed the imports to become too popular to contain.
The thing is, for all intents and purposes Detroit acted early and got very big for the size of the market that it was trying to protect – for example, for the first years the Pinto was selling about five times as much as the Toyota Corolla, and the 1974 Mustang II outsold the Celica and the Opel five to one too – yet in 1977 Toyota sold more Corollas than Ford did Pintos.
This begs the question – how early is early enough to contain the imports? My answer, and key point, is that there is no “early enough” as long as the foreign makes have a strong enough proposition, which was something that happened among compacts and midsize cars.
The bigger Japanese cars, such as the Datsun 610, may only have come out years after the American compacts, and Japan may have had no affordable car of the EPA-defined “compact” size until the 80s Stanza and Camry – and yet Japan ended up ruling the compact field. Similarly, the USA had to wait until the late 80s for the midsize Maxima, and until the 90s for the midsize Camry and Accord, but it’s the Camry, Accord and Altima that have now outlasted Detroit in the midsize game and not the other way around.
It’s not about when you start, it’s about what you have.
Let’s put some facts on the table. According to figures compiled by Wards Auto, by 1970 the imports had captured almost 14 percent of the U.S. car and truck market — and they were much better prepared to respond to Detroit’s introduction of subcompacts than they had been a decade earlier to a wave of compacts. The lowest that import market share fell was to almost 12 percent in 1975. More significantly, the trajectory of the imports was mostly up, e.g., by 1981 they had captured almost 26 percent of the market. That’s an extraordinary amount of growth for such a short period of time.
Those figures suggest to me that Detroit was losing the war. I suspect that a big reason why was because they gave foreign automakers too much room to establish a beachhead. The Japanese automakers in particular learned a great deal from VW’s success in the 1960s. They placed an emphasis on building strong dealer networks and working hard to adapt their cars to American road conditions. So by the time Detroit began to take more seriously subcompact market niches, the leading imports couldn’t be easily driven back into the sea. Indeed, the major Japanese brands managed to build their credibility in the face of problems with domestic cars such as the Vega and Pinto.
If we could rewind history, I think that Detroit’s best shot at holding back the imports would have been to not let them get over around 8 percent of the market. I suspect that would have required entering the subcompact field with a domestically-built car by 1967 at the very latest. Ford’s Cardinal wasn’t an ideal car design and it was arguably a few years premature, but it would nevertheless have been a useful first step in directly responding to the imports. And given the way groupthink operated in the U.S. auto industry, if Ford had introduced a subcompact, GM would likely have soon followed — perhaps with a more effective entry.
Steve,
I would be happy to send you a complimentary copy of the author’s notes for the Cardinal story. If you’re interested, shoot me an email.