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EFV-8 Club Forum / General Ford Discussion / hole in top

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Posted By Discussion Topic: hole in top     jerry weiser 08-21-2011 @ 1:43 PM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 85 Joined: Jun 2010 ive heard several theories on why henry ford chose to put a hole in the top of our coupes and sedans. what is the real reason for the hole. weezer Stroker 08-21-2011 @ 3:20 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 1460 Joined: Oct 2009 Weezer: Ford's were not the only cars to have a soft roof insert in the Thirties. Consider this; the bigger the component, the more costly the tooling. Forming the deep-drawn compound curves without seams for a "Turret-Top", as GM liked to call them, requires a very large pair of dies, and an equally large press. During this era, Ford's bodies were mainly supplied by outside vendors, who were being asked to produce them with very little profit per unit. I believe that Ford attempted to discourage criticism regarding this "cheaper" approach by coming up with various safety-related excuses for not embracing the trend toward "Turret-Tops", much as they did with hydraulic brakes. Henry wasn't really into styling, and the company might have continued building cars with origami inspired bodies, if it hadn't been for Edsel's push for aesthetics. Henry was famous for controlling costs, so something had to give. jerry weiser 08-21-2011 @ 3:29 PM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 85 Joined: Jun 2010 the hole w/ rubber, woodwork. padding, etc. was cheaper than one piece of steel? why did they all stop in 37? weezer Stroker 08-21-2011 @ 4:14 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 1460 Joined: Oct 2009 The top insert was primarily labor-intensive, whereas the tooling for a solid top was capitol intensive. With labor costs at the time lower than they are in China, it was simply cheaper. Ford owned wood reserves and extensive production facilities in Iron Mountain,Michigan, and the use of wood for structural parts was declining. There weren't enough station wagons built in the early 30's to keep those operations busy, and wood/fabric/padding was a lot cheaper than steel. By 1937, Ford was selling a lot more station wagons, and the competition was touting "all-steel" construction. Ditto mechanical brakes. As 38FordV8 will attest to; a properly adjusted mechanical brake system is far more redundant and fail-safe than the hydraulic brake systems of the period... yet Ford succumbed to hydraulic brakes in 39 because they had become the industry standard. If competition hadn't forced Ford to grudgingly move-on, I suspect a new Focus would have a flathead four, wood-reinforced bodywork on a frame platform, and 3 pedals on the floor, cable-operated drum brakes, and yes...a hole in the roof, filled with wood,fabric, and padding. It also would be the cheapest car in the world. mdurhan 08-21-2011 @ 4:27 PM reply profile send p.m. Member Posts: 64 Joined: Mar 2011 ....... and nobody in this spoiled, "gotta' have a gadget" generation would buy it - except us old geezers - which wouldn't garner enough demand to keep it from being dropped from production faster than a Chevette was dumped by GM in the early '70's. Mike Stroker 08-21-2011 @ 4:59 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 1460 Joined: Oct 2009 Mike: My "practical" brother-in-law actually wore-out two Chevettes while calling on clients here in the Great Plains. He put over 150K on each one, and they made him money. If he had lived in the 20's, he would have been driving Model T's of course. I suspect that had it not been for Edsel's insistence upon building what turned out to be really beautiful, low priced cars, Ford would have ceased to exist in the early 30's, while still building the "new" Model T, introduced in 1926. My dad owned quite a "string" of Fords, a 33-34-35-36-37-38-40 truck. I asked him once why he didn't buy a 32, since his previous ride was a 26 Dodge. He said he bought his 32 Plymouth because it had hydraulic brakes, and rubber motor mounts (Floating Power). I'm not sure it's "gadgets", as much as perceived value as purported "value" as reported by the motoring press. The automotive press killed the Chevette, just as surely as Ralph Nader killed the Corvair. If we had my previously-described super-cheap Ford on the market, can you imagine what the media would say? nelsb01 08-21-2011 @ 9:11 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 982 Joined: Oct 2009 To get back to the original question........... If I remember, and I think it was in one of the Sorensen Books......they did not have the technology to stamp the metal without creating ripples. And it wasnt until 1937 that it was perfected. supereal 08-22-2011 @ 3:06 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 6819 Joined: Oct 2009 I'm sure stamping technology played a part, as did Henry Ford's obsessive resistance to change. If soft tops were good enough for Model T's,, by cracky, they were good enough for the rest! That view prevailed until Henry's wife threatened to sell her stock if Henry II wasn't installed as president when it became obvious that old Henry was't able to continue. It is another chapter of the history of the Ford saga. If Edsel had survived, I believe the Ford would have been a very different, and better, company. Stroker 08-22-2011 @ 5:09 PM reply profile send p.m. Senior Posts: 1460 Joined: Oct 2009 Weezer: Super said in one paragraph, what I was trying to say in my rambling diatribe. The bottom line is that it was technologically challenging, and required a major investment in very large presses and dies to stretch metal that far. Ford's body suppliers (mainly Murry and Briggs), were bidding very tightly to keep their accounts with Ford. The hole in the top was a low cost solution to this dilemma. As an aside, I believe Henry Ford, in this era was trying to incorporate advances in casting and metallurgical technology, not body work. Handsome body work was Edsel's domain, not Henry's. If Henry had his way, the "Deuce Coupe" would have looked like a 1925 T, but with a mono-bloc V8 and lots of forged suspension parts.

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