Ford Vendôme

The Ford Vendôme was a large car manufactured by Ford SAF at its plant in Poissy, France, from 1953 until 1954. It was introduced at the 1953 Paris show, where a futuristic prototype flown in from Detroit stole attention from it. It shared the body of the Ford Vedette but had a more elaborate chromed front, two tone bench seats and automatic reversing lights, a novelty in France. Ford fitted its flathead V8 side valve engine, listed at 93 bhp against 68 for the Vedette, which gave a claimed top speed of 148 km/h but heavy fuel use. The independent front suspension with MacPherson struts was shared with the Vedette, though the extra weight over the front wheels made it a handful on twisty roads. Priced at 1,148,500 francs in 1953, about 3,000 were sold in the 1954 model year before Ford sold its French business to Simca, so the car is now rare.