Last week we looked at the first-generation F-series Vauxhall Victor. Today, we’ll look at another British saloon, this one from the Blue Oval boys. Although it appears quite modest–its styling might even be considered dumpy–the Zodiac/Zephyr was in fact the first mass-produced car to use a now-nearly ubiquitous front suspension design.
Our Ford Zephyr story starts (where else?) with a Chevrolet, specifically the Chevrolet Cadet. Designed by Earl MacPherson, the Cadet prototype initially used his novel, long-tube shock design at both front and rear. Eventually, the independent rear suspension was tossed for a leaf-sprung live axle for cost reasons, but the front struts stayed. But at the time, American car makers could sell everything they could crank out, so GM saw no need to approve the innovative Cadet. As a result, design engineer Earl MacPherson packed up his struts and headed over to Ford.
Generally speaking, Ford’s postwar offerings in the UK featured outdated design and styling. Although the Brits had been on the winning side of World War II, they were a nation heavily in debt and eager to generate income from exporting goods. That in mind, Ford set out to design the most contemporary cars possible. From that objective were born the four-cylinder Consul and the six cylinder Zephyr. The two cars shared an all-new chassis, suspension and drive train, but their styling was clearly American-inspired.
The Consul was rather plain, but the Zephyr’s styling rather resembles an American ’49 Ford with a little Aston Martin tossed in.
Like the Cadet, the Zehpyr used a unit body with integrated fenders, an OHV inline six, a strut front suspension and smaller-diameter wheels (14″ for the Zephyr, and 13″ for the Cadet). That was pretty heady stuff for a company that had been recently been cranking out flathead engines and separate chassis with transverse leaf springs. Indeed, Ford had suddenly shot from the bottom of the class to almost the top, and the Consul and Zephyr caused quite a stir at their 1950 debut.
Today, it’s no big deal for two versions of the same basic car to have different wheelbases, but separate 100- and 104-inch wheelbases for the Consul and Zephyr, respectively was then quite a novelty. From the firewall aft, the Consul and Zephyr shared virtually the same body, but the Zephyr’s nose was stretched to accommodate its 2,262 cc, 60-hp inline six. In stock form, it got the Zephyr up to a top speed of 80 mph, but after the British tuning industry latched onto it came several aftermarket “hot” versions capable of 100 mph. In Britain, the Zephyr enjoyed a reputation for lively performance, as well as for horrid oversteer.
The interior was a bit plain. A single housing contained all the gauges, which made the conversion from right- to left-hand drive relatively simple–an important consideration for any vehicle destined for export. Oddly enough, the hood release on this left-hand drive car wasn’t moved over; it’s located in the passenger-side foot well. The large Bakelite steering wheel is rather charming, though.
One distinctly old-fashioned feature is semaphore turn signals.
This Zephyr wears a very faded Heninger Toyota sticker below the deck lid. Heninger has been a dealer in Calgary since 1957, which probably makes this one at least a two- owner car. Will it find yet another? It’s hard to tell, as the body is quite solid but the interior rather mouse-eaten and rough. I’ll bet this one’s been off the road a long time.
Semaphore turn signals. I haven’t even seen those on a Kafer which once had those standard!
English term: “trafficators”.
I think – and I may be wrong, I’m quite happy to be corrected on this – that there was a period of a few years when UK law required either hand signals or trafficators “imitating” hand signals; eventually indicator lights were legalised, and the British car industry made another great lurch forward.
We had a next-door neighbor in southern California who had an old Ford Zephyr as a second car — Mr. Buchanan used it to commute to and from work and they referred to it as “the English Ford” to distinguish it for their other American-made Ford. We used to pull out the semaphore turn signals by hand to look at them — old Volkswagen Beetles had those, too. The Buchanans had had to retrofit “the English Ford” with extra lights on the back and front as blinking turn signals. Semaphore-style turns signals were outlawed, because they had a tendency to cause severe injury to pedestrians while extended if a car passed a person standing next to it closely enough. They had added two round red lights on either side of the back of the trunk [boot] lid and I don’t recall what they did on the front, though I’m sure they must have added two white lights somewhere. (Back then, turn signal lights in the U.S. were white on the front and red on the back.) I first saw that car in 1957.
The Trafficators were widely used during the early 1950’s, but had generally fallen out of use on new cars by the end of the decade as flashing signals front & rear displaced them. But there were a few hold-outs: The classic Morris Minor, for example, still came with Trafficators until as late as 1961. By the way, although the amber lights on Trafficator arms could flash, they were not required to do so, and in general didn’t.
Conventional flashing signals on British cars in the 1950’s came in different types. On many cars designed to have them as standard they were already designed as separate amber lights both front & rear. On others, especially where an optional extra (factory or after-market) they were white & red, combined with the front parking lights and brake lights as on American cars. Some models mixed them, e.g. the family 1961 Hillman Minx I rode around in for many years as a child had independent amber signals at the rear, while the front signals were integrated with the front (white) parking lights.
British vehicle lighting regulations specified that only separate amber signals both front & rear would be permissible on new cars from 1965 onward.
Yup. Britain allowed US style indicators for a while – white in front and red at the rear. The 1955 Vauxhall Wyvern/Velox/Cresta and 1962-65 Morris Minor had the system where the rear brake bulb filaments would flash and this required a special relay box to allow this to work with the brake lights on or off – I remember trying to figure out how it was wired on my ’62 Morrie. For ’56, Vauxhall added a separate amber flasher light at the rear and, for ’57 integrated the amber lens with the main tail lamp unit. For the ’58 -’60 PAs, Vauxhall also had separate amber lenses at the front and then went white again for the ’61-’62 PAs and with the ’63-’65 PBs. Then the new amber front and rear rule kicked in. Later MkI Zephyrs – at least those sold new in NZ, where most were assembled, lost the trafficators and had flashing red lights at the rear (tail lamp assembly enlarged to incorporate an extra lens) and white at the front. NZ allowed white or amber at the front or red or amber at the rear till quite recently – GMNZ accidentally specified the ’89-on Holden Barina [Suzuki Swift] with the US-style all-red tail lamp set.
Interesting that New Zealand continued to permit white/red signals on new cars until recently. It seems as though most of Europe decided upon amber as the only permissible types in the 1960’s or 1970’s (e.g. the U.K. in 1965, Ireland in 1964, France I think sometime in the seventies). The red rear signals on American cars is a problem here in Britain with the MoT inspection, although some testers let them slip on post-1965 cars despite not being in strict compliance with the rules, while others will try to fail them on older cars and have to have the 1965 cut-off date pointed out to them in the manual.
The relay set was an interesting difference between the British & American approach to wiring combined lights, U.S. cars normally having all the switching done by a multiple contact assembly in the signal switch, U.K. cars using the relay set instead.
UK / Europe spec VW Beetles came with that system for one year only.. 1961.. Up to then they had trafficators and the year after got amber flashers at the rear. .. Unlike British cars which used the complicated Lucas relay, the VW used a complicated indicator switch instead. American spec VWs had the system from a bit ’56 I think, but the rest of the world just for the one year.
Interesting Dodge/Plymouth parked next to it!
Yes, perhaps a Plymouth would have been more in keeping with a Thanksgiving theme. 🙂
Its actually a Canadian Dodge (ie Plodge – Plymouth body, Dodge trim). Plus we’ve already had our Thanksgiving 🙂
How many Plodges are on that lot?
Exactly one. There was a Canadian Pontiac Parisenne too but it was a convertible in terrible shape.
My Dad’s first car was a ’51 Dodge Regent, sold only up here in Canuckistan.
This is a very interesting car. I have long been familiar with Ford’s frantic rush to get new cars into the showrooms in the US, but this car brings to mind the fact that Ford was doing the same things multiple other places in the world as well, with this car, the German Taunus and the French Vedette – all about the same time.
It is interesting how the company went from the “One Ford” concept in Henry’s day, then so thoroughly diversified after WWII. It will be interesting to see if the modern “One Ford” concept is successful, or if it will succeed in making cars that are not very appealing anywhere.
I was always fascinated by the larger 6 cylinder British Ford and GM products as a kid. So American like, but not quite, and slightly exotic. This early Zodiac fell off my radar a long time ago, but I was always attracted to the early-60’s Mark III with its hint of Fairlane and 404-esque tail fins.
The Zodiac was generally the fancy version of the Zephyr. North America only got the MkI and MkII so there aren’t any MkIII about that I know of.
This car was featured in the Pet Shop Boys music video “You are always on my mind”.
Another good Thanskgiving car would be the Triumph Mayflower.
You’re new here I take it?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/1949-triumph-mayflower-your-thanksgiving-turkey/
🙂
Well, while that Earle MacPherson guy was a great suspension engineer, he sure wasn’t a good at car styling. What prompted GM to assign a suspension engineer to design the whole car? No wonder the car didn’t get approved. It looks awfully dumpy, even for the time!
They didn’t; it was “styled” by GM stylists. The word “design” is a bit problematic; in the past, body design was usually called “styling”, but in recent years, the word “design” has taken over. One can see a fair amount of similarity in the Cadet with the 1949 Chevrolet, except for the faired in wheels.
I must admit that I think the Cadet looks refreshingly clean, aerodynamic and efficient for the time. My main complaint would be the small front-wheel cut outs, which presumably would increase the turning radius. That said, the Cadet strikes me as better proportioned than the original Nash Rambler.
Another fine find that has special nostalgic significance for me: One of my first Matchbox toys ever was one of these. And occasionally, one would see one in the Innsbruck area during the summer tourist season. I’ve always been a fan of its styling ever since.
In some ways the Zephyr was the British equivalent of the Dodge sedan behind the blue Zephyr shown – reliable, conservatively styled family transportation, but not at all exciting.
I am quite amazed to see that the Zephyr was exported to North America! It was quite popular in South Africa and assembled here in the Ford factory in Port Elisabeth. My father bought a new blue one in 1956 and it did well untill about 60 000 miles when it started to burn valves and could not be cured. My dad then moved on to the Zephyr Six Mk III. Both cars did well at towing a caravan. Thereafter we moved to Peugeots – better suspension, roadholding, steering, brakes, general balance and much more comfortable car to drive, despite having less power.
Here’s the picture Dawid sent me of himself (on left) with his brother and the family Zephyr.
The Zephyr holds a special place in my heart. My grandfather had a mark 2 in two tone white and pastel green, I always thought that was a cool car. Occasionally we got to ride in it, and that was always special. He replaced it with a 90 series Corolla when he moved into a retirement village. But fortunately he passed the Zephyr on to my uncle, who kept it in good condition. After he passed away the car went to my cousin, who still has it. So it’s been in the family for it’s whole life. I shall have to try to get some photos of it some time and perhps write a small piece about it.
It’s not a MkI, but we have a great family story about a MkII, and it holds a very special place in our lives too.
My Dad’s first car was a 1958ish MkII Consul (highroof pre-facelift) that he bought in 1965ish. It was affectionately known as ‘Connie’, and was one of the reasons Dad met Mum in 1966. She had gone home on the school bus to stay the night at a friend’s place in a small forestry milling settlement in the middle of New Zealand. When they got off the bus, Dad was somewhere near with his Consul, and Mum remembers asking her friend “Who’s the guy with that car?”. Mum was 16, Dad was 19, and three years later they were married (I came along 4 years after they were married). ‘Connie’ made it through the first few years of their married life, but was traded on a MkII Cortina before I was born.
Mum and Dad’s favourite ‘Connie’ story is about the day Mum was driving it and the crankcase breather (or something() got blocked; the dipstick got blown out of the engine with a tremendous racket and lots of oil. The car recovered fine, but Dad still thoroughly enjoys reminding us all at family get-togethers of the day that “Dallas blew Connie up!”. But if it wasn’t for ‘Connie’ leading to Mum to get to know Dad, I wouldn’t be here. 🙂
Connie was identical in colour and everything to the one below, except it had the earlier MkII high roof.
Nice story! There was actually a MkII there too so we’ll get a write up on it at some point.
🙂
I have never had a chance to find out who designed those cars but believe they were done in Detroit. There was a stylist named Phil Murphy who was around Ford at the time and later on was responsible for the Willys Aero, a very similar design. By the way, I think the first MacPherson equipped car was the French Ford Vedette from 1949. Supposedly, it would be the small Ford for the postwar US market but instead was dumped into the French. AGB
Intriguing idea. I was just looking at a beautiful Aero for sale on trademe (http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/other/willys/auction-532974300.htm) had to go back for another look when I read your comment. Certainly are some similarities – although I think it looks closer to the MkII Z-car than the MkI. But now I’m never going to be able to look at another Aero (though I’ll possibly never see another one!) without noticing the MkI/II similarities and pondering!
Here:
Iconic new Zealand cars the original Maori mustang great cars tough as nails these things were everywhere when I was growing up throw on a Raymond Mayes Head triple SUs extractors mrbe bore it out for Bedford pistons Zephyrs could fly and were a popular runwhatyabrung race car in the days before Lotus Cortinas and other exotica Kiwis raced Zephyrs, Consuls, Humber 80s and Jags What an awesome find. The Falcon replaced these and it was a POS in comparism.
I thought the Zephyr and Zodiac had some performance heritage, and then the term “Z Car” started floating up from the inner reaches of my memory. A quick Wikipedia check and yes, there was a British TV crime series where the cops drove Zephyrs or Zodiacs, presumably because they were high performance pursuit cars. Has there been another TV show named after a car? (and “My Mother the Car” doesn’t count).
Ford produced Police versions of the MK2&3 and even a V8 powered 4WD version of the MK4 rare to find survivors though even here where they were very very popular
my ZEPHYRS KIWI icons
Is she for sale??
Vanilla with a Limey accent….
My first car; did my road test in it for my driver’s license in 1969. I had to double-clutch it because I couldn’t find a rebuild kit for the clutch master cylinder. I really loved that car because it would beat all the VW bugs in town off the light.
That’s just weird
That Mk1 zephyr would be eagerly snapped up in the U.K. Rust killed most of them here and they’re very rare now. Even with a moth eaten interior, bleached paint and non running, there is still much value in a rust free bodyshell.
That blue car is an entirely strange combination. The Zephyr models here in New Zealand started with the “Flat Dash”, and those ones had “trafficators”
When they changed to the raised dash in 1954 as that one has, the trafficators were replaced by double filament bulbs in the front park lights to facilitate the indicators and the brake light filament in the tail lights doubled as the rear indicator.
In the 1956 model only, the front remained the same, but the rear was changed to a separate orange indicator just inside the tail lights.
Interesting that they didn’t bother changing the hood release for the LHD models. Lazy sods have done the same with the RHD Mustangs! It’s a pain in the butt.
Attached is a photo of mine from the 60’s.
I remember being taken to Sunday school in a pale green Consul. It must have had an effect as I managed to own an example of every big Ford up to the Granada since. Some people were Vauxhall people, some were Ford.