The Ford Popular began production in 1953 and could already be foreseen as a success based on the popularity of the Ford Anglia and Ford Prefact which proceeded it. The Ford Popular, was very basic, but took cues from both U.K. models before it, and slightly modified them for production. Britain was just coming out of World War II, and vehicle manufacturers were slow to ramp back up after being on hiatus for 6 years during the war. The first Popular cars produced were of a very basic design which consumers loved, since there were not any clean late model cars available to purchase right after the war. The result was the Popular had the right amount of nostalgia and demand right from the beginning, and Ford was then able to continue the utility model for the Australian market. In 1959 the Popular was redesigned and used a 100E designation and was given more options to spruce it up from the base version. Ultimately the Popular was deemed too expensive and lost its niche market of being an affordable entry level vehicle for the masses, with the last model year being 1963.