by the late 1950s, ford wanted to reduce its marketing spend on supplementary brands, and appeal to a wider number of car buyers. they commissioned a team to create what by american standards of the time a small car, but elsewhere in the world would be considered a mid-size car. with room for six passengers in reasonable comfort, to keep the price down copp engineered a unibody, keeping suspension standard and sourced from ford's existing parts bin: coil springs in front, leaf springs in the rear, drum brakes all round. it was powered by a small, lightweight 90 hp (67 kw), 144 cid (2.4 l) straight-6 with a single-barrel carburettor. a three-speed manual column shift was standard with the two-speed ford-o-matic automatic optionally available.