Matford

In the 1930s, the Ford Motor Company was quickly expanding its European production. Before 1934, a front wheel drive version of Ford Model Y had been produced in a Paris suburb with an 8 hp engine under the marque Tracford, but this project was quickly abandoned in favour of the Matford venture.
In 1934, Mathis had financial problems while Ford wanted to increase production and the Mathis plant in Strasbourg seemed to be more suitable than the one in Courbevoie where Tracford had been produced. A joint venture between Ford and Mathis was created under the name of Matford S.A. which initially copied the style of contemporary American and British Ford models.

The intention had been expressed to produce the Matford models alongside those from Mathis but the last Mathis was actually made in October 1934,[1] which was also the month in which Matford was formally founded. During 1935, under the energetic direction of Maurice Dollfus who had joined Ford in 1930, Ford poured massive amounts of capital into modernising the Strasbourg plant. There were high hopes for the Matford collaboration which, in 1934, was expected to last for fifty years.

In 1935 a range of V-8 engined Matfords was put on the market which were very similar to the American Ford Model 48s with their V-8 3622cc engines. A unique French design appeared in 1936 with the model that has come to be known as the Matford Alsace, with a choice of a 2,225 or 3,621 cc V-8 engine and a cabriolet was also launched. The 1937 models were generally known at the time simply as the Matford 13CV and the Matford 21CV which followed the convention of the time by using the cars' fiscal horse power as a model name.[3] Both featured a V-shaped windscreen and in 1938 a US style timber bodied estate car joined the range. The steel car bodies were purchased from the coachbuilders Chausson rather than being built inhouse.[3]

Volume passenger car production ended in 1940 with the build up of truck orders for the French army, though an unknown number were made during the German occupation, at least till 1942. Under the occupation, because of its proximity to the German border, the contents of the Matford Stasbourg factory were moved to Ford's Cologne plant, while a new Ford plant opened at Poissy near Paris in 1940.