The rise and fall of Ford's great saloon cars

Slide of The Ford saloon is an endangered species. Europe may be one of the saloon’s last bastions, but 2022 saw the death of the Ford Mondeo, with no replacement going on sale on the continent. It's part of a wider decline of the Ford saloon, once a bedrock of its range, offering the likes of the much-loved, and much-aspired to, Granada (pictured), as well as the Sierra and Cortina, the Mondeo's predecessors. With the recent demise of the Fiesta, and the Focus too soon enough, soon the only model that Ford sells in Europe that isn't an SUV will be the Mustang. In America, Ford announced plans to eliminate saloons, estates, MPVs, and hatchbacks in 2018. Production of its last US market saloon, the Fusion, ended in August 2020 in Hermosillo, Mexico. Ford’s decision represents a stunning about-face because its saloons regularly appeared on the list of its best-sellers for decades. Times change, markets evolve and the unthinkable sometimes becomes inevitable. Ford of Australia unknowingly blazed this path; it canned the rear-wheel-drive Falcon in 2016 and hasn’t looked back. Join us for a look at the rise and fall of the Ford saloon car, and some of its other related models and other shapes that aren't SUVs: Slide of Model T (1908) At launch, the Ford Model T was not a saloon in the traditional sense of the term. It was available with two rows of seats but the front compartment was often open and without doors. 1915 brought a closed body with two rows of seats and a centre-mounted door on each side. Ford shifted the T closer to the modern definition of a saloon when for 1923 when it launched a four-door model suitably called Fordor. Ford made about 10,666 examples of the Model T in 1909 , a number that pales in comparison to the 15 million examples built during the car’s nearly 20-year long production run. Production began increasingly significantly in 1913 when Ford introduced the assembly line system. The system made the Model T more affordable, too. In 1922, annual Model T production totalled 1.3 million examples and Ford charged $319 (roughly $5000/£3600 in today's money) for an entry-level model. Slide of Model A (1928) Introduced in December 1927, the Model A benefitted from the lessons that Ford learned during nearly two decades of Model T production. It was notably available as what can be accurately described as a four-door saloon right a launch, a move that signalled the body style’s growing popularity. Again called Fordor, it spawned a factory-built taxi model sold in limited numbers. Ford charged $585 for the Fordor in 1928 (about $9000/£6500 today) and $600 (around $9200/£6600) for the taxi, which was the most expensive member of the range that year. Priced and sized right, the Model A enjoyed an immense amount of success. The millionth example was built in February 1929, a little over a year after series production started, and the two millionth unit was made in July 1929. Slide of V8 (1932) Ford democratised the V8 in 1932. Engines with eight or more cylinders weren’t rare in America (and even in Europe) at the time, but they powered cars that were out of reach for the average motorist. Developed secretly in a project led by Henry Ford himself, the 90-degree eight had a displacement of 3.6 litres and a 65bhp output. It powered a new range of cars called Model 18 that included 14 body styles in 1932, its first year on the market. There were open- and closed-top cars as well as two- and four-door variants. 57,930 units of a two-door saloon named Tudor (pictured as a 1934 model) were sold in 1932, a figure that made it the most popular body style by a wide margin. Ford also offered a more expensive Deluxe model and a four-door saloon called Fordor. Slide of Taunus (1939) Ford used the Taunus nameplate on over a dozen cars starting in 1939. Saloons were a core part of this range; two- and four-door Taunus models represented Ford in Germany and in a number of Scandinavian nations. The need to achieve economies of scale gradually brought the Taunus and the Cortina closer in the 1970s. Both were replaced by the Sierra, though production continued in some overseas markets. PICTURE: 12M model. Slide of 1949 models Ford resumed production of some of its pre-war models after the Second World War but sales were relatively low because motorists were looking for something new. After cancelling two projects due out in 1948, Ford returned to the drawing board and developed its 1949 range in about 18 months, a feat many scoffed couldn’t be accomplished. Elegant and modern, the 1949 range was a hit; Ford received 100,000 orders for the new car on the first day it began selling it. Split into two basic lines called Standard and Custom, the range included two- and four-door saloons, a six-seater coupe, an estate and a convertible. In hindsight, the 1949 models saved Ford. It built 1,118,740 cars in 1949, a big increase over 1948 and a