Forgive me if this has been covered already, but I can’t find any record of it.

I’m curious why we identify 32-40 U.S. Fords with V8 as the model name. All Fords from 1935-40 were V8 equipped. And after 32 the 4 cylinder is extremely rare as only 7,560 out of 304,948 cars were built as such in 1933. And in turn comically rare in 34; as only 1,912 out of 514,975 or .3% of passenger models were not equipped with a V8. I’m guessing it started as a way to separate them from the 4 cylinder Model Bs, but the official term was actually Model 18.

Also throughout the decade Fords were split between Deluxe and Standard models, the beginnings of separate trim levels that ultimately evolved into modern model names.

I do not remember a discussion about that, and I do not know at all these vehicles so I can't help for a decision

It dates back to 2005 when I tried to figure out how these were named: http://imcdb.org/vehicle_15328-Ford-V8-De-Luxe-01A-1940.html

We had lots of them in the database already, entered in several different ways. After going through Ford ads and brouchures from that period I found that this was how Ford named them, almost without exception between 1932-40, after that the designation V-8 dissappeared.

Commercially they were named like that, and in workshop manuals and spareparts catalogues you could also find codes like Model 18,40,48,68 etc. for the chassis + a variety of codes in 2 or 3 digits for the different bodytyles.

This was seven years ago when the site was very young, we had several discussions on similar matters. One related to this was the problem with Mercedes-Benz and BMW designations since they were based on engine displacement. The cars usually look exactly the same even if they have different modelnames like 200 or 230, 520 or 525. The solution to this was the Chassis field where we could enter [W123] etc.

That´s the reason we have this field at all, before long we began to put codes for other cars as well, like the Fords. In some cases codes for bodies ended up here too. This was not the intention of course, and now we would need a field for these codes also. Hopefully this will be added in the coming upgraded version of the site.

There were several other discussions like these, among other things we learned that many cars had completely different names on different markets. That´s why we have flags for origin, and countrycodes for assembly and "made for".

It became a tradition to try and find the correct commercial names for each car, and also to combine this with correct codes and generation markers. It´s not always an easy task, but it´s the ambition.
For me the primary source of information is the manufacturers own published material, both commercial and technical. For most cars it´s not a great problem to find out how they were named and coded, others are more or less hopeless.

For the Fords in question here, V-8 is almost always written as a part of the cars commercial name even when they had no alternative engine. That´s the short answer to why it´s there.
Model 18 and later codes are put in chassisfield, Ford kept the same system until at least 1951, 1HA and 1BA was the codes for sixes and eights respectively. It´s the same type of code and that´s why they ended up in that field.

Well that conversation doesn’t make a lick of sense. Right off the bat you can’t identify weather the car in question is a three passenger Coupe or five passenger Business Coupe; in turn the chassis code is unidentifiable. On top of that Ford offered two different sized V8s from 37-40, and by labeling all cars by V8 we make no attempt to distinguish.

So what? Brochures are written by sales people; they make shit up all time to sell car. Have you ever read the Somewhere West of Laramie ad? It barely mentions a car. G-Mann and I went back and forth on de Ville vs. deVille vs. DeVille for a few weeks mostly because the stupid admen would spell it multiple ways on the same page.
I think a code for the engine would make a lot more sense.
Absolutely, but keep in mind the sales brochure is only tangentially the manufacturers. It is written by an outside company, and given how the Ford Motor Company was run in the 30s (poor Edsel) I kind of doubt it received a great deal of review before printing.

Well, by that theory all Fords made before 1930 should be nameless with the chassis field distinguishing.

Actually that might be something to think about; we kind of force model names on a lot of the earlier cars that really didn’t have any. For example the LaSalle really shouldn’t have any model names; they only made one car a year and the variation was whatever type of body was mounted to the same chassis.

Even if the advertising material was produced by an outside company, it was done in the name of the manufacturer, often in cooperation with their marketing and sales organization. This was the way the cars were presented to the customers and what most of them could know about them.

We can have a lot of opinions on how this material was written, some of it is really bad and confusing, but mostly we can easily see how the cars were referred to. We can also debate what´s a modelname and what´s not, but if we delete everything that´s not a unique name there won´t be much to enter on cars built before about 1950, and in many cases several years after that.

This way of naming cars, before dedicated modelnames appeared, only by bodystyle, engine or trimlevel was very common through decades. Entering that info in the model field just reflects a common practise of that era. You see it as forcing names on the cars, I can understand that, but if we delete this type of information there´s nothing left after entering the Make of the car.

On this site we deal with almost every type of vehicle that moves on land, to enter all information absolutely correct in every detail regarding them is virtually impossible. It covers vehicles produced all over the globe, during more than a century.
We make a lot of effort to find correct designations for them when they´re sold on different export markets, it´s not uncommon that at least the modelname is changed, and sometimes also the make.

The natural source for this information is of course advertising material, with its pros and cons. We could of course reject this information and only use the designations used on homemarket, or the set of codes that might be connected to the vehicle. But I don´t think it would improve the site really. And allowing the cars of the early era to be described as they were when new is no different to me than to find out how names have changed from market to market.

To make the site searchable and consistent we need to use these commercial designations as they were, and also add the codes. Both sides carry vital information. One problem is that the given material can be inconsistent and contradictory, but we can deal with that and come to a decision on how to enter it. We also have only one field for codes, intended for chassis, this field contains several types of codes today (Engine, body, platform etc.) depending on what codes are available from different makers. This can also be improved.

I guess you're not very familiar with how the Ford Motor Company was run during its days as a private enterprise. No, I disagree, there's plenty to differentiate between the varieties of models. Simply because the official in-company designations are a little esoteric compared to the colloquial phases the public used is no reason not to classify by them. Especially as there can never be a right answer when using outside terms. I strongly disagree. The site is a database, it needs to be consistent and using these arbitrary phrases only leads to a multitude of different names for the same car; which we now have in abundance for many of the early models. We have the chassis code, the body style, the engine, etc. And hopefully someday the site will have different fields in which to enter these designations. Until then putting that stuff in the model name field only leads to confusion. Isn't having too little information better then false info? I never proposed rejecting anything. I merely think the site should be cognitive that a lot of the hyperbole of the sales brochures is designed to separate a fool from his money; not a wholly accurate technical manual. Usually when the name is changed for a different market without any real difference between models it's the result of translation issues or words/phrases that mean different things in different cultures. Not just some marketing ploy. But that is the very reason so much of the pre-WWII vehicles aren't searchable and consistent. We have a multitude of names for the exact same car because people are using the colloquial marketing phrases as the model name, in some cases such phrases differ from year to year, owner to owner, and brochure to brochure. You're getting way off topic here. My question was; why has the site arbitrarily decided to name 32-40 Fords with a V8 in their model names. The marketing people made the V8 prominent in the sales literature because the next cheapest car with a V8 cost five times as much; it was never a model name.

I tend to agree with DAF555: we usually relied on commercial names for model names, and used chassis codes for the less-public info. So I also think that having things like "Touring Sedan" as model name rather than nothing is better for a nice listing of vehicles if the car was commercially known under that name.

But about the Ford V8: again I do not know why we used that name

Yes, somename, your question was about Ford V8, but don´t forget that you brought the La Salles into the debate as well. Neither engine designations, nor body designations are modelnames in a modern sense. I think we all can agree on that.

The problem is that through a great many years most cars weren´t referred to in any other way. If we can´t use this, there´s only codes left, if there were any.

We maybe can blame "stupid ad-men" for that, but it would also be their fault that "real" names came to be used. It´s their job to come up with names and present them to company executives.

I´m also familiar with Ford Motor Company and how Henry Ford treated the company and his staff, including his son Edsel.

Ford had an active advertising department between 1903-1916, it was inactive due to war efforts in 1917-18 and the following years up to 1923 since the company got a lot of free media attention in connection with the establishment of the Rouge Plant, the first Tractor, Henry Fords political possibilities and several other matters.

However, after the recession in the early twenties the advertising department became active again on september 15, 1923. The cost for advertising was put solely on the dealers between 1917-1923, but the company had opinions on how the ads should look and issued guidelines from about 1920 and on, so it was a strong demand from the dealer organization that the company also shared the cost.

Heading Ford sales and marketing was William A. Ryan between 1918-1927,Fred L. Rockelmann 1927-1931, William C. Cowling 1931-37 and John R. Davis 1937-1940.
Davis was maneuvered out by Harry Bennett (in charge of security and personnel), after a conflict not concerning sales, he was later reinstated by Henry Ford II.

So the company had a department responsible for marketing efforts during the thirties, it was their job to check up on the ad-men and their work.
Of course they had to put emphasis on the V8, it was the strongest selling point apart from good design during this period when Fords still had mechanical brakes and transverse springs.

V8 is so prominently exposed in almost all sales material from this period that it would look very strange to exclude it. And if we do, what´s next? De Luxe? After all it´s just a trim level. Tudor Sedan and Fordor Sedan could maybe be accepted, they´re a play with words only connected to Ford, but the other bodystyles?

What it boils down to is whether marketing material can be accepted as reference or not. I´m perfectly aware of that some material is inconsistent and confusing beyond belief, but the large part is not, so I can´t see why should reject it all on that ground.

Okay fair enough. I brought up the LaSalles as just one of many, many examples. But you’re right; stay on topic.

Since you’re obviously familiar with the Ford Motor Co. why on earth do you think a company that was almost nationalized during WWII for the incompetence of the organization would be all that concerned with its advertising? Accounting and advertising were the two departments Henry derided the most.
You sure about that? 1920 represents one of many lows for Ford and the relationship with his dealers. Ford has just taken the company private and when the economy tanked he refused to take out a loan so he raised the dealer’s prices, in turn forcing them to go to the bank. Afterwards he bragged about not having to crawl to the banks. And his dealers always did take what he said with a grain of salt; take for example their requirement to sell subscriptions to the Dearborn Independent; which they paid for, then promptly threw in the garbage.
Davis was brought back by Henry II because of his good relationship with Edsel; and that alone was probably enough for him to be ignored within the company before the war. (but I’m speculating so let’s move on). Now you’re really illustrating some of the differences between the manufacturer’s philosophy and the salesmen. Henry was always oddly proud of some of the archaic engineering found on his cars. I believe Sloan put it best when he theorized that Henry never did quite grasp the concept that basic transportation was largely taken over by the used car market. Of course he wasn’t alone. Take Fisher Body and their odd dependence on a composite wood/steel body for example; advertising for years about its perceived (and outright fraudulent) benefits over an all steel body. But we don’t make a big deal out of the electric starts, knee action, or even the first hydramatics, all of which certainly received more then their share of advertising press.

Why not? If you think about it the differences between the Standard and De Luxe models are basically the same as the Customs and Galaxies of decades later. A little more bright work, a little nicer interior, but underneath basically the same car.
No; I am vehemently opposed to the use of body styles as model names. Do we make a distinction between the Murry and Briggs models? Because we are going to categorize by body style we should. And as an aside some of the higher priced models; such as Cadillac and Packard had over one hundred fully catalogued bodies in a given year. Most of which are barely distinguishable under the best of circumstances.

Going further; a lot of the hot rods, such as the famous American Graffiti model don’t even have Ford engines in them anymore. How can we call them Ford V8s when they are half Chevrolet? Of course it can be accepted as reference material, we’re not talking about soothsayers, ouija boards, or wikipedia here. But remember advertising material is a commercial, and a little skepticism is warranted.