The coachbuilt cabriolet, converted by Karl Deutsch of Cologne was always rare.The three door station-wagon/estate was badged as the Ford Taunus 17M Turnier.The instrument panel ahead of the driver and the radio both carried over the shape of an extended lozenge which dominated the shape of the car when viewed from outside.
The Ford Taunus 17 M is a middle sized family saloon/sedan that was produced by Ford Germany between September 1960 and August 1964.[2] The Taunus 17M name had been applied to the car's predecessor and it would apply also to subsequent Ford models which is why the 17M introduced in 1960 is usually identified, in retrospect, as the Ford Taunus P3. It was the third newly designed German Ford to be launched after the war and for this reason it was from inception known within the company as Ford Project 3 (P3) or the Ford Taunus P3.
Members of the press had apparently competed to find a suitably disrespectful epithet to describe the controversially styled first Taunus 17M, and it was in the same tradition that the new 17M for 1960 became known as the "Badewannetaunus" (Bath tub Taunus).
The Ford Taunus P3 was a commercial success 669,731 were produced during a four-year production run, giving an annualised rate more than twice that achieved by the predecessor model during its three years in production.
High profile launch
The car received its public launch at the Beethoven Hall in Bonn. Unusually for a car launch, both the by now 84-year-old German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and the grandson of the firm's founder, Henry Ford, were present. In addition to the latest Ford Taunus, they were celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Ford's Cologne plant. It had been on 2 October 1930 that Henry Ford and the then mayor of nearby Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, had laid the foundation stone for the Cologne Ford Plant.[3][4]
European design
The first post-war Taunus models had been designed in North America. The Taunus P3 was designed by Uwe Bahnsen, a German born designer who would dominate car design at Ford of Germany for nearly thirty years and whose subsequent designs included the 1969 Ford Capri and its successors. Towards the end of his time in charge of design with Ford of Germany, Bahnsen also led the teams that designed the Fords Sierra and Scorpio. In the context of 1960 the Taunus P3 can nevertheless be seen as Bahnsen's most innovative design for a production car.
The 1960 Taunus design featured a recurring geometrical shape. The rear panel and the side panels respected the same basic shape as did the front grill, subject to two large cut-outs for the headlights.
The same shape was carried over to the interior of the car where the main dials and controls on the dash-board were surrounded by a thick frame in that oval shape. The repetitious use of a single simple shape at different levels of the design gave the overall car a consistent visual unity which was in stark contrast to the high finned flamboyance of the previous Taunus 17M and was seen at the time as a radical switch by Ford of Germany away from American styling in favour of European styling.[1] There were no tails fins and there was very little decorative chrome included. The efficiency of its superficially much more simple design enabled Ford to boast that the 1960 car, despite being fractionally narrowed on the outside, offered usefully more interior width than the car it replaced.
It was and remains the "Badewanne" (bathtub) soubriquet that caught the eye of the press reporters, and it is as the "Badewannetaunus" that the car continues to be remembered by enthusiasts.
Technical Innovation
The P3 and the 1961 Citroën Ami were the first cars with rectangular or lozenge-shaped (non-round) headlights.[5] This technical innovation was developed by lighting manufacturers Hella (Taunus) and Cibie (Ami). At the time, it was an unquestioned article of faith that headlights were round, and in the United States, it was the law, so these new headlights were illegal there. Ten years later this had inspired European automakers to come up with various non-round headlamp shapes, though many had by 1970 settled on a standardised shared rectangular shape.
Body
Most of the cars were sold as two- or four-door sedans/saloons. A three-door "Turnier" station wagon was also available. The confident determination of the car's designers’ to celebrate the new decade with something new and different was reflected in the unusual positioning of the rear lights on the early station wagons, on the leading edge at the back of the roof of the car, as two red horizontal units lined up directly above the tailgate. Later P3 Turniers had their rear lights more conventionally positioned.
The P3 also followed the tradition of its predecessor in that coach built two-door cabriolets and coupes were offered, converted by a traditional Cologne based body builder called Karl Deutsch.[1] However, these special bodied cars appear to have been relatively expensive, and only about 150 were produced.
The cars were offered with an unusually broad choice of color and interior trim options.
The early 1960s were a period of rapid expansion for the west European auto-industry, and export markets for the new 17M included Greece and Australia where several cars were converted locally into "pickups" or, in Australian English, "utes". The 17M was also assembled in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia in right hand drive.[6]
Engine and running gear
The cars were all branded as Ford Taunus 17Ms which might have led observers who thought they had understood Ford Germany's naming conventions to conclude that the cars all came with 1.7 litre engines. In fact, there were three different engine sizes offered, being the 1498cc unit first seen in the Taunus 15M of 1954, the 1698cc unit originally introduced in 1957 to cope with the weight of the first Ford Taunus 17M and, from September 1961, a new larger 1757cc engine.[2] Power outputs initially ranged from 55PS (40kW; 54hp) to 60PS (44kW; 59hp), and these engine versions remained available throughout the model's four-year life, but several more powerful engines featuring raised compression ratios in response to the increased availability of higher octane fuels appeared during the four-year period: by 1964 the most powerful Ford 17M offered 75PS (55kW; 74hp). In Sweden, the more powerful version first available in 1962 was sold as the "Taunus Sport", with the inclusion of a more lavish interior.[7] Approximately 50% of the cars built were delivered with the smallest of the three engines, the 1498cc unit.[2]
The engines were all gasoline/petrol powered four-cylinder inline four-stroke water-cooled units.
Changing gear involved a column-mounted gear change, which by now was becoming increasingly mainstream in Germany. It was possible to specify a "Saxomat" automatic clutch with the three-speed transmission: drivers content to accept a fully manual gear change system could also specify a four-speed gear box.
There were several important technical innovations during the four-year model run which no doubt go some way to explain the car's commercial success when compared to that achieved by its predecessor, and will have strengthened the Ford image in a market which had grown used to seeing Ford sales trailing those of General Motors’ Opel business. In April 1962 the 17M became the first mainstream production car in Germany to offer, as an option, disc brakes on the front wheels. Just over a year later front disc brakes became a standard fitting on all models. 1962 was also the year when the car acquired an "automatic starter" which reportedly made the traditional manual choke unnecessary.
Optional extras
Options available at extra cost included velour carpeting, grab handles for the passengers in the back, whitewall tires, a two tone paint finish and even a "make-up mirror" cleverly incorporated into the sun-visor on the passenger's side.[8]
Advertising
The 1960s was a period of rapid expansion in Europe both for the auto-industry and in the world of advertising. Ford tended to be ahead of the field in this aspect of marketing, even if some of the resulting slogans appear stilted fifty years later. The style of new Taunus 17M was advertised as representing a „Linie der Vernunft" which loosely translates as a "rational form" offering an implicit rebuke to the by now unfashionably elaborate styling of the old Taunus 17M. The car was advertised with the balanced and pithy slogan "Zum Fahren geboren. Zum sparen gebaut" (Born to drive. Built to save/economise).
Most of the cars produced were sedans/saloons, but the total of 669,731 also included 86,010 estate/kombi (Taunus 17M Turnier) bodied cars and (evidently not included in these data) approximately 15,000 other vehicles including pick-up truck conversions for customers in Greece and South Africa along with cabriolets and coupés, converted from sedans/saloons by the Cologne based coach-builder Karl Deutsch.[2]
Steel bodied station wagon equivalent models based on mainstream sedans were rapidly gaining in popularity. Giving the Taunus 17M station wagon a special name, "Turnier", intended to be unique to the Ford brand also showed the Ford marketing department ahead of the German owned competition. The Opel Rekord station wagon had already been dubbed by Opel a "CarAVan" in 1958, but market leaders Volkswagen would not find their equivalent label until the launch of the Volkswagen 1500 Variant in 1962.
Commercial
The boldly styled and regularly upgraded Taunus P3 was a commercial success. 669,731 were produced. The figure includes 86,010 station wagons. In the sales statistics for several months of 1961/62 the success of the model even enabled Ford briefly to overtake Opel on the German market, becoming the second best selling auto-brand, beaten to the top spot only by Volkswagen.
The Taunus P3 was replaced by the Ford Taunus P5 which would come with a wider range of engines and which would sell at approximately the same rate. However, the overall market size was growing through the 1960s, and with it grew the sales of the Opel Rekord. After the Taunus P3 no future Taunus model would come close to challenging Opel’s dominance of the large lucrative middle-market portion of the German auto-market.
Fifty years on
The Taunus P3 continues to generate enthusiasm, and most of the surviving vehicles in Germany enjoy the financial privileges and responsibilities available, in Germany, to owners of cars designated and maintained as oldtimers (the term used in Germany for a classic car).
In 2006 484 Taunus P3 sedans/saloons were registered in Germany along with 21 "Turnier" station wagons. There were thought to be fewer than 10 in the USA, a relatively high content of registered and/or roadworthy vehicles in the Scandinavian countries and a handful still survive in other countries (for instance some of the countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America where it was marketed) where statistics are less readily accessible than in Germany.
The Ford Taunus is a family car that was sold by Ford Germany throughout Europe. Models from 1970 onward were built on the same basic construction as the Ford Cortina MkIII in the United Kingdom, and later on, the two car models were essentially the same, differing almost only in the placement of the steering wheel. The model line was named after the Taunus mountain range in Germany, and was first made in 1939, and continued through several versions until 1994.
The Ford Cortina is a medium-sized family car manufactured and marketed initially by Ford of Britain, and then Ford of Europe in various body styles from 1962 to 1982, over five generations. It was the United Kingdom's best-selling car of the 1970s.
The Ford Sierra is a mid-size car or large family car manufactured and marketed by Ford Europe from 1982–1993, designed by Uwe Bahnsen, Robert Lutz and Patrick le Quément — and noted for its aerodynamic styling producing a drag coefficient of 0.34, a significant improvement over its predecessors.
The Opel Kadett is a small family car produced by the German automobile manufacturer Opel from 1936 until 1940 and then from 1962 until 1991, when it was succeeded by the Opel Astra.
Wesley Paul Dahlberg was an American car designer. He is best known for designing the Ford Taunus P3 17M, the Badewanne.
Ford-Werke GmbH is a German-based car manufacturing factory headquartered in Merkenich- Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a fully owned subsidiary of American Ford Motor Company, which operates two large manufacturing facilities in Germany, a plant in Cologne and a plant in Saarlouis and serves as a major hub for the Automaker's presence in the European markets.
Uwe Bahnsen was an accomplished German painter, sculptor and car designer, widely noted for his 28-year career at Ford Motor Company, where he designed the second-generation Mercury Capri (1973), the Ford Scorpio and notably, the highly aerodynamic and unconventional Ford Sierra.
The Ford Taunus G93A is a small family car that was produced by Ford Germany between 1939 and 1942 in succession to the Ford Eifel. It was the first car developed at Cologne by Ford Germany which previously had built cars originated by Ford businesses in the US or the UK. Production began on 30 April 1939, with the first car exhibited to the public in June 1939, less than six months before the outbreak of war in Europe.
The Ford Taunus P1 is a small family car which was produced by Ford Germany from 1952 until 1962. It was marketed as the Ford Taunus 12M, and, between 1955 and 1959, as the larger-engined Ford Taunus 15M. The company produced a succession of Ford Taunus 12M models until 1970, as the name was applied to a succession of similarly sized cars, but the first Taunus 12M models, based on the company's Taunus Project 1 (P1), remained in production only until 1962. In that year the Taunus P1 series was replaced by the Taunus P4 series.
The Ford Taunus 17 M is a middle sized family saloon/sedan that was produced by Ford Germany between August 1957 and August 1960. The Taunus 17M name was also applied to subsequent Ford models which is why the car is usually identified, in retrospect, as the Ford Taunus P2. It was the second newly designed German Ford to be launched after the war and for this reason it was from inception known within the company as Ford Project 2 (P2) or the Ford Taunus P2.
The Ford Taunus 12M is a small family car that was produced by Ford Germany between September 1962 and August 1966.
The Ford Taunus 17 M is a middle-weight family saloon/sedan that was produced by Ford Germany between 1964 and 1967. The entire range was first presented in September 1964 and volume production of the two and four door saloons/sedans began in November 1964. The "Turnier" version followed in January 1965 with coupé bodied cars coming along some time later.
The Ford Taunus 12 M is a range of large family saloons/sedans that were produced by Ford Germany between 1966 and 1970. There were two different engine sizes in the 12M. Two larger engines were available in the otherwise very similar Ford Taunus 15 M. From the outside the 15M was differentiated by its grill and rectangular headlights from the 12M which had round front lights. A complicating feature was the availability, at extra cost, of one of the larger engines from the 15M in the 12M.
The Ford P7 is a range of large family saloons/sedans produced by Ford Germany between autumn 1967 and December 1971. The P7 was marketed as the Ford 17M, Ford 20M and Ford 26M.
The Opel Rekord P1 was a large family car introduced in August 1957, in time for the Frankfurt Motor Show, by Opel as a replacement for the previous year's Opel Olympia Rekord. It was larger than its predecessor and featured an eye-catching US-style wrap-around windscreen and rear window, reminiscent of its General Motors Luton-built cousin, the Vauxhall Victor F, which had appeared in England a few months earlier.
The Opel Rekord P2 is a large family car that was introduced in the summer of 1960, by Opel as a replacement for the Opel Rekord P1. It shared its 2,541 mm wheelbase with its predecessor, but was nonetheless a little longer and wider. The wrap-around windscreen which had been a defining element of the Rekord P1, and which had given rise to the P for "Panorama" designation, was now gone, but the P designation remained and the driver's view out, assisted by relatively thin A-pillars, remained good.
The Opel Rekord Series A is a large family car introduced in March 1963, by Opel as a replacement for the Opel Rekord P2. It was fractionally shorter but also wider than its predecessor with a wheelbase approximately 10 cm longer.
The Opel Rekord Series B is a large family car that was introduced in August 1965, by Opel as a replacement for the Opel Rekord Series A. The Rekord B shared the wheelbase and 1696mm width of its predecessor, but the front and rear panels were restyled in order effectively to differentiate the new model. The big news was under the bonnet/hood, however.
The Opel Rekord Series C is a large family car that was introduced in August 1966, by Opel as a replacement for the short-lived Opel Rekord Series B. It was slightly larger all round than its predecessor, from which it inherited most of its engines. It continued in production until replaced by the Opel Rekord Series D at the end of 1971.
The Ford Taunus TC is a range of large family cars that were built by Ford Germany from 1970 until 1982. The Taunus TC was based on the same basic construction as the Ford UK's Cortina range, with the "TC" badge standing for Taunus Cortina.
References
Tuchen, Bernd: Ford Taunus 17M P3 - Die Geschichte der legendären "Badewanne", Verlag Dr. Faustus (2007), ISBN978-3-933474-45-2
Oswald, Werner (2003). Deutsche Autos 1945-1990, Band (vol) 3 (in German). Motorbuch Verlag. ISBN3-613-02116-1.
↑ Björklund, Bengt, ed. (March 1962). "Branschen i blickpunkten" [Focus on the industry]. Illustrerad Motor Sport (in Swedish). No.3. Lerum, Sweden. p.34.
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