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Very unusual early Ford V8 photos


Guest stephen48

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Guest stephen48

Here are some photos of a different style Ford V8 a photographed a few days ago in the car park at the Canterbury swapmeet in the South Island of NZ.

It must be an English or European version.I have seen many early V8s but this is the only one of these I have seen.It is not shown in any of my Ford books?

Steering is right hand.Those licence plates are not NZ ones and looked home made.

Does anyone know exactly what it is ?

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Guest stephen48
It's a Matford. French Ford. Oui Oui!!

Thanks for that.It had the appearance of several other models of Ford merged into one and was approx the size of a '36 to look at !

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I saw that car at the swapmeet. It is not a Matford, it is a Ford 22 which is the English-built version of the Matford and uses the V860 engine. Whether the 22 refers to 22hp or 2.2 litres seems to be open to debate. There is one reference here - British and European Car Spotters Guide - 1938 - and no doubt more if you search harder. Oddly enough there is no reference to it in the UK Ford V8 club page. I suspect it is a very rare variant. No doubt most of them did not survive WW2. It was the precursor to the Pilot - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pilot

Edited by nzcarnerd (see edit history)
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Ford 22...22hp tax rating. Built in Dagenham, Essex and exported. The small V-8 had no power and was gutless conmpared to the 30hp.

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I don't know where they were exported to. All of the pre WW2 NZ Ford V8s came from Canada or the US and I suspect the same was true for Oz. We did see Pilots post WW2. As far as I know the only UK Fords we saw pre WW2 were the wee 8s and 10s.

The car seen in the pics here is a new import to NZ. On the windscreen is a 2009 UK registration sticker. It was showing no NZ registration. I didn't examine it in detail but I guess it would have British electrics?

Edited by nzcarnerd (see edit history)
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Guest stephen48

Thanks for your comments. It seems it is built in England but designed in USA.

Re the comment from 58mustang, an image search for Matford revealed that it looks very much like this car also.

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Guest stephen48
You may find that the design was a collaboration between the US and Europe. I am not a Ford expert but I believe that even the wee Ford Y was initiated from Dearborn but I am sure that the English would have had input into it.

The Ford Y for English production was designed by Fords chief designer E T Gregorie.

Edsel Ford liked it so much he asked the Ford design department to scale it up for the US Ford V8 for 1933/4 which they did.

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