“We may speculate, of course, that had Ford gone ahead with the U.S.-market Cardinal/Taunus P4 and if that had been reasonably successful, it might have spawned follow-on FWD derivatives in the manner of the later Tempo/Topaz line. (I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Tempo, but it was a stretched version of the U.S. Mk3 Escort platform — not rebadged Ford Orion — for American consumption.) That may be a reach, however, considering the intense resistance to FWD that still prevailed when the Mk1 Fiesta was developed a decade later.”
— Aaron Severson, Ate Up With Motor (2018)
RE:SOURCES
- Severson, Aaron; 2018. Commentator in “Gaudy but Glamorous: 1958–1966 Ford Thunderbird.” Ate Up With Motor. Posted 9:05 a.m., June 8; accessed April 19, 2021.
Also see ‘Lee Iacocca got lucky with the 1964-66 Ford Mustang’
The problem with that argument about US resistance to FWD would be the fact the mk1 Ford Fiesta was a much smaller car for the US market compared to the Cardinal and subsequent enlarged derivatives.
Despite the downbeat projections. The Cardinal might have been fairly successful had it entered US production with a similar styling language as the Thunderbird / Corsair inspired sketch in the following article instead of Ford Germany’s duller looking Taunus P4/P6 styling language, itself a remnant of their own smaller Anglia 105E-sized NPX-C5 project (front-engined rear-wheel-drive with Glas-like OHC engines) that was passed over in favor of being forced to accept the Cardinal. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/automotive-history-how-the-american-ford-fwd-cardinal-became-the-ford-taunus-12m-from-dearborn-with-love/
What would be a question is whether the 60-degree Taunus V4 would be better received in the US market based on the US’s pre-existing love of the V-angle engine layout, compared to the frostier reception it received in Europe (let alone the reception the similar 60-degree Essex V4 engine received with both being notorious for being rough and unreliable)?
The only other alternative engine considered during development was a more Lancia-like narrow-angle 20-degree V4 OHC design with similar potential sporting appeal as the Fulvia (yet more accessible with further potential longevity compared to the Fulvia), that had Ford been more ambitious could have preceded Volkswagen in producing an early Ford equivalent of the Volkswagen VR6 (and VR5 if needed). AFAIK only BMC had plans for a stillborn 18-degree V4/V6 engine family project from the mid-50s until the early-60s.
On the plus side the US would likely enlarge their alternate US-built Taunus V4 to 2-litres and Cologne V6 to 3-4-litres early on, with the benefit of allowing Ford to downsize. It is also seems both the V4/V6 could be converted to run on Ethanol based on the Ethanol conversions of the V6, meaning a Brazilian built Cardinal could have arguably worked out just as well as the real-life Renault 12-derived Ford Corcel / Del Rey and related models. Depending on how you look at it, a US-built Cardinal also potentially butterflies away the Ford Pinto and its engine.
OTOH have doubts the FWD Cardinal platform could be adapted to accept the Ford Kent/Crossflow inline-4 engine, let alone an enlarged pre-Pinto half-relation displacing 1.6-2-litres.
That said, could eventually see Ford in the US embrace a more conventional inline-4 FWD layout from the early 1980s reminiscent of the real-life North American Ford Escort/Tempo.
Good points. I suspect that the ditching of the Cardinal was one of the most important decisions made in the 1960s. If McNamara had stayed long enough to get it into production, then Ford would have been locked into paying for it. That would have almost inevitably meant a series of variants to generate more output.
It would have been fascinating to see what would have happened. Would Ford have managed to meaningfully reduce the size of the late-60s import boom? Would Ford’s presence in the subcompact field have forced GM to jump in sooner? Would the American public have taken the U.S. entries all that seriously?
It could have also provided Ford a way to develop a 60-degree V12 (assuming there was not already a post-war project to develop a new Zephyr V12) or less likely a W12 (via narrow-angle 20-degree V4/V6 engine family).
Could see the Cardinal project spanning about 2-3 models from its launch in the US up to the early-80s, from Escort-sized and Cortina-sized cars up to possibly a (European) Granada-sized model that largely remain a New World phenomena (yet spur more enthusiasm towards FWD with some form of Project Bobcat and Erika). It is also possible there would be scope for a mid-engined sportscar, essentially a more production viable version of the Ford Mustang I concept with styling roughly akin to the Ford GT70 prototype and Matra 530 (or failing that something in the manner of the Saab Sonnet V4/III or Lancia Fulvia Sport/Coupe).
Vauxhall did look at a FWD project before it evolved into the Viva HA (being merged with the Opel Kadett A), it was known as XP-714, powered by a downsized 1-litre version of the Victor FB engine and despite not being a Supermini initially had similar dimensions as the Fiat 127.
The Opel Kadett OHV (also known as the Vauxhall Viva OHV) engine did have potential to become GM’s equivalent of the Ford Kent/Crossflow motor in growing up to 1500-1600cc+, and in a number of respects can even be described as a GM Small Block to the Chevrolet 153 4-cylinder “Big Block” that displaced as low as 1797cc in the Argentinian built Opel K180 (T-Car). That said GM felt a conventional front-engined rear-wheel-drive layout was more reliable, cost-effective and easier to manufacture compared to a front-wheel-drive configuration.
GM South Africa was said to have lobbied for the OHV to be stroked to 1500 maintaining the 81mm bore but at the same time moving to 5 mains and lifting the deck height some 20mm to keep the rod/stroke ratio intact. This would have required some investment cost but would have been amortised quickly in engine cost differential, however corporate won the day and the idea was abandoned in favor of putting the Opel CiH and Vauxhall Slant-Four into production.
-Links-
http://vauxpedianet.uk2sitebuilder.com/vauxhall-ha—viva-part-1
http://vauxpedianet.uk2sitebuilder.com/vauxhall-hb-93000—viva-part-1
https://pdmclark.co.za/the-blydenstein-project/
Aaron’s point is well taken that Ford management might have been neglectful or downright hostile to the Cardinal even if it had made it into production. The car’s unfortunate styling likely would not have helped its cause.
That said, I suspect that Iacocca could not have succeeded in killing it outright because the bean counters would have wanted a return on Ford’s fairly large investment. So perhaps he would have tried to make the car look trendier and added a few variants such as a direct competitor to the VW microbus.
The irony there is that Iacocca could have had his minivan much earlier. That could have been a trailblazing design if it had stayed away from the unsafe, cab-forward layout typical of the mid-60s.
I could see the engineers going ga-ga over the possibility of a mid-engined two seater and the bean counters singing in four-part harmony, “No, no, no, no, NO!”
You bring up interesting possibilities about how Ford could have upsized the Cardinal and its engine. In our parallel universe anything is possible. That said, I doubt Ford management would have gone for a Granada-sized car until front-wheel drive had become the hot new trend. Might that have happened in response to the first oil crisis in 1973? Or would Ford have dragged its feet until CAFE kicked in?
A V12 engine? It sounds cool. At the same time, this was Ford, where the bean counters were particularly strong during the 1960s and 1970s.
One concern that would likely preclude an mk3-mk5 Cortina/Pinto-sized V6-engined FWD model derived from the Cardinal would be the weight of the Cologne V6, short of it being significantly lighter as well as incorporating features that would later appear on the Vulcan V6 though not completely ruling out the idea of such a model.
A mk1/mk2 Escort-sized development of the Cardinal OTOH would have done particularly well as a 1.2-2-litre V4 model.
Cannot think of any examples of a V4 FWD Minivan, perhaps it would be a sort of US mk1 Ford Transit meets DKW Schnellaster-derived Mercedes-Benz N1300/MB100 model (with regards to the latter being a longitudinal FWD layout?
A V12 development of a hypothetical Cardinal 60-degree V4/V6 family draws inspiration from GM’s own post-war Cadillac V12 project during the 60s as well as De Tomaso’s own V12 project for the Zonda concept (with schemes for it to also be used in the Deauville), prior to De Tomaso going on to investigate a OHC version of the Cleveland V8.
That makes sense. My intuition draws me to assume that GM would have been more likely to come out with a V12 simply because it had deeper pockets and wanted to flaunt its leadership of the luxury car field. However, Ford was more aggressive in gaining dominance of the luxury coupe market (go here for further discussion). If a V12 didn’t come out by 1973 I would imagine that volatile gas prices would have killed off the possibility.
Ford would have the advantage over GM since their hypothetical V12 would be derived from the V6, whereas accounts of the Cadillac V12 planned for the Eldorado (some say 60-degrees others claim 90-degrees) suggest it had no apparent scope for being scaled down to a V6 to help atomize costs.
A bit ironic is Ford’s operations in Brazil, inherited an other FWD car named the Corcel when they acquired Willys do Brasil in the late 1960s. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1969-ford-corcel-gt-the-confusing-history-of-a-multinational-brazilian-classic/
The design of the 2-door Corcel had some similarities with the 1966-70 Falcon coupe and Mustang. We could imagine had the Cardinal got the green light, this could have been the 2nd-gen Cardinal. 😉
A modified Brazilian version of the Cardinal could have definitely followed a similar trajectory as the Renault 12-derived Ford Corcel / Del Ray / Pampa.