De Luxe as a separate marque?

Pretty sure you ask about the Ford line of models.
As trim level, others ( Plym. Chev. ) used it as well.
I have a book listing all makes. Titled "The World's Automobiles" by G. R. Doyle (England). He shows there was a Detroit based auto called De Luxe, manufactured by The De Luxe Motor Car Co. from the years 1906 to 1910.
 
Ford started the practice of using a rehashed version of last years model as the Standard for the next model year in 1938. This practice lasted until the 1941 models came out. From there on out, it was only trim differences between Special, Deluxe, and Super deluxe. In the shoe box era, the Deluxe was the low trim level and the Custom was the higher level.
 
According to a book I just read on Edsel and E. T. Gregorie, Edsel imagined the Deluxe as a separate model to compete better with GM. GM had five models and that was Edsel's vision, realized with the introduction of the Mercury: Ford Standard, Ford Deluxe, Mercury, Lincoln Zephyr, Lincoln.
 
With all due respect guys, in 1940, Ford did away with the "standard". It was properly referred to as the "Ford V8".
Officially, the last "standard" built by Ford was in 1939.
 
For marketing purposes, Ford likely never wanted to refer to a car as anything that would have been considered plain Jane in reference to the "Standard" description but the description "Deluxe" was always known to be a step above in that era. It's funny how that attitude changed in 1941 and again in 1949.

The owners are the ones who use the description "Standard" just to quickly differentiate one from the other.
 
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