Advertising 1948 Ford V8 Pilot [E71A] Class: Cars, Sedan — Model origin: 
![1948 Ford V8 Pilot [E71A]](/i001816068.jpg)
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Comments about this vehicle| Author | Message |
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◊ 2023-08-14 18:25 |
![[Image: pilt1.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/4290/pilt1.jpg) ![[Image: pil2.3.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/4290/pil2.3.jpg) ![[Image: pil4.1.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/4290/pil4.1.jpg) ![[Image: pil7.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/4290/pil7.jpg) ![[Image: pil8.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/4290/pil8.jpg) HUW 354 |
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◊ 2023-08-15 00:35 |
I have always been attracted to this car. How British Ford introduced in 1948 (3 years after the war) a brand new car but with a design 10 years out of date. |
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◊ 2023-08-15 08:41 |
Very simple. There was nothing new about it. It was a thirties design put back on sale because Ford had nothing better to offer than the Prefect. It very soon disappeared when the Consul and Zephyr Six became available. The E71A designation tells you that it was introduced in 1937, not post-war. -- Last edit: 2023-08-15 08:43:33 |
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◊ 2023-08-15 16:06 |
Interesting |
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◊ 2023-08-16 11:45 |
A historical review, if I may be so bold. Following the Hitler war, Britain was broke, and owed much money to many people. Everything was in extremely short supply and because the objective of government was to try to pay its way back to solvency new cars were almost totally unobtainable. As a kid I remember even people like doctors driving second hand cars. On top of that, taxation was punitive, and there was massive restriction of imports. Foodstuffs did not come off ration entirely until 1956. Against this background, the car manufacturers could sell almost any old junk, and did so, very profitably. By 1947 Ford had the Anglia, 933cc and 22bhp, and the Prefect, 1172cc and 30bhp, as their only car offering. The Consul and Zephyr were still five years away, not really getting into their full production until 1952. Whilst their smaller cars were selling as fast as they could build them, the Ford management decided that a bit of old product realignment might make some cash, and protect Ford’s position in the larger car market pending Consul and Zephyr. The V8-62 four window saloon was the best selling big Ford of the 1930s in U.K., and was revived, and offered with the 3622cc engine as well as the smaller 2227cc version. Postwar it seemed that the larger engine was favoured, and the 60bhp engine sold very poorly in comparison. Ford sold 22,189 V8 Pilots of all types up to 1950, not a bad decision then! -- Last edit: 2023-08-16 12:10:19 |
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◊ 2023-08-16 13:28 |
Just to add some flavour to the above, Britain's car manufacturers had one big advantage at the end of WW2 over their European competitors - they still had factories to work from, as most of the foreign ones had been destroyed. But this was complicated as most car plants had been switched to wartime production of planes, tanks, munitions etc so were not ready to resume with cars. Some firms had too many factories to use successfully - the so called "shadow factories" for particularly churning out planes which were far too big for cars - because they weren't allocated enough steel to produce sufficient cars to be viable, so many were on verge of bankruptcy. Add to that there had been almost nil new car design during the war (some exceptions eg Morris Minor, Jowett, but not many) so "any old junk" was all they had available on the shelf to resume production with, provided the toolings were available - new tooling was a diversion of scarce resources. Despite US ownership Ford at Dagenham was just as cash-strapped as everyone else - I've read that Detroit offered Dagenham enough cash for only one big new model range, with the choice boiled down to either the Consul/Zephyr EOTA/EOTTA project or replacing the ancient commercial trucks lineage (mid-30s Fordson 7V etc). Consul/Zephyr won the vote - possibly because they had greater potential to bring in rapid export revenues, which according to the steel allocation system freed up greater supplies to enable production volumes to increase. The trucks dilemma was solved thru a different route, as Briggs Bodies developed a common cab project for use by any manufacturer who wanted to join up, originally intended for the Leyland Comet before embracing Austin and Dodge “parrot nose” ranges to explain why so many 1950-ish British trucks look similar. Ford joined in as well with the Thames ET6, which initially relied on the prehistoric 1930s oily bits underneath, until they could afford to develop new up-to-date engine ranges. |
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◊ 2023-08-17 04:39 |
Thank you both for this illuminating compilation of data. Well, the UK at least manufactured some pre-war... Spain couldn't manufacture anything because of the international blockade it was suffering due to Franco's regime... On the other hand, people had nothing to put in their mouths, so driving a car was "for rich people" until well into the 60s... Anyway... My uncle's father bought a second-hand black Austin A30 around 1960, and when he travelled from Vitoria (northern Spain) to a village in the area, the children would crowd around the Austin to admire it. |
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