A few months ago we featured one of Ford Germany’s big saloons, a 17M, from an era when Ford’s German division made cars quite distinct from the UK counterparts. This week’s Prime Find is another German-built Ford from the same era, but this time, the 17M’s smaller brother, the 15M, and this one is a very smart-looking coupé.
Although the first car to bear the Taunus name was introduced in 1939 – the Ford Taunus G93A – it wasn’t until after World War Two that the name was used as an over-arching brand for a whole series of models. The Taunus name came from a hilly region of natural beauty in Germany just north of Frankfurt, where I lived for a year back in the 1980’s; it was meant to be aspirational – a bit like Triumph choosing Dolomite as a name, or Ford UK choosing Cortina.
The first post-war cars developed by Ford of Germany first appeared in 1952, and these all bore the Taunus name. Indeed, all German Fords were called Taunus until 1968, with individual models starting with the 12M, then 15M, 17M, 20M and 26M, with the M modestly standing for “Meisterstück”, or masterpiece. Internally the cars were known as Taunus Project 1, or P1, which turned out to be the first in a series of six before the Taunus name was dropped in 1970.
The Taunus P1 range (see what I did there?) started with the Taunus 12M and 15M, medium-sized family saloons that came with either an 1172cc or 1498cc engine respectively. Body styles were two-door saloon, three-door estate and panel van. For the second generation P1 the 12M remained as the only model but was offered with both engines and the same body styles as the previous model.
The next iteration of the 12M was sold from 1962 to ’66, and was known internally as the P4; the P2 and P3 were larger engined saloons also bearing the Taunus name, the 17M.
The P4 was originally intended to be built by Ford USA for the North American markets to rival VW, but these plans were scrapped and the car reverted to the German division. The P4 was a very modern and quite distinctive design, with full length side scallops and with the “face” of the car appearing to have a slight frown, not unlike the Ford Anglia. The car came with modern V4 engines, still of 1.2 and 1.5-litre capacity, with power going to the front wheels. These engines also found their way into the SAAB 96 and the Matra 530. The P4 came as a 2-and-4-door saloon and 3–door estate and was a considerable success, with over 670,000 sold in it’s four year production run.
It’s with the P6 that we take a step nearer to our Prime Find. Introduced in 1966 and like its predecessor, was built for four years. Bigger than the earlier P4’s the engines also got bigger. The entry level was still only 1183cc, but most 12M’s were sold with a bored-out 1305cc unit, and the 15M was available not just with the 1483cc powerplant but was also offered with the 1699cc from the 17M.
During the P6’s lifetime it was subject to regular facelifts, and a name change, as the Taunus brand was finally dropped in 1967, leaving the cars to be known simply as Ford 12M and 15M.
Another change to previous versions was the introduction of a fastback 2-door coupé in addition to the saloon and estate variants, and this brings us ever closer to our Prime Find.
Although Ford built almost as many P6’s as P4’s, it wasn’t really enough to call it a success, as the German car market had grown, and the P6’s main rivals, the Opel Kadett B and VW Beetle, comfortably outsold it.
The 15M coupé came in more than one version, with the most desirable being the 15M Rallye Coupé, a direct competitor to the Opel Kadett Rallye. Where the standard car produced 70bhp to enable a maximum speed of 145km/h, the Rallye version had an extra 5bhp on tap to enable it to go 10km/h faster.
Small saloon-based coupés were not so plentiful back in the 1960’s – the most obvious alternative to the 15M included its in-house rival, the Capri, and the Opel Kadett Coupé. VW offered the mechanically Beetle-based Karmann Ghia, which always looked faster than it was, but perhaps the most sporting small coupés of the decade came from Turin – the FIAT 124 Coupé, the pretty Lancia Fulvia and the gorgeous Alfa Romeo GT. All three offered more glamour and a more sporting driving experience than the 15M, but you could argue they were also less robust.
Our car is a terrific looking 1969 example of the 15M, on sale with a dealer in The Netherlands. It’s in a fabulous colour – it’s original metallic gold – that complements it’s clean, rectilinear styling. It’s a fully-restored example that looks to still be in excellent condition, even though the restoration was done “a few years ago”, and if the photos we have borrowed from the dealer website are any guide, the work was of a very high standard and the car still looks great.
The interior is a sea of brown vinyl, decorated with squared panel inserts and the engine was also rebuilt as part of the restoration project, photographic evidence of which comes with the car. It’s a great colour combination, and I say this as someone who is not generally a fan of brown.
This 15M comes with the added bonus of having the most powerful engine available to the model – the 1699cc V4, which back in the day pushed out 74bhp and as it has only recently been rebuilt, I think it’s safe to assume that it matches or at least gets close that output, so it should be spritely enough without being particularly quick.
It’s obviously not a performance GT any more than a Capri 1300 or 1600 is, or indeed a Kadett Coupé. It is, however, certainly in this country, exceptionally rare and makes a great alternative to the likes of the Ford or Opel. I like it very much. Is it worth the asking price of €19,950 (£16,800)? Well, it’s currently the only 15M Coupé I can find on sale – the only 15M of any kind, in fact – so there’s no market benchmark to make a comparison with, though this does emphasise the car’s rarity. Someone else has already spent the money and had the work done, so it shouldn’t need much attention other than routine maintenance for a little while. I think it’s a really smart 1960’s small coupé, and whoever buys it is going to attract a lot of attention wherever they go.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.uk.