1. Ford Prefect E493A.
Norman dropped me a line in February 2009, attaching this great photo of his father's old sidevalve Ford. He added: "I came across this photo from my Dad's stuff It belonged to WO II N.J.C. MacKillop in Singapore 1956-58. I thought it would look good on your Ford Prefect page He called it 'Betsie'". Thanks Norman!
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2. Ford Prefect E493A at Cheddar Gorge.
This early photograph shows the back end of an E493A Prefect, I think at Cheddar Gorge in Somerset (I'm sure someone will set me right if the location is different!).
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I've cropped the original photograph down a bit to get in the important details. Nearest the camera is Ford Prefect registration WMC 728, parked with its bootlid open, close to a No Waiting sign! The Ford has just been overtaken by a black saloon, which is heading down the road in the direction of another 1930s car. A few tourists in period clothing are stood to the right, near a sign advertising Wall's ice creams (mmmm).
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3. Another photo of a 1950s E493A Prefect turns up
The photo shown alongside turned up in 2008, and shows a smartly dressed lady back in the 1950s, stood next to a black E493A Ford Prefect.
The Prefect was always a cut above the contemporary Pop, featuring as it did four doors and a much smarter dash, made from Bakelite, similar in style to that found inside earlier E494A Anglias.
Some interesting photos of a similar Ford Prefect can also be found on this page, en route to Le Mans in the early 1950s.
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4. An Irish-registered Ford Prefect.
Fourth Prefect photo on this page shows an Irish-registered example - ZJ 1264 - parked in the driveway of a '50s bungalow. This registration series, allocated to the Dublin area, was only used for a short time between 1949 and 1950. The Prefect looks in good order, fitted with extra spotlamps and a slightly wonky-looking roof rack. It also has an adjustable spotlamp affixed to the driver's windscreen pillar, and just visible a car radio aerial next to it.
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5. The Australian A493A Prefect.
On the face of it, this Prefect looks like any other Prefect you'd have found in the UK. But a closer inspection reveals that the Australian version of the E493A Prefect, code name A493A, differed in a number of detail areas. The biggest single difference was the profile of the boot area, whereas UK Prefects had a flat sloping rear profile, the A493A had a small notchback bootlid, giving it a look not dissimilar to contemporary A40 Devons. The front doors also had a pronounced swage, unlike UK cars. Separate quarterlights were also fitted to these panels, and the roof was all steel, rather than steel and vinyl. The dashboard, rather than being all-bakelite, was partially steel with a wood-grain paint effect, same with the inner door window surrounds. The Prefect in Brian's photo led a hard life, every Friday it would be loaded up with passengers and luggage, and head off to Sydney some 350 miles away. Dirt roads predominated, and breakdowns were a common occurrence. He adds: "I can remember on one trip to Sydney, the Prefect's battery just went and mum and I sat in the car for about an hour, while dad walked and hitched to the nearest town and came back with a new battery in the middle of the night."
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6. An upright Ford Prefect in South Africa.
Herb kindly sent this next photo over, of a South African-registered E493A Prefect in Johannesburg. Evidently it was a fine day, the screen is wound fully open and the driver's door window is down. Whereas most pages in the gallery are filling up with UK-registered cars, curiously this isn't the case with the cars shown here - so far Prefects have been snapped in Singapore, Ireland, Australia and now South Africa, with just two of these classic Fords photographed in England up until now.
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Back to Car Photographs Page 3.
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To see photos of the later, 100E-type, Ford Prefect, visit this page, while a "special" built using some of the Prefect's running gear and seen competing in South Africa, can be seen here. Going back in time, to the late 1930s, are two photos of a very rare Prefect - the E93A drop-head coupe.
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