The Ford Vedette is a large car formerly manufactured by

Ford SAF Ford France (formerly, Ford SAF, Ford S.A. (corporation), Société Anonyme Française) is the France, French subsidiary of the United States, American automaker Ford Motor Company, which existed as a manufacturer under various names between 1916 ...

in their Poissy plant from 1948 to 1954. Originally conceived by

Edsel Ford Edsel Bryant Ford (November 6, 1893 – May 26, 1943) was an American business executive and philanthropist, who was the only child of pioneering industrialist Henry Ford and his wife, Clara Jane Bryant Ford. He was the president of Ford Motor C ...

and Ford designer Eugene T. "Bob" Gregorie as a “light” Ford model, smaller than the 1942 Ford. However, Edsel Ford died in 1943, and following the war Ford corporate felt the light car project would pull sales from the full size Ford. Additionally, Henry Ford II felt that Gregorie’s planned 1949 Ford, which shared the same character lines as the Light Ford, was too large for its market, as was Gregorie’s proposed 1949 Mercury. To that end, the planned Ford and Mercury lines were pushed to Mercury and Lincoln, and a contest held to design a Ford that would be at once smaller than the Mercury, but larger than the Light Ford. To recoup the cost of Light Ford, that car was transferred to Ford France. Introduced at the 1948 '' Salon de l'automobile'' in Paris, it was designed entirely in Detroit (resembling contemporary Mercury models) and featured the Poissy-made 2158 cc ''Aquillon''

sidevalve A flathead engine, also known as a sidevalve engine''American Rodder'', 6/94, pp.45 & 93. or valve-in-block engine, is an internal combustion engine with its poppet valves contained within the engine block, instead of in the cylinder head, as ...

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight- cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. Origins The first known V8 was the Antoinette, designed by Léon Levavasseur, a ...

of Ford's ''Flathead'' engine family, the same as in pre-war Matford cars. It was the only French car of its time with a V8 engine.

First years of production

Because the Poissy factory could not resume complete automobile production immediately after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and had no stamping equipment, many vital components had still to be made by various subcontractors, which reportedly had an adverse effect on the quality of the car and contributed to its limited popularity. Over the six years in production, the Vedette was available in several body styles, ranging from the original four-door

fastback A fastback is an automotive styling feature, defined by the rear of the car having a single slope from the roof to the tail. The kammback is not a fastback design with a roofline that tapers downward toward the car's rear before being cut of ...

(with rear

suicide door A suicide door is an Car door, automobile door hinged at its rear rather than the front. Such doors were originally used on Horse-drawn vehicle, horse-drawn carriages but are rarely found on modern vehicles, primarily because they are less saf ...

s) through the later four-door saloon, a Sunliner two-door landaulet based on the saloon (with a roll-down roof over the entire cabin), a two-door ''

Coupé A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and typically with two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the Fr ...

'' and, based on it, the ''Cabriolet Décapotable'' (a two-door

convertible A convertible or cabriolet () is a Car, passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary across eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air drivin ...

1950s updates

Under the direction of the new company president, François Lehideux, Ford France refreshed the car for 1950, and again in 1952, when it finally received a one-piece windscreen, new interior and bumpers, better brakes, lengthened rear overhang and trunk, and a cigarette lighter. The 1953 October ''Mondial de l’Automobile'' also saw a luxury version of the Vedette, the '' Ford Vendôme'', fitted with the bigger 3923 cc ''Mistral'' V8 engine, previously used in Ford France trucks. Also updated in 1953 was the five-door, five-seat ''Abeille'' (French for " bee") estate with a two-piece tailgate, advertised as both practical (with a payload of ) and comfortable. The Abeille, originally exhibited with little fanfare at the October 1951 Motor Show as a "farmer's car" ''(voiture agricole)'' and launched more formally as the "Ford Abeille" in June 1952, was a "no frills" development of the Vedette with which it shared its wheel base and engine, but the rear overhang and therefore the overall length were shorter by The interior surfaces of the Abeille were almost without exception of painted metal, and the front bench seat of the Vedette was replaced with two "rustic" seats apparently taken from a commercial van, but behind them the rear bench was easy to remove, allowing for the installation of a flat "false-floor" of timber planks, and facilitating the use of the car as a load carrier for farmers and small-scale traders. At the October 1953 Motor Show the standard Abeille was listed at 845,000 francs as against 935,000 francs for the least expensive version of the Vedette.

Sale of the Poissy factory

Facing unsatisfactory sales results, as well as disruptive strikes at the Poissy plant at the turn of the decade, Ford had been trying to dispose of the factory since shortly after the end of the war. An opportunity arose in 1954, when Henri-Theodore Pigozzi, the founder of the increasingly successful French automaker

Simca Simca (; Mechanical and Automotive Body Manufacturing Company) was a French automaker, founded in November 1934 by Fiat S.p.A. and directed from July 1935 to May 1963 by Italy, Italian Henri Pigozzi. Simca was affiliated with Fiat and, after Simc ...

, was looking for a new plant to expand its operations. Ford France was merged into Simca with both the Poissy plant and the rights to all models manufactured there — including a newly designed Vedette. The new car had debuted in France under the name of

Simca Vedette The Simca Vedette is an executive car, manufactured from 1954 to 1961 by French automaker Simca, at PSA Poissy Plant, their factory in Poissy, France. The Vedette competed in France's large car market at a time when the economy was finally return ...

, but was sold as the Ford Vedette in some markets (including Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany) at least until 1956.

References

External links

Club Vedette France

"The Ford Vedette de mon père", Patrick Lesueur, ETAI, Boulogne-Billancourt, France, 1997.
{{Early European Ford vehicles 1950s cars Vedette Cars introduced in 1948 Rear-wheel-drive vehicles