Used Ford Prefect

The Ford Prefect was a series of British automobiles produced by the Ford Motor Company in the United Kingdom. It was first introduced in 1938, and was actually the more upmarket version of its contemporary, the Ford Anglia. Both of these cars were generally regarded as being reliable and as having good performance, within their class. The Ford Prefect and Anglia then became known as the “Upright Fords”, because of their narrow and tall exterior body designs. The Ford Prefect was designed specifically for the British market. It had transverse semi-elliptic springs, a beam front axle, and a beam front axle. The springs came with Armstrong lever shocks. Moreover, it also came with Girling mechanical brakes and it had no antiroll bars. The windscreen wipers were vacuum powered through the engine intake manifold. The Prefect had a 1200cc side valve engine, and a thermocirculation radiator with no pump. It could also be started using a crank handle, should the battery not have enough power to get the starter motor running. The Prefect design did not change significantly until it was overhauled in 1952. The headlamps were moved into the wings over the front wheels. Trafficators, which were semaphore signals that could be operated to protrude from the vehicle to indicate a right or left turn, were also fitted. The trafficators used on the Prefect were internally lit. These newer Prefects were only available as four-door saloons on the home market, with only the Anglias being available as two-doors. Just a year later in 1953, both the Ford Prefect and Anglia were once again redesigned significantly. The old body and separate chassis were replaced by a monocoque or integral construction. The transverse leaf front suspension was replaced by a coil independent suspension. The old side valve engine was retained. The final reworking in the series came out in 1959. The 100E body was reworked and fitted with the engine and gearbox from the Anglia 105E, and this last used Ford Prefect was produced until replaced by the Ford Cortina. Throughout its production, the Ford Prefect was considered to have had excellent performance in its class. Because of its lightweight construction, Prefects were commonly modified to become hot rods with its four-cylinder engines. This was further encouraged by the fact that the newer engines used in the later Prefects shared similar or exactly the same dimensions with the old engines. This meant that they could be modified using the same parts as before. The Ford Prefect series had a long and overall successful run in production, becoming known as a reliable car with decent performance.