Ford Taunus 12M P1(G13,G13A) 

Manufacturer	Ford Motor Company
Class	Motor car
Production	1952 to 1959
Assembly	Cologne-Niehl, Germany
Body style	2-door saloon 3-door “Kombi” estate car 2-door cabriolet
Engine	1172 cc Ford Sidevalve engine 4-cylinder in-line water-cooled
Wheelbase	2,489 mm (98.0 in)
Length	4,060 mm (159.8 in)
Width	1,580 mm (62.2 in)
Height	1,500 mm (59.1 in)
Curb weight	850–930 kg (1,874–2,050 lb)

 The Ford Taunus 12 M is a small family saloon/sedan produced by Ford of Germany from 1952.

History

Between 1955 and 1959 it was joined by the larger-engined Ford Taunus 15M. The company produced a succession of Ford Taunus 12M models until 1970, because the name was applied to a succession of similarly sized cars, but the first Ford Taunus 12M models, based on the company’s Taunus Project 1 (P1), remained in production only until 1962: in 1962 the Taunus P1 series was replaced by the Taunus P4 series.

The Ford Taunus 12M/15M was the first new design of a passenger car by the German Ford-Werke (FK) after the Second World War. It was offered between 1952 and 1959 as the Taunus 12M. Between 1955 and 1959 it was also available with a more powerful engine as the Taunus 15M (Ford G4B). From 1959 the revised model Ford G13 AL (side stripe Taunus) offered as Taunus 12M- both models and was built until 1962.  the development name P1 is given for the series. 

The new two-door, smooth-surfaced pontoon body with 4J × 13 wheels and the four- cylinder petrol engine with 1172 cc known from the old predecessor - boosted to 38 hp (28 kW) at 4250 rpm - was presented in January 1952. The engine had a bore of 63.5 mm and a stroke of 92.5 mm, the on-board voltage was six volts. The car reached a top speed of 112 km/h (estate 105 km/h), acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h was 38 seconds, with the 12M consuming 9-9.5 litres per 100 kilometres. The tank was installed in the rear of the car and held 34 litres. 

From December 1952, cabriolets (manufactured by Karl Deutsch GmbH) were offered with two or four seats. All cars also had a full-length bench seat at the front, based on the American model.

The front wheels were individually suspended on unequally long, coil-sprung double wishbones, while a rigid axle on leaf springs was still installed at the rear. The power was transmitted to the rear wheels via a three-speed gearbox with a column shifter (not four-speed as in the predecessor). From March 1953 there was also a four-speed gearbox for an extra charge. The three-door station wagon (G13K) was also introduced at this time.

Although the Taunus 12M was a well-designed and high-quality vehicle, it was 37% more expensive than its predecessor. Therefore, the management decided in December 1952 to bring out a stripped-down Taunus 12 (G13 A). It wore no chrome decoration, had the gear lever in the middle of the car (which was considered very unfashionable at the time) and was equipped with two non-adjustable individual tubular frame seats that were thinly covered with upholstery. The Taunus 12, which was only available as a two-door sedan, initially cost less than the normal Taunus 12m. If you wanted steering wheel gearshift, you had to pay an extra.By In 1955 the model was revised. The split radiator grille got vertical chrome bars. 

At its launch, the car placed Ford ahead of the pack, being unusually modern in terms of the bits that showed. It was one of the first new cars to appear in Germany since before the war, and featured a radical ponton format “three box” body as pioneered (at least in Germany) by the 1949 Borgward. The three-box car body format would soon become mainstream, but when the Ford Taunus 12M appeared in 1952 competitor manufacturers including Opel, Volkswagen and Auto Union were still competing with models based closely on designs originating in the 1930s.

The naming of the car is another area which may have been complicated by the way that responsibilities were shared between different management teams in two continents divided by an eight-hour time difference and the Atlantic Ocean. The immediate postwar era was seen as a new beginning for a newly divided Germany with, in the west, new borders, a new constitution and a new political class. The monocoque bodied new model for 1952 also represented a new beginning for Ford, so identifying it as Ford of Germany’s Project 1 (P1) was evidently uncontentious.

Planning for Ford Germany’s new ponton bodied passenger car began in 1949. Several aspects of the car’s development reflected the advantages and the disadvantages of running a business with management decisions necessarily split between two continents at a time when even international telephone calls needed to be pre-booked.

The original plan for the strikingly modern design came from Ford in the USA who drew up a proposal based on the ponton format Champion model introduced to the US auto-market a few years earlier by Studebaker. The Studebaker design had already proved highly influential on the domestic programs of mainstream US auto-makers. Cologne based production engineers adapted the US proposal for the German market. The Studebaker featured a large roundel directly above the front grill on which was displayed the propeller of an airplane. The Ford Project 1 also featured a prominent roundel at the front of the car, but in place of the Studebaker’s propeller design, the Ford roundel featured a hemispherical depiction of half a globe. This bold and unusual decoration led to the new car becoming known as the „Weltkugeltaunus“ (Globe Taunus).

Production 

The engines

During development it was intended that the car would be powered by a 1,498 cc engine. This was in many respects the engine that had originally been intended for the previous Ford Taunus first produced in 1939, but now it was to be developed into an ohv unit. However, cost constraints intervened, and when the new Taunus 12M appeared in 1952 it was powered by the 1,172 cc side-valve unit that had powered not merely its predecessor, but also its predecessor’s predecessor, the Ford Eifel of 1935.

By 1952 sidevalve engines were already seen as old fashioned. In an analysis undertaken of the models shown at the 1952 Paris Motor Show it was noted that 48 of the cars exhibited were fitted with engines employing overhead valves while only 6 featured sidevalve engines. That Ford were still powering their entry level Taunus P1 with a sidevalve engine ten years later, in 1962, would leave the model looking badly outclassed under the bonnet/hood.