V8-G81A Special (1938)

Description

Product

V8-G81A Special (1938)

Description

Henry Ford, the father of the automotive industry in the United States, had great ambitions to expand sales of his model line in Europe amid oversaturation of Ford's home market. In 1928, a cooperation agreement was signed between Ford and the leaders of the state of Rhine-Westphalia, and two years later in the presence of Henry Ford and the mayor of Cologne Konrad Adenauer, the grand opening ceremony of the new car and truck manufacturing plant took place. Ford’s company had supplied a quantity of critical equipment to unify cars built in the United States and the subsidiary in Germany.

With the beginning of World War II, a significant number of cars, including private ones, were requisitioned for the army. This fate befell the G81A, which from the first months of the war was used as a light staff vehicle by Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and police units. This car was used mainly in the first years of the war and at the beginning of Germany's Eastern Campaign, because in off-road conditions and the USSR's winter mud, its use was significantly limited.

Vehicles operated in European countries, which had a developed network of roads of a better standard, lasted much longer, and some cars of this type were in use as late as 1943. In Germany, G81A police cars were used almost until the end of the war.