(UPDATED FROM 1/16/2024)
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.
NOTES:
This article was originally posted on Jan. 16, 2024 and updated on April 16, 2026.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
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
My hasty AI assisted search came up with the 1984 Tempo as the first front wheel drive Ford that wasn’t an import (1979 Fiesta.) What took them so long? Was there simply no advantage to do so?
1981 Escort was Ford’s first domestic front wheel drive car, and the Tempo was basically a stretched Escort with aerodynamic styling and a four cylinder engine based on the Falcon six.
I was quite young in 1963 but my opinion is that the use of imports as family cars had died down by 1962, largely because of the Detroit compacts. Volkswagen was popular but only weirdos drove those. Saab and Volvo would not begin their ascendancy until the late ’60s, and again, only Berkeley hippie types drove those. Japanese cars were rear-wheel drive until the early ’70s. MG/Triumph were selling well but Detroit didn’t play in that arena, and the Briton’s technology was a decade behind everyone else.
Without the influence of the imports, there was less reason to go to rear engines or front wheel drive. The Corvair lost it’s momentum when the Mustang came out. So no, McNamara might have pressed for change but Detroit was going gangbusters and I think his ideas would have been rejected.
Detroit had two good chances to save themselves. They responded to the import crisis in 1960, and again in 1971. They mis-read the room both times and set themselves up to lose most of their sales and respect in the coming decades. As I’ve said in other comments, the odd thing is that their European divisions were turning out just the kind of cars they should have considered adding to their lines. It was too expensive to import those cars but they could have been adapted and built in the USA.
Ford & Mazda had a thing for a while, I don’t know enough about why that failed. GM has tried and failed with Suzuki/Opel/Isuzu variants and failed. Now we have Stellantis trying that approach, but Americans rejected the French and Italian ways of making cars long ago. Too bad there aren’t any German brands in their portfolio. Long story short, Detroit only knows how to build what they build and no amount of punishment can change that.
I wonder from your first paragraph whether you lived in a part of the country that had less import penetration. I grew up in California, where far more than “weirdos” and “hippie types” drove imports in the 1960s.
BTW, we have a story that breaks down import market share by region (go here). In 1964 imports took up roughly 10 percent of the Pacific states’ market share; by 1969 it had soared to 25 percent.
Don suggests that Detroit’s European divisions were turning out cars that “could have been adapted and built in the USA.”
I wonder whether this wasn’t possible because the USA was using SAE standards, whereas the Europeans were all Metric.
I’d like to know whether any North American readers have any first hand experience.
Here in Australia, local engineers at GM-Holden, Ford, Chrysler and Leyland designed and manufactured unique vehicles for the domestic market. Up until 1974, they measured everything in fractions of an inch.
Then Australia entirely switched to Metric, and new opportunities for multilateral global trade opened up. Suddenly, Holden could build cars in Australia that had been designed by Opel in Germany and by Isuzu in Japan.
By the 2000s, Holden was exporting metric cars to Europe, the Middle East and China (the latter badged as Buicks). Holden was also adapting GM designs from overseas and building them Australia.
GM promoted Australian Mike Simcoe all the way to the top. He moved from Holden to became senior vice president of global design, based at the Tech Centre in Warren, Michigan.
But Holden’s designs couldn’t be built in the USA. Some Australian-made V8 intermediates were imported, badged as Pontiac GTO and Chevrolet SS, but not in large volumes.
Perhaps there were hidden production engineering issues, such as dimensions for tooling and standards for fasteners, that prevented Metric cars from being adapted and built in the USA?