The New Fords

Into the showrooms of 9,000 dealers this week rolled the new Fords, first of the Big Three's 1957 models. They are lower (by four inches), higher priced (from $1 to $104), more powerful (an optional 245 h.p. V8. v. the top 1956 225 h.p. V-8). For the first time. Ford also has two body sizes and two wheel-bases. Customers will have the choice of the 116-in. wheelbase Custom, three inches longer than in '56, or the higher-priced 118-in. wheelbase Fairlane, fully five inches longer. Where Ford virtuously sold safety in 1956 and watched rival Chevrolet carry off the honors by 300,000 units, it will sell size and luxury in 1957.

The changeover cost Ford $209 million, "more money than any other introduction in our history," said Henry Ford II last week. "It is the first car in which we have been able to embody all the advantages of our new facilities and the talent of our new management team."

Much of the credit for Ford's change belongs to one of the new team's least-known members: natty, quiet-spoken Lew Crusoe, 61, production boss. Minnesota-born Crusoe, a onetime forester, rose to become Fisher Body controller for General Motors, quit in 1945 to raise Herefords. A few months later a call from Bendix Aviation's Ernest Breech lured him back from cows to horsepower; when Breech went to fast-slipping Ford the next year, along went Crusoe. Accounting Expert Crusoe supervised the day-today unraveling of the tangled finances left by old Henry, after that took on the job of divisionalizing Ford so that it could compete with G.M.'s semi-autonomous units. Crusoe's current chore is to match G.M. car for car, price line for price line.

With two body sizes, Ford expects to get a competitive edge on both Chevrolet and Plymouth. Early next year, the next step will be taken by Mercury when it brings out a bigger version of the standard model, enabling it to compete with Buick, whose models range up and down the price line from Chevrolet to Cadillac. Introduction of Ford's new "E" model next fall will complete the line, give Ford an equivalent to the Oldsmobile, thus duplicating G.M. in every price range.

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