Interview with Virgil Exner Jr.

[Edstock]

http://www.imperialc...er/Jr/index.htm

 

From 2003, a very interesting discussion.

 

MT: Now, I'm not a Ford aficionado by any means—not like Chrysler—but I understand you were with Ford of Europe when the Fiesta was designed?

 

XJR: Yeah, I was the...we established Ford of Europe.  I was sent over there to help do that; I wasn't the only one.  There had been Americans over there, you know, from the beginning, virtually.  But Henry Ford II wanted to make a consolidation out of Ford of Germany and Ford of England, and at that time he concentrated on doing that.  And the very first car that really resulted from that 'marriage', especially of Ford of England and Ford of Germany, was the Ford Fiesta, which I was in on from the very beginning, and was the manager of the studio that did the final design on that.  Actually, the car was born out of a fairly radical small car that Ghia had actually done as an advance design for Ford at that time, Ford having just purchased Ghia in 1969.  Of course, I had worked directly for Ghia before that myself, and then with my father, after my father retired from Chrysler.  And so it was kind of ironic that the car that basically I got to work with, was one that Ghia had designed themselves with their own designers, and sent to us as a car that was well liked by Henry Ford II.  Then it was given over to us in England to redo, and we redid it an awful lot!

 

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