Ford Go Forward! Now there’s a slogan for you. But we can exclusively reveal that this slogan will shortly change to Ford Go Backward, as the Ford motor Company stop making trucks, and switch their production lines to extreme retro-products such as the updated Quadricycle, the first vehicle Ford ever made.

‘We’ve had a good run at it ,’ says Chief Operating Officer, Gomez J. Gomez Jr., but the buck stops here (shouldn’t that be the trucks stop here? Ed.) and it’s time for us to move on, by moving back.’

‘Let’s face it. American youth today no longer want a fancy pickup. They’re soooooo boring! The high performance machine is more yesterday that my shirt.’

‘First came the Tin Lizzie, then the Volkswagen and the Mini. It’s time for a new era at the Ford Motor Company.’

‘We intend to re-introduce an updated model of the 1st vehicle Ford ever built — the 1896 Quadricycle.’

’What a machine!’ The original had four bicycle tires and no steering wheel, just a tiller.

The 1896 Quadricycle

This fella had a 4 horsepower engine, two forward gears and no reverse! Seen through modern eyes this vehicle seems at first glance laughable. But the Quadricycle had advantages that would be a real boost to current US road users.

‘For example, no reverse gear means no reverse parking. Bonus! Everyone hates reverse parking and this model eliminates it at a stroke. The lack of a steering wheel is also a great idea. Wouldn’t we all welcome a more free-wheeling approach to driving? It would do away with our current obsession with precision motoring. Think of the thrill of knowing that the chances of getting to within ten miles of your destination were slimmer than an asteroid obliterating Detroit.’

‘Sure, there’d be an outcry from the lily-livered, pasty-faced egg-heads in the Safety lobby, about the fortyfold increase in RTAs that will inevitably follow the steering wheel free Quadricycle’s re-introduction, but wouldn’t carnage on the roads be a price worth paying for a whole new way of traveling from A to B?’

‘For me, personally, the re-introduction of the Quadricycle will be the introduction of a different kind of romance. Can you just imagine the look on your prom date’s face when you bump up her driveway in one of these babies to whisk her off to the ball? I can tell you, when you ease into the Prom venue’s parking lot alongside the F-150, I know which vehicle will be met with sighs of admiration.’

(Mr Gomez is currently in a private clinic, under the kind of sedation normally used in zoos for camels in labour.)

 

Author: Wallace Runnymede