Talk:Ford Taunus P1

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codenames 'P1' and 'Project 1' do not exist

This article bases on German Wikipedia entry. At time of creation, the German Wikipedia entry included the codenames 'P1' or 'Project 1', so the English Wikipedia entry is containing them now, too. In German Wikipedia a discussion has started if 'P1' or 'Project 1' are correct codenames, check out here, here and here.

It's very likely that these codenames are no official codenames. On 5 August 2010 a user has added the codenames 'P1' or 'Projekt 1' without citing any sources. Unfortunately a lot of websites have adopted these codenames so that they appear to be established, just do Google queries for:

"ford 12m" p1
"ford taunus" p1
"ford 12m" "projekt 1"
"ford taunus" "projekt 1"

Now do the same Google queries by excluding results after 5 August 2010 (the date the codenames have become added to German Wikipedia). Surprisingly you will find almost no results! The only useful result you will find is this article by motor-klassik.de of 19 February 2007 (mentioning 'P1'). But considering this is the only result, it is probably containing a mistake done by the author. German car literature also doesn't know the codenames 'P1' or 'Projekt 1'.

In conclusion I can say that these codenames have very likely become invented by a German Wikipedia user on 5 August 2010. Afterwards these codenames have spread on other websites because they trusted Wikipedia so much that they didn't check the Wikipedia article for accuracy. (Unfortunately this is a phenomena you can see increasingly often in Germany because Wikipedia has gained a very high reputation there. As you can see, not always with good reason ...)

So the site Ford Taunus P1 should be moved to another page name, the redirect page Ford P1 should be deleted and codenames 'P1' and 'Project 1' should be removed out of this article and out of other articles, in which these codenames are mentioned. Regards from Germany, --217.227.69.178 (talk) 01:28, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting

The Ford Taunus was not officially sold in Britain, and few made it to North America, so only a few people with (1) interest in cars and (2) knowledge of west European car market are interested in this in English wikipedia. From a Wikipedia viewpoint, it makes sense to follow the lead of German language wikipedia.

There are MANY cars that have different names in retrospect from the names they had at the time. The Opel Kadett B (late 1960s) was sold in North America in large numbers badged simply as The Opel. People who read English who remember the car at all are mostly in North America and will have read of the car - or known the car - simply as Opel. But it would be confusing to rename the article for the Kadett B as Opel. Many in Germany remember the Opel Rekord D as the Opel Rekord II because Opel avoided the letter D in case people expected all the cars to have diesel engines. You have Audis from the early 1960s which were known simply as Audi but retrospectively we have learned to call them Audi 75 or Audi F103. If you are older you will remember DKWs from the 1930s - some of the top selling small cars in Germany - that came with a wide range of names, and only became F1, F2, F3 etc./usw. in retrospect. I can give you many examples of similar things with British cars and French cars, but I think you are interested in Germany. You could start with Mercedes Benz where (again) works numbers are used in retrospect (and sometimes inconsistently) that were seldom heard outside the factory (and the manufacturer's suppliers, and the dealers, and those of us who spoke with them, and ... and...) when the car was being produced.

BUT it is a bigger issue than simply the name of the Ford Taunus. Cars acquire names in retrospect that differentiate themselves from earlier and later cars because in retrospect a long line of history becomes available that was not in evidence for Zeitgenossen. The designations P1, P2, P3 are NOT invented by Wikipedia: they are created by the manufacturer, Ford. Maybe more people find out about them from wikipedia, because people learn more about the Ford Taunus from wikipedia than they ever knew before. That's good, surely.

But back to my initial point, if I would discuss the matter in German Wikipedia I would be a Befürworter for the use of P1, P2, P3 usw unless someone had another idea that was clearly (1) clearer, (2) less ambiguous and (3) more widely agreed. Here I discuss the matter in Enlish wikipedia, and we should not pre-empt changes in the language where FAR more people know what a Ford Taunus is than they do in the Anglosphere (ie where we mostly speak as a mother tongue English)

Regards Charles01 (talk) 06:59, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I always thought that "P1" was a post-creation, much as a British car becomes a Mark 1 once a Mark 2 has been presented. But I don't know all that much about the German Taunuses. I say let's wait and see what the Germans come up with. No hurry. Currently, "P1" is useful and does explain things even though I don't think Ford themselves ever used the label. Mr.choppers | ✎ 05:37, 23 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]