My father is 95, but he still remembers it well: it was a good hit with his two-year-old Ford Vedette with license plate NG-05-93.
By: Jan van 't Spijker
It is June 2, 1953. In Great Britain, the coronation of Princess Elizabeth takes place in Westminster Abbey. My father is on his way from Zaltbommel to the Caltex headquarters in Utrecht. The weather is bad, with 7 degrees cold for June, moderate wind from the southwest and strong gusts of wind up to 14 m / s. The sun is not visible, it is heavily cloudy and from time to time the rain is pouring down from the sky.
My father Frits, representative at the oil company Caltex, is going to book his vacation at the head office. The Vedette is a modern car for its time. For example, it already has flashing lights where most contemporaries still have to make do with direction indicators, arrows that usually pop out of the middle pillar. Frits' Vedette is even equipped with a radio!
In good mood he drives on the provincial clinker road. In the meantime, he listens to the coronation of Princess Elisabeth at Hilversum 1, which is broadcast live. Outside it is allowed to storm, but in the car it is actually quite pleasant with a warm stove and the radio on.
A staggering truck is driving in front of him and he is about to overtake him at his leisure. The red / purple color of the pavers is reflected in the rain in his windshield, the tires of the truck create a mist of splashing water. Frits has not paid attention: while he is now next to the truck, an oncoming vehicle suddenly appears! He has nowhere to go, but the oncoming car deviates strongly to the right. The Ford Vedette torpedoes it at the rear left against the rear axle, after which it makes a graceful pirouette and then comes to a stop in the direction of travel.
The truck driver amazingly manages to avoid the havoc… Frits wakes up under the dashboard of the Vedette and wonders what he is doing there. He has no idea what happened, but his right knee hurts terribly.
Later he will say that he did not notice the oncoming car, not only because of the bad weather and his slightly too relaxed position behind the wheel, but also because the car of the oncoming car has about the same color as the red / purple bricks. Fortunately, the driver of this car is unharmed, but both vehicles are total loss. A helpful passer-by takes the crippled Frits into his car and takes him to hospital in Utrecht, where he will be operated on his knee.
You probably remember them: those handbrake levers mounted under the dashboard. This clearly got in the way when Frits slid under the dashboard. We did not use seat belts then.
Trots
When Frits received the Vedette two years earlier, it was as good as new. It was his first car and what a one! He was very proud to be able to drive such a beautiful car, the average cheese head could only dream of that! As a young sales representative at Caltex, he earned 350 hard guilders a month. His car allowance? Also 350 guilders per month ...
The Ford importer in Amsterdam had only briefly used this car as a promotional car, including advertising photos. Of course, beautiful and elegant ladies could not be missing. The Vedette was still provided with the provincial North Holland license plate HZ-79707 at the importer. From 1951, the provincial license plate was replaced by a national system and Frits' Ford Vedette received license plate NG-05-93.
The Amsterdam importer himself also had an assembly factory that was nearly used after the war 385.000 Fords have rolled off the line. In November 1981, the factory was now running at a loss, after fifty years it was 'schluss' and only Fords were imported.
New owner
Incidentally, the Vedette was built in France. In Poissy to be precise. Frits' Vedette belonged to the first series and was equipped with a 2158 cc measuring eight-cylinder 60 hp OHV. Later models were 'upgraded' with a 3923 cc engine, the so-called Mistral V8. As the Poissy factory could not be started immediately after the war, many parts had to be supplied by subcontractors, which did not really improve the quality of the cars: the Vedette was not known for its reliability. A bad reputation was the result and poor sales could not be avoided. The head office in America was actually a bit fed up with the factory in Poissy and was only too happy to get rid of it. The opportunity arose in 1954 when Simca showed an interest in taking over the factory. From the takeover by Simca, the successor to the Ford Vedette was therefore called Simca Vedette, but in some countries, such as the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden, the name Ford Vedette was still used.
Frits' Vedette was thus Total Loss. Or not? Six months after the accident, a 'friendly' request came through the letterbox. From the police in Den Helder. To comply with a fine for speeding in the built-up area of Den Helder. The Ford had apparently survived the death blow and was 'tapped' again to be able to participate in traffic again.
And what about transferring the registration certificate to the name of the new owner? Oh well, that was always possible ...
My father also had to deal with the somewhat less reliability of his car.
Actually he never drove faster than 95 km / h, but one sunny day when he drove on a beautiful provincial road, he wanted to know how fast that thing could actually be. He never knew, because at 115 km / h a few main bearings ran out. The Ford garage in Utrecht has provided the Vedette with fresh copies. For the sum of 45 guilders ...
Frits' next car was an Opel Kaptein, a pre-war model and a nice car. But still equipped with turn signals ...
Dear Jan, What a story. Unbelievable that your father survived this and the oncoming car too.
A small note the prov. license plate HZ was South Holland, the G series was North Holland.
Nice weekend.
My father also had a Ford Vedette in the 50s with a searchlight on the window bar on the driver's side, You could see that the car had been a taxi, Because there was still little street lighting, the house numbers could be used in the dark with the searchlight. see if you had to go to a specific address. I remember even though I was 3 years old that it was a spacious car, especially in the back.
I never knew to connect the spotlight to the taxi, so I think my father also bought an ex-taxi, can't ask him anymore, unfortunately he would have been 106 now
Oh yes, one more thing, the Vedette was already ready to launch as a compact American Ford model for the USA. . That was torpedoed at the last minute and that is how it ended up in France. You can still follow those American updates, which were also half finished, all the way to Versailles, Beaulieu and Ariane.
De Vedette, yes, nice story. The doctor came by quite often and left his burning cigar in the ashtray. Retelink of course, but I, who was 7 or 8, put my hood through the open window to sniff that nice smell of tobacco and oil. It was the first model with eight or so chrome strips in the grille. Again nicely written, the moral: an accident can happen in a small corner. The Opel Kaptein is a post-war model, I thought 1950.
That's right that was a side valve my father had one in the rental we had a garage in the village also a Willies 4-door in Doornenburg around 1949 1951 and was also driven in totalos by the tenant somewhere near Utrecht and that guy of course had nothing to makken maybe he also reads AMK he just had his driver's license as far as I know just 18 and think damn that I was Gr. Stef Hartogs
Said Ford Vedette was an old-fashioned side cover ZK
The first European Fords was Kopkep KK
the very modern English Zephyr / Zodiac in 1953
My father also bought his first second-hand star in 1956. I was eight years old at the time and impressed it was the first car in the street, only I remember the candy cane indicators and that it was a side valve.