The Mysterious Extended Boot
As I said, Steve was trying to buy and sell a few of these little British cars. I never bought a car from him but he did make a trip to New Zealand several years ago and brought back a fairly decent grille for my car. It was a bit expensive but I have searched for one for years with no success, even after the internet. That grille first shows up here. He also brought back proper reproduction running board rubbers that I am finally dealing with here.
Ok, I have seriously digressed here. Back to the original purpose of this page: the extended boot. Apparently Steve has some connection (membership maybe) with the Ford Sidevalve Owners Club (FSOC) in England, the "Gurus" on all things related to British Ford cars with sidevalve, or flathead, engines. I guess he must have mentioned my Prefect and its boot to someone there and they asked him to send some photos of it. A couple of months later he sent me a copy of an article published in their member's newsletter. I have attached a copy of it here.
The editor says their "experts" are all stumped. They agree it must be an
English build but no one has ever heard of such a thing. Their best guess, ultimately,
is that it might be a prototype for the Australian version. Well I accepted that for a
long time. These photos show what a "proper English" Prefect should look like.
Note the smooth back without the extension and the tiny little boot lid above another
"trap door" like opening that is access to the spare tyre. This is a '51 but
the only difference is the front wings. Notice they are raised at the front in order to
incorporate the headlights. Also the grille has vertical bars instead of my horizontal.
By the way, I am not a member of the FSOC because their dues are not cheap although they
have spares and many reproduction bits that would have made my restoration so much less
work but they will not offer them on this side of the pond for fear of legal action. I
did, however, register my car with them.
More recent research, however, now makes me think otherwise. I have recently discovered
that the Prefect was introduced in Australia with the 1946 model, making it highly
unlikely that my 1948 model would be its prototype. Even if my car was actually built for
'46 and just took that long to sell, it still would hardly be a prototype for another
'46 model. Besides, the car is left hand drive and certainly appears to have been so from
the factory. Instead, I think it more reasonable that it was a test car aimed toward the
North American market to see if the convenience of a larger boot might help it sell better
here. I don't think the little cars sold very well here as so few of them seem to exist.
Other than street rods and drag cars, I have only known of 3 others personally although
I think Steve had one at one time. None of them had the extension that mine has. The tiny
boot, or trunk for American buyers, might have been part of the reason. Well, that and the
price. It was $1620 in 1948 but that did include leather upholstery, a $40 option by the
way. For example, my first car was a 1946 Chevrolet convertible with every option available
at the time. Its retail price was $1336. The Prefect apparently was priced about in line
with a Buick but not nearly the car, at least not in the eyes of the typical American buyer.
So this is my Prefect. The difference around the rear is fairly obvious. It is clear to me that the boot and lid are from the Anglia production line. The spare tyre is accessed via the main door rather than the smaller one below.