the bonnet/hood. The body and running gear The two-door modern slab sided Ford Taunus that appeared in January 1952 with an old fashioned engine married to a stylish new body was connected with the road using fashionably small 13“ wheels which will have saved on cost and maximised the space available for passengers and their luggage. Individually suspended front wheels marked a contrast with the approach taken with the original Taunus, but in 1952 the rigid rear axle was all too familiar to Ford's existing German customers. The old Taunus had acquired the option of a four-speed gear box in 1950, but the new model at its 1952 launch came only with the older three-speed box, controlled using a column-mounted lever. (Until the 1960s European cars in this class never offered the option of an automatic gear change.) In the early years all the cars, regardless of equipment level, and whether saloon/sedan, or cabriolet bodied, came with a single bench seat across the full width of the car in place of the individual front seats fitted by most European manufacturers: this was a matter in respect of which the Taunus 12M was seen to reflect its manufacturer's North American parentage and thereby conferred a certain glamour at a time when the United States was a widely accepted role model across much of Europe and especially in West Germany. A maximum 38 PS/hp (28 kW) of power was delivered to the rear wheels. This was a useful increase on the claimed for the previous model, and may have reflected a higher compression ratio and increases starting to come through across Europe in respect of available fuel octane levels. In May 1953 the Taunus P1 finally became available with a four-speed gear box, though only as an optional extra. It was also at this point that a 3-door kombi/estate version joined the range. A cabriolet version had been offered since December 1952, being the result of a conversion by a coach building specialist based, like Ford, in the Cologne area and called Karl Deutsch Broadening the range Poor workmanship on the early cars was a source of some disappointment. Nevertheless, fairly soon (and in the absence of much direct competition during its early years on the German market) the Ford Taunus 12M, with its roomy modern body came to be seen as a high quality product, but on launch it was 37%