sales in 1933 standard vs deluxe model

[FrankWest]

1933 was the height of the Great depression..It seems logical that more Standard models would have been purchase over the Deluxe Model.
Does anyone have numbers for these sales?

[rockfla]

The production numbers for standard and deluxe are listed in the back, page S-3 of the 33/34 Club restoration manual. For the 4 door sedan, V8's Deluxe 40,540 Standard V8 17,798 Deluxe 4cyl 133 Standard 4cyl 594. I had posted before that I had read somewhere that even though the numbers posted above for 4cyl's at 727 total, that orders for them only ended up being 668 some 59 short of that number. Dave Rehor said that it was not possible for that to happen!!!! Either way that 4cyl for 33 were quite small in number and even smaller yet for 34.

[corvette8n]

From the Ford V8 album 1933
5w coupe std 32,659 dlx 11,525
3w coupe std 6,884 dlx 16,735
Tudor std 111,870 dlx 51,569
Fordor std 23,323 dlx 50,685
Roadster std 202 dlx 4,801
Phaeton std 640 dlx 2,206
Panel std 1,040 dlx 916
The station wagon, Victoria, and the cabriolet don't have any breakdown.

[FrankWest]

Thanks
I wonder what the reasons for choosing a 4 cylinder model B over the v8?
It was a little cheaper but there must have been other reasons too, I don't think it was that much cheaper? Economy operation?

[rockfla]

I think it was to cash in on the "hold outs" from the Model A era who still didn't want the V8 for whatever reason. I do know the fellow who owned our 33 Standard Fordor with the 4cyl from back in the mid 60's, he drove it for his high school car. He said even as heavy as the car was he could spin the tires in first & second gear. We put our 4cyl in a Model A cut-down for a while and ran it and it would natural born fly!!!!

[FrankWest]

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I understand people are afraid of new things and the 4 cylinder was around since 1925.
Someone said in another post that the 4 cylinder has more torque at low rpm?
Funny that after all those years today's cars seem to like 4 cylinder engines...funny.

[rockfla]

I have been told by several who tour with their cars, they prefer the 4cy (over the V8) for the torque, (Relatively) few cooling issues (if any, even in higher altitudes) and plenty of top end speed for the driving they do.

[FrankWest]

Originally Posted by rockfla

i have been told by several who tour with their cars, they prefer the 4cy (over the v8) for the torque, (relatively) few cooling issues (if any, even in higher altitudes) and plenty of top end speed for the driving they do.

wow

[39topless]

Same reason people prefered the flat 6 to the V8 in the F1's. Easier start when cold, and better torque.

[Charlie Stephens]

Originally Posted by FrankWest

I understand people are afraid of new things and the 4 cylinder was around since 1925.
Someone said in another post that the 4 cylinder has more torque at low rpm?
Funny that after all those years today's cars seem to like 4 cylinder engines...funny.

I have a "barn find" 1932 Ford deluxe four door and often wondered the same question. My car was very early (serial number about 3500) and I assumed that maybe the original buyer was nervous about the "new V8". New is not always better and indeed the first V8's had their problems. Ford had just finished making slightly under 5 million Model A four cylinders and they were preceded by about 27 million Model T's. With that many engines under their belt they should have worked out most of the problems. Buying the first year of anything even today is not always the best idea. The person also might have been a farmer where he was isolated from repair garages but understood how to work on the 4 cylinder engines. Sure wish my car could talk and tell me the real story.

Charlie Stephens

[1942deluxe]

Another guess was Ford did not have the initial capacity to produce enough V8's and the four cylinder filled the gap until they got up to speed. Still happens today in various forms. As a Ford dealer we get a list of short supply "commodities".

[A bones]

I knew an older fellow who told me his grampa would only spend his money on a straight line engine. Reason was he could not accept that piston rings and cylinder walls would get extra wear from gravity as they were on their sides.

[DavidG]

The retail price difference between a '33 four and V-8 was $50 in the U.S., which on the lowest-price vehicles amounted to about 10% of the retail price of the whole car.

The numbers that Robert (rockfla) cites are derived from Ford's own records, but are domestic U.S. production only. The difference between domestic U.S. production and worldwide production varies dramatically by body type, but the average in the day was that production outside of the U.S. was about 20% of the worldwide total. (Obviously today that percentage is much higher.) While I do not have access to the Company production records at the moment, I believe that the figures that corvette8n cites are the worldwide production numbers.

Robert,

The reason that the sum of both retail and wholesale orders always falls short of the production figures is two-fold in the day and three-fold today. In the day, a small number of units would have been total losses in transit to dealers and a larger number of units would have been placed in Company service (and subsequently sold as used cars when taken out of service). Today, add to those two reasons test vehicles (crash, emission, etc.) which normally are scraped and never sold, new or used. These days, Ford has more than 10,000 vehicles in Company service, so we're not talking small numbers.

[FrankWest]

Today 50 dollars seems like nothing but remember back in 1933. Gold was 20 dollars and ounce. Today Gold is 1250$ per ounce. Actually inflation number would be much less, but lets base it on Gold. So 50 dollars in 1933 that would be 2.5 times. or 3000. dollars. That seems like a big factor in purchasing a car during the great depression or anytime.

[rockfla]

Thanks Dave for the "Paul Harvey" sense of it all, there is always factors some of us "tire kickers" don't think about.

[mvee33]

Yep, Every dollar counts, this is my bottom of the price list 33 B standard roadster, painted windscreen and back window, no rumble seat, small odometer etc. a lot of banger for the buck.Michael

[FrankWest]

what did you pay for that 10 grand?

[mvee33]

I bought it in the eighties as a genuine barn find, they were not as valuable then, and as always worth less than a V8. Michael

[FrankWest]

I was surprised to find out that there are many people that love the model B engines.
Maybe easier to repair than the v8's? It seems that if you add a down draft stromberg 48 you can get it to almost early v8 hp. And some people change to 6:1 heads too and can get almost 75-80 hp out of the poor little model B engine! Not so little actually. Only 4 cylinders but large pistons compared with the smaller v8 pistons. I actually say a you tube video where a guy ran a model A engine on Only One cylinder...amazing.

[rockfla]

@FrankWest.
Like I told you in the previous post, the fellow that owned ours, as a high school kid back in 1965 said "for the size car and motor, this car would haul ass! I could get rubber in first and second gear!!". We rebuilt our "C" in the mid 70's and had it done before the car was ready so we put it in a Model A cutdown speedster for a little while to run it in and that car would absolutely light the tires up. We regularly would get it out on the back roads here in Florida and bury the speedometer with NO problem at all!!!! That A cut down was SO fun and would flat fly.