The Radical Ford That Changed The Trajectory Of Automotive History

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Let me paint you a picture. It’s 1982, and years of driving up and down Britain’s motorways on Important Company Business has paid off. The pencil pushers in finance are letting you upgrade your trusty Ford Cortina Mk5 GL to something that better reflects the amount of ass-busting you’ve done to climb the greasy corporate pole. [Welcome to another installment of Damn Good Design, written by real auto designer Adrian Clarke. -Ed]. 

After a delicious pie-in-a-tin dinner, that evening you settle into your favorite armchair to enjoy a healthy high-tar cigarette and a large tumbler of alcoholic brown. As you peruse the Cortina brochure, you turn to the back pages where the high-spec models are. There it is: the 2.3 V6 Cortina Ghia. Luxury with a capital L. That would wipe the smile off the face of the wanker next door with his bloody German 3 series BMW. He doesn’t even have a six-cylinder engine. Luckily there’s a Ford dealer next door to the pub where you have your lunchtime pints, so you can pop in between rounds to check out what colors are going to be available for 1983.

Except our off-the-peg-suited hard-working British executive would be in for the shock of his life — an automotive event so seismic it curled the kipper ties of Real Men up and down the land. The Cortina was dead, replaced in late 1982 Ford by a mass-market car that appeared to have arrived via a time portal from the future – the Sierra. It’s a car so alien and cold it was like being punched in the face with a Gary Numan album. Not many cars can claim to have altered the trajectory of car design, but the Sierra was definitely one of them.

1962 Ford Cortina MKI
1962 Ford Cortina MK I
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A Cortina in Cortina

First A British History Lesson

The Cortina first appeared in 1962. The idea was to create a modern family car that would be cheap to buy, easy to operate and economical to build. It set the template for the mass-market European saloon for the next couple decades – a monocoque body, simple rear-wheel drive mechanicals and carefully managed trim levels. The very name Cortina was meant to conjure up ideas of exotic European travel, as opposed to the stuffy saloons named after British university towns like Oxford and Cambridge that Austin sold.

Ford of Britain and Ford of Germany were still separate entities at the time, but Detroit pulled the strings from across the Atlantic. Executives, designers and engineers from the U.S. side frequently worked in Europe for a few years to gain experience and buff up their resumes. However, Roy Brown Jr, the same Roy Brown Jr who had designed the Edsel, was sent to the U.K. as a demotion for that crime and he drew the original Mk1 Cortina.

Moving Away From Detroit And Towards Europe

This transatlantic shuffling of staff is what led to a lot of British market Fords in the sixties and early seventies having a very American appearance – a similar thing happened at Vauxhall, GM’s British arm. Having separate Ford divisions in Britain and Germany was unsustainable long term, so in 1968 Detroit grabbed the corporate shotgun and forced the two companies into an unwilling marriage to form Ford of Europe. This led to European Fords turning away from Detroit stylistic influences towards a more formal, cleaner look first seen on the Mk2 Capri of 1974 and the Mk2 Escort of 1975 (shown below, with a Mk3 Cortina for comparison).

1970 Ford Cortina MK III
1974 Ford Capri MK II
1975 Ford Escort MK II

Despite looking reasonably modern, the mechanicals of these cars was just above an anvil in terms of sophistication. The OHC inline ‘Pinto‘ engine had been introduced to replace the old ‘Essex’ V4, but that was as advanced as it got. The Escort, Cortina, Capri and to a lesser extent Granada were all pretty much swappable regarding their RWD powertrains. This was great for keeping costs down and reliability up, but by the mid-to-late seventies they were beginning to lag behind the opposition. Throughout this period Ford of Europe’s business model was to take the bare minimum in terms of engineering, clothe it in handsome but safe styling, and then market the hell out of it. And it worked; between 1972 and 1976 the Cortina was Britain’s best-selling car, only overtaken by the smaller Escort.

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1976 Ford Fiesta MK I & 1980 Ford Escort MK III

A Rapidly Changing Market

But the Euro market was changing rapidly. Fuel economy was increasingly an important factor in buying decisions, and small cars were switching to FWD for efficiency reasons. The Fiat 127 of 1971 set the blueprint for the small FWD hatchback ‘supermini’ and scared the living shit out of every OEM across the continent. Ford was forced to play catch-up and came up with two brand new FWD models in quick succession to compete: the Mk1 Fiesta of 1976 and the Mk3 Escort of 1980. These shared very little with existing models – only a few Kent engines were carried over – so they cost an absolute bomb to design and develop. Then in 1981 came the new version of what was to be the Sierra’s main competitor, the FWD Vauxhall Cavalier.

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Vauxhall Cavalier

The Cavalier was GM’s J-Car, but unlike American models, the Vauxhall/Opel J-cars were well built with advanced engines and decent interiors. As well as coming as a traditional four-door saloon, they were also available as a five-door hatch, something that we will see was to wrong-foot Ford product planners spectacularly. Ford had been thinking about the Mk4 Cortina’s replacement way back in 1976, coming up with a series of concepts codenamed “Linda.”

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1976 Linda 4-Door
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1976 Linda 5-Door

Linda was an advance program by the designer of the Mk2 Escort RS2000, Tom Scott. Taking Giugiaro’s ideas of flat surfaces, deep side glass and sharp creases, Scott applied them to a three-box saloon with an angled, aero nose. The saloon version was more convincing than the awkward-looking five-door, which at the time Ford was expecting to be the biggest seller. Ford higher ups wanted the new car to look different to anything else, but Linda was deemed to be a step too far and too close to what Giugiaro was doing. They wanted something original, so when our old friend Bob Lutz was promoted to become president of Ford of Europe, he cancelled it and ordered an emergency refresh of the Mk4 Cortina to become the warmed-over Mk5. This would buy them a couple more years to come up with its replacement.

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1976 Ford Cortina MK IV
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1979 Ford Cortina MK V

Lutz knew the J-car based Cavalier was going to be front drive, and he pushed for the Cortina replacement to be the same – but there just wasn’t the money available. Ford was burning mountains of cash developing the new FWD Fiesta and Escort, so the Cortina replacement was going to have to use the existing RWD engines and gearboxes. Even though he was overruled, Lutz thought that if the new car could ride and drive like a BMW (where he had worked previously) and had a distinctive appearance, then maybe it wouldn’t be kneecapped by carrying over the existing powertrains. This constraint would turn out to be one of the defining factors in the decision to take a big step forward in terms of design.

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Ghia Project Toni Proposal
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Ghia Project Toni Proposal

Befitting their status as a satellite studio, Ghia was the first to be given the job of coming up with a proposal for what was now code-named ‘Toni.’ Their full-size model was very angular and too similar to the previous Linda idea that was scrapped. Lutz then asked Uwe Bahnsen, head of Ford’s Merkenich studio in Germany, to come up with some forward-looking ideas. Designer Gert Hohenester produced a series of sketches unlike anything that had ever been seen – a slick aero shape with five doors, a stubby tail and faired in light units.

How The Sierra Came To Be

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Gert Honenester’s Project Toni Sketches That Became The Sierra

Ford being Ford, they didn’t have the balls to go with the Merkenich idea straight away; not when they could waste a load of money first. Because the new car had to compete with Japanese imports in Europe, Ford thought that by concentrating on aerodynamics, they could make gains in performance and fuel economy despite having to use antiquated engines. Now the product engineers were starting to nail down their requirements, the Dearborn studio, Dunton in Essex and Ghia (again) were asked to submit alternatives. In the end, Ford had a mind-boggling 14 different full-size hard models fighting for space in the studio. Unsurprisingly the Dearborn models had a distinct Japanese influence, while the Dunton studio, knowing the U.K. market inside out, came up with something conservative that they hoped wouldn’t scare Cortina buyers. Ghia just threw a load of shit at the wall to see what would stick – their most convincing model was a sort of faceted, chisel nosed theme with thin pillars and an airy glasshouse.

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1979 Dunton ‘Future Cortina’ Full Size Model
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1979 Merkenich Proposal. Side Facing Camera Is 3 Door. Far Side Is 5 Door.

The weaker proposals were culled, and it came down to a choice between the Merkenich proposal, and Dunton’s ‘future Cortina.’ Lutz had fully committed himself to Bahnsen and Hohenester’s daring aero shape, but Henry Ford II absolutely hated it. In his view, Ford sold pleasantly styled normal cars with rugged mechanicals for the man on the street, not cutting-edge Euro weirdness like you might get from Citroen. And Ford was very aware of the failure of the NSU Ro80, another advanced for its time six glass saloon.

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1979 Italdesign Asso di Fiori Concept

Ford had no idea that Audi designers were putting aero efficiency front and center with the forthcoming 1983 100 (5000 in the US), but at the 1979 Tokyo show Italdesign revealed the Giugiaro-designed Asso di Fiori concept car. Commissioned by Isuzu and amusingly based on the GM T-car platform, Isuzu were so pleased it was rushed into production by 1980 essentially unaltered, as the Piazza (Impulse). Another Giugiaro concept much closer to the fivedoor Ford was designing, the Lancia Medusa, appeared at Turin in 1980. The acclaim these two cars received, and constant championing by Lutz convinced Ford management to choose the futuristic Merkenich Sierra proposal over the safer Dunton one. Ford had ironically scrapped Linda for being too close to Giugiaro’s thinking and were then encouraged by his work years later. In October 1979 the final design was signed off.

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1981 Ford Probe III Concept
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1981 Ford Probe III Concept

The Cortina for better or worse had been part of the fabric of working-class Britain for nearly three decades. It was the default family three box. Which trim level you drove defined your place on the social ladder. Line workers in the L, executives in the Ghia. Poet Laureate Sir John Betjemen immortalized the car in his 1974 poem ‘Executive’:

““I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner; I have a Slimline briefcase and I use the firm’s Cortina.”

Ford knew they would have a hard time convincing existing customers, so they decided to produce a concept to start warming the public up to their radical new car. The Probe III was unveiled at the Frankfurt show in 1981 and had undergone a full aero optimization program as well as the typical concept glow-up; covering the wheels, bolting on a biplane rear spoiler and blending the door mirrors into the A-pillar resulted in a cd of 0.25.  The production car eventually ended up with a figure of 0.34, much better than any of its class rivals.

Launching A Spaceship

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1982 Ford Sierra GL

The Sierra was finally revealed at the 1982 Birmingham Motor Show to the deafening sound of crickets. Initially only available in five-door hatchback and estate (station wagon) body styles. It looked so unlike anything seen before – and from Ford of all people? The press and public alike quickly christened it a ‘jelly mold’. Where was the boot (trunk)? What on earth was this thing?

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1982 Sierra Saloon
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1982 Sierra GL
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1982 Sierra Ghia

The Sierra was a radical take on the family car. Their commendable commitment to aerodynamics meant the Sierra had bonded front and rear glass, one-piece door stampings, faired-in headlights and bumpers and once you got above the base model, full-width featureless wheel covers with small vents on the circumference for brake cooling. The mid-range l and GL models did have a grill of sorts, but it was molded into the nose in body color plastic. It wasn’t needed as cooling air for the radiator was ingested under the front bumper. Because buyers of the more expensive models would be more design literate, the upscale Ghia did away with this traditional flourish having a solid surface between the lights. The base model had bare unadorned flanks, and other versions had the slimmest of rubbing strips along the side.

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Interior Sketches, Probably 1979/80
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Sierra GL Dashboard

The Sierra stuck rigidly to modernist principles of progress through the application of science, technology and rationality. It was a stark and sparse car purged of all warmth and emotion. There are no unnecessary trim pieces, vents or external decoration. On the Inside, it was no less of a revolution. Gone was the Cortina’s flat dashboard with switches placed by being fired out of a confetti cannon. In came soft touch injection moldings, a main instrument panel and console angled toward the driver, and ancillary controls organized around four zones according to their function. This focus on ergonomics and the driver was undoubtedly again a result of Lutz’s time at BMW.

Critics Liked It. The Public Didn’t

Professional design wankers like me venerated Ford’s bravery and commitment. Prominent design critic and cultural commentator Stephen Bayley managed to arrange a whole exhibition about the design of the car as part of his Boilerplate Project at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in 1982. Getting into a museum was one thing; getting the Sierra out of the showrooms was another. No one bought them. In this respect, Ford had been its own worst enemy. Anticipating some resistance to their avant-garde new model, they had stockpiled Cortinas at the end of its production run. These were now being offered at hefty discounts by beleaguered dealers desperate to shift some metal. Contemporary road tests highlighted another problem with the Sierra’s slipperiness – at high speeds it was susceptible to crosswinds. The hysteria reached such levels that Ford was forced to deny reports it was going to reintroduce the Cortina in order to maintain all important market share.

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1988 Sierra Sapphire

The crosswind issue was solved by adding small earlet trim pieces on the C/D pillar glazing. But the demand for a more traditional three-box Sierra was underlined in 1983 by the introduction of the Orion, an Escort with a boot. It would take Ford until 1987 to come up with the same for the Sierra, at which point they would take the opportunity to wind back the car’s austere appearance and tone down its modernity. It gained trim garnishes, the featureless face was banished in favor of a friendlier design, the flat aero wheel trims were binned for more funky, visually interesting ones and the Sapphire (the name given to the three box) had a conventional radiator grill. Before those revisions, in the meantime they had another trick up their sleeve to solve the Sierra’s image problem – in 1985 they picked up the phone and called their old friends at Cosworth….

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1988 Sierra Five Door

It took more than a year but by the end of 1983 the Sierra was finally selling well  – I’ve mentioned it before but the Ford UK sales and marketing department knew exactly how to sell cars in those days. It was never quite number one in the UK, usually beaten by the Escort, but it was usually number two or three in the best sellers charts. It traded sales blows with the Cavalier throughout the eighties and into the early nineties when competition from the mainland got its shit together and invaded. It sold strongly on the continent as well, where they are not so hung up on notions of tradition and class. Ford kept updating it – after the 1987 facelift it was tarted up again and finally given newer engines in 1990 to keep it going until it was replaced in 1993. In the ten years it was on the markeet nearly 1.3 million Sierras were sold, making it the tenth best selling car in the UK of all time. Overall it sold more than 2.7 worldwide.

Every revolution has casualties. With the Sierra they were Bob Lutz, Patrick Le Quement and Uwe Bahnsen. Lutz was so convinced the Sierra would make a good captive import and BMW competitor he pushed for the hot version of the car, the XR4i to be turned into the Merkur XR4Ti for the US market, where it failed miserably. This prevented him getting the top job at Ford, and he left for Chrysler in 1986. Le Quement didn’t get the Head of Design job, and consequently left for Renault where he went on to even greater success in the nineties. Bhansen ended up teaching in Switzerland.

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1990 Ford Escort MK V

The Sierra’s Impact and Aftermath

Although he venerated it at the time, Bayley has since argued that the cool public reaction to the Sierra made Ford risk-averse in its designs for the next twenty years. I’m not so sure that holds. Ford learnt the lessons of the Sierra’s design very quickly. The similarly revolutionary ’86 Taurus, which was as much of a financial gamble as the Sierra had been, debuted with a small grill opening and more exterior trim, particularly around the side glazing. Although the legendarily awful 1990 Euro Escort was rightly panned as another ‘bare minimum’ car, by the time the Sierra’s replacement, the Mondeo (Contour/Mystique) was released in 1993 it represented a massive leap forward in how Ford designed and engineered its cars.

The Sierra, and to a lesser extent the Cavalier, as market leader set the template for others to follow. Coinciding with the increasing use of digital tools in the studio, by the late eighties most cars had adopted tapered headlights, slim or no grille and six glass side profile. It got so bad in 1990 Car Magazine ran its famous ‘Euro Car Clones – Who’ll Put a Stop to Dead End Design?’ cover. Which makes it all the more infuriating when armchair designers point to that particular period as being a high-water mark. If anything the eventual success of the Sierra emboldened Ford to take more creative risks – the KA and the Focus were just as shocking yet found market acceptance almost immediately when they were released.

Sorry, the high-water mark was October 1982. You just weren’t paying attention.

As a British car designer of a certain age, the Sierra story holds a certain resonance for me, but as a refresher I used the following sources and highly recommend them as further reading:

Cars: Freedom, Style, Sex, Power, Motion, Colour, Everything – Stephen Bayley

Secret Fords: Volume One – Steve Saxty

AROnline: Ford Sierra Development Story – Keith Adams

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111 thoughts on “The Radical Ford That Changed The Trajectory Of Automotive History

  1. Excellent summary! Couple of things to add that didn’t help the Sierra’s introduction were that a month before launch, Vauxhall significantly upped the specs of the Cavalier. For example the L (one up from basic) got a radio/cassette. Sounds laughable but for a company car driver who can’t add any extras it was a Big Deal. Then the Cavalier 1.6 had 90hp vs the Sierra’s 75hp. And then Vauxhall introduced a 1.8i engine that took advantage of company car tax rules and created the SRi which was compared favourably to the BMW 316/318i at the time. And the Ford bean counters made the poverty spec models look really basic (see the unpainted nose in one of the photos) to differentiate between base/L/GL/Ghia. After a year Ford matched the Cavalier specs and made visual tweaks to make the lowlier models look more upmarket.

    1. Good additional info, thanks. I didn’t want to get too into the weeds trying to explain exactly how carefully calibrated the trim levels were and what it meant to potential buyers, we’d have been here all week.
      “The social strata of the United Kingdom 1980 to 1995 and how it relates to trim and equipment levels of mass market salons of the time” could have been my fucking masters dissertation except 15000 words wouldn’t have been enough.

  2. I remember all the fuss about the Sierra when it came out, but I never really understood why. It just looked like a normal car instead of an old car.

    For context: during my childhood my dad had two Citroen GSs and was rocking a CX by the time the Sierra came out. “Normal” to me was spaceship to everyone else.

  3. Excellent summary, thanks Adrian.

    The Sierra’s final design and the 1990 Escort generation were awful awful awful.

    The Escort had had some personality in the mid 1980s. The XR3i had a mean bulldog stance and attitude:

    https://www.classicandsportscar.com/sites/default/files/styles/article/public/2022-12/Classic%20%26%20Sports%20Car%20%E2%80%93%20Ford%20Escort%20XR3%20XR3i%20buyer%E2%80%99s%20guide%20%E2%80%93%20lead.png?itok=Chck0bcj

    https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ2fie4prq9ddKjNJEYCjaCy31U6qyMc3CoMw&usqp=CAU

    In comparison the 1990 model was a disaster.

    The final Sierra lost everything that made the OG sierras special. That car did not need a trunk. Or those headlights. The first-gen Ghia model was fabulous and the Sapphire was a real letdown.

    And the Orion was possibly the ugliest, most gormless car ever designed in Europe outside of maybe Italy. It looked like an Escort wearing a very full diaper. Look at this abomination. And this is the prettier Ghia version.

    https://c8.alamy.com/comp/BKK7G7/ford-orion-16-ghia-1987-BKK7G7.jpg

    https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Orion#/media/File%3AFord_Orion_%C2%B484_front.jpg

    https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Orion#/media/File:Ford_Orion_%C2%B484_rear.jpg

    That said, the Sierra eventually got a bigger brother, the Scorpio, and that thing was beautiful, with a lot of presence.

    https://s.car.info/image_files/1920/ford-scorpio-front-side-nossebro-motorlordag-2019-1-760664.jpg

    And a great butt:

    https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Scorpio#/media/File%3AFord_Scorpio_rear_20080414.jpg

    1. I thought you must have had some horrific vision problem until I clicked on the links. In the UK the “Scorpio” was called the Granada. The Scorpio was what they called it in the UK after 1994 when they put the front of a Daimler Dart on it and made it look both hideous and unhappy.

        1. The top trim level started off as the Granada Scorpio and then became the Scorpio Granada cos marketing. Then later became the fish face Scorpio Captain Muppet remembers.

          1. The fish face Scorpio was a direct response to that Car Magazine article that Adrian referred to. A lot of cars were facelifted with hastily-added chrome grilles in 93-94

  4. The Merkur brand was a terrible execution of a great concept, so bad that I had to add the name to Firefox’s dictionary.

    Take a new, never before heard of nameplate, give it a name that no one can pronounce without help (I knew how to pronounce it only because my dad sold them), and then charge more money than pretty much everything else on the lot. They could have been sold cheaper as Mercurys because there’d be no branding costs to cover.

    The prestige of BMW and Mercedes-Benz was earned over decades (yes, a lot of it was hype). You can’t just siphon off some of that with a fancy, Euro-sounding name (to someone who has never been to Europe) and a captive import of a car that’s considered pretty basic in its homeland.

      1. I’m not sure why they weren’t badged as Mercurys, but there was a good reason. I’m away at the moment but when I get home I’ll check Secret Fords and report back.

        1. By that time, Mercury had so much baggage as just tarted up Fords. The demographic that Mercury was after were those folks who were slightly older and more established than the Ford buyer, but not quite as well heeled as the Lincoln buyer. Throw a little extra gingerbread, maybe a unique roofline (see Cougar, Topaz, Sable)… but it’s still the same Ford.

          The type of buyer that Ford and Lutz were looking for in the Merkur wasn’t the type of buyer that would even consider a Mercury. The choice of the name Merkur was way to close to Mercury, so the same distinction was made..that’s just a Mercury.

          You couldn’t really sell it as a Ford, because that showroom was already filled with the Mustang SVO, Mustang GT, and the Thunderbird TurboCoupe. And at the price they had to sell it at just to break even because it was being imported from Germany, it would have been an even tougher sell in the Ford showroom.

  5. “It’s a car so alien and cold it was like being punched in the face with a Gary Numan album.”
    God I love that description, and yes the Merkur XR4Ti landed in the US just like that.

  6. Looking back it’s crazy to me that Ford put so much work into this car and in the US they created the Tempo. Why did we not get this in the States? Probably would have required a trunk to be available from day one. Hard to know how a “normal” Sierra would have sold with how poorly the XR4Ti did here, but I think that’s because they stupidly created a division for that car instead of just selling it as a Ford.

    1. There would have been a lot of cultural resistance within Ford to simply bringing over a European car, even if they decided to build it in the US.
      The XR4Ti would have been too expensive to sell as a Ford, because it was built in Germany and required a lot of reengineering for the US market.

      1. Federalization costs of the platform would have been absorbed by the greater number of sales due to the Sierra being the Tempo. This would have also created a four-door Sierra for buyers who wanted it from the beginning for sale in Europe. Basically more of an actual “world car” than the Escort was at the time, as the American Escort was always fairly different from ROW. The Merkur’s also had added costs incurred due to standing up a poorly named division just different enough to turn off everyone with no obvious gain. Clearly Ford wouldn’t have really missed it, since they killed that brand and Mercury as well, eventually.

        It’s a thought exercise that’s hard to know how it would have worked out; if potential customers walked into a showroom with a Tempo and a Sierra, with whatever their accurate sticker prices would have worked out to, which would have proven more popular?

        1. In this scenario, is the Sierra being assembled in the U.S. or Germany? Because, in addition to the confusing marketing strategy and hesitancy of traditional Mercury-Lincoln buyers to embrace a European car, the unfavorable DM-USD conversion rate really killed Merkur.

            1. Yeah they would have had to build the Sierra in the US. Not beyond the realms of possibility, and it probably could have worked. But, the Escort had been an absolute clusterfuck of a program and there’s no way US management would have accepted a car designed and engineer in Europe.

  7. I absolutely love geeking out about car styling with people who are able to communicate the intricacies of design language/details. Huge Adrian fanboi, love these articles that focus on design not as just a ‘whiz bang’ solution, but showing the actual process and evolution of the concepts/design directions. Also if you ever see vintage Car Styling magazine laying around, buy them. Even if they’re in half japanese. Best magazine ever.

    So, I recognize the Giugiaro concept as what later became the Isuzu Impulse/Piazza, but … what I heard was that Giugiaro’s team designed this car, originally for VW as the 2nd gen scirocco, and … idk what exactly happened, but VW didn’t go with the concept and didn’t want to pay for the work, and Giugiargo was pissed and went around and tried selling it to car companies, with Isuzu taking him up on it.

    Have you heard anything similar?

    1. I haven’t, but it’s entirely possible. The Mk2 Golf was done in house because VW design chief Herbert Schafer hated the Mk1. It’s possible the same thing happened with the Scirocco.

  8. Adrian, you may be a curmudgeonly goth with questionable taste in music, but you certainly know your design stuff, and you can certainly turn a phrase.

      1. In a tip of the hat to Kieran Phelan, one of my British design professors who told me that it was amazing how much trouble we had communicating when we are ostensibly speaking the same language, it’s spelt “spelled”.

    1. You could probably do a lot more with that Lima engine (basically a Pinto bored out to 2.3 and a turbo bolted on) than the Cologne V6 which is basically untuneable.

  9. I caved to the allure of the double rear wing and bought a used XR4Ti sometime around 1988. Turbo lag, sure. But it had two wings! Two! Unfortunately it eventually sported a leaky power steering rack, which, if I recall correctly, was about a grand just for the part. I traded it in on a brand spanking new YJ, which was actually more reliable than the XR4Ti.

  10. I absolutely loved the design of the awkwardly-named XR4Ti as a kid. I’d still love to have one.

    I even liked the design of the Scorpio hatchback. One of our neighbors in the Chicago suburbs had one and it looked like a damned spaceship compared to my Dad’s Oldsmobile Ciera.

    1. I’m of similar age, and I too loved them both as a kid. So cool and “Euro”…my father was driving a Volvo at the time, which while actually Euro, never looked it to my ’80s eyes.

    2. The Scorpio was an absolute revelation to drive in 1989 too, compared to the other American branded cars out there. It wasn’t quick, but it handled and drove *so much better* than any other Ford available in the US that it was unreal.

      The SHO Taurus was a lot faster and with a stick as the only transmission it was way more fun, but the Scorpio felt like it came from another world.

  11. The 1990 Escort that is featured towards the end of this article was an utter shitbox.

    Bland styling, carryover rough CVH engines because the 16v Zetec engines weren’t ready, downgraded rear suspension (the 80s car had fully independent, the 1990 had torsion beam), poor quality, sloppy handling, and truly terrible NVH.

    In every single magazine group test it came dead last, even though many rivals in those tests (Golf, Astra) were 5+ years old at this point and would be replaced in 1-2 years to leap even further ahead of the duff Escort.

    Yet it was the best thing to happen to Ford of Europe.

    Why? Because the backlash made them realise that they’d messed up badly and so engineers like Richard Parry Jones got in charge. Driving dynamics improved enormously and we got the Mondeo and the superb Focus. Almost every European Ford since then has been great to drive.

    1. Yeah I drove a 98 Euro Escort and while NVH was better than our 95 US Escort, overall we got the better car if you got a performance model with the Mazda engine since at that point it was a 323/Protégé wearing a blue oval

  12. Ford US was building Foxbody LTDs in two different factories, and perhaps mindful of the Sierra’s original lukewarm reception, chose to hedge their bets on the new Taurus by converting only one of the two to build the new car and continuing to make the midsize LTD at the other. When the Taurus proved a hit, they rushed the changeover of the second plant.

  13. I landed on the continent in early 1986. Initially, I flogged an ‘80 RX-7, but after a promotion, I looked to upgrade to a new ride. One of the vehicles I considered was an XR4x4. Interesting car. Ultimately, I chose a Saab 900 Turbo, which served me well for 30 years. I think I made the correct choice, but often wondered how the Ford would have held up if I’d selected it instead.

  14. “It’s 1982, and years of driving up and down Britain’s motorways on Important Company Business has paid off.”

    It’s a good thing the Austin Maestro Vanden Plas is about to become available, then, isn’t it?

  15. Question: was the Sierra any influence on the USDM Tempo (styling-wise I mean…don’t yell at me!). The Tempo didn’t come out until the mid-80s IIRC, and its overall look sure seems similar, esp. the c-pillar treatment.

    1. Almost certainly. Jack Telnack had been Ford VP of Design for Europe, and if he didn’t see the Project Toni proposals he would have been aware of what Europe were doing when he came back to the US.

      1. Did you ever meet him in your OEM days? I’ve heard he’s a really cool guy and remains demurely if pleasantly mystified at his iconic status in car culture.

  16. I seriously covet that Cortina woody wagon near the top.
    The early Sierras had such an odd look to the headlights (in my provincial teen eyes at the time) that it took me years to learn to look past them and appreciate the shape of the whole car.

  17. As a British kid in the early 1980s just getting into cars, the Sierra was like a space ship compared to the Cortina and the Mk3 Escort

    And the 3-door XR4i (with the extra pillar in the side window, and the double rear spoiler) was simply amazing.

    Another superb article from Adrian, thank you.

    1. Just to put it in context: in Argentina the Sierra was launched in 1984. The best selling car in 1983 had been the 1959 based Ford Falcon.
      The whole context: in december 10, 1983, we entered democracy. In june 6, 1984, the Sierra was introduced. We entered modernity in less than 6 months.

      1. As a Brazilian kid in the eighties I was so envious of the fact that you had the Sierra in Argentina while we were stuck with the “Corcel II”, based on a Renault design nearly as ancient as the Falcon’s.

        I also loved the Renault Fuego btw, I’d only know much later that they were much crappier than they looked … still, it would be nice to try to import and restore one of these beauties today, were it not for (still) the crazy paperwork involved …

        Anyway, great work from Adrian as always, brought back fond (even if somewhat envious) memories …

    2. For some reason I have an irrational dislike of ‘sales rep’ cars like the Sierra and Caviller. I don’t know why, but I still can’t help but think of them as boring.
      The Mondeo was ok though.

      1. They are the very definition of the mainstream car as transport, and nothing else. They’re quite boring from a strict enthusiast point of view, but the design and context surrounding them is fascinating.
        Hot ones are the only ones that a really interesting/cool these days.

  18. Here us a thought. Why don’t car companies take their top of line aging cars after development costs are covered down scale put a few minor changes and sell cheaper to junior execs? Then when they start showing up in the company lots the end honchos have to buy the newer and released afterwards with more bells and whistles or look like they are junior execs? Why redesign the cheaper level cars? Give them what they have been lusting for a few years?

    1. It’s just not economical to keep the old models around for a few thousand sales. You’ve got to remember they need to build cars by the hundreds of thousand for it to be profitable,

      1. And you don’t think giving people a BMW 318 for $10,000 less would sell better or as good as a similar priced brand new 6 cylinder Mustang? Not arguing just wondering. Because fans buy different than regulars. It also saves money on the required support after stopping build.

        1. Underestimating your customers is a dangerous undertaking. Regular people might not buy the same as fans, but they do buy on what’s fashionable, what the brand is and what’s the latest thing.

      2. I think VW has shown this can hold some merit by shuffling those older models to different markets, and still offering them for export.

        Examples being the Mk4 continuing in Brazil until 2013 – even exporting to Canada as a low-cost Golf, the VW Beetle/Type2 in Mexico & Brazil well after the rest of the world moved on, or whatever VW did over decades in China.

    2. They send them overseas instead. A large number of Euro cars went on to live very long lives in e.g. Argentina, Iran, north Africa, etc. The development costs are amortized over very long periods.

      1. Would that work in the 1st world? Everything amortized and you get a brand new bugs worked out nice ride for tens of thousands off what it sold for originally? Of course might make a mess of the used car market.

        1. It can work, but that doesn’t mean it’s always a good strategy. The original Dacias were based on old Renault underpinnings, but they weren’t sold as Renaults in the first world. Elsewhere they were.

  19. Fantastic post!

    I think you’re right to reject Bayley’s assertion that Ford design was risk-adverse for 20 years after the Sierra’s launch. The Escort was super conservative, but the Scorpio was a huge risk (that failed spectacularly).

    1. He’s usually bang on the money; I’ve met him and he’s so fucking smart, insightful and one of those people who can speak off the cuff for hours intelligently. The Escort was partly because of what happened to the Sierra but again also because there wasn’t a lot of money or resources or time. CDW27 was sucking up everything.

    2. Ford was weird at this point, they would often do huge risks, sometimes ill-advised risks – Jellybean Taurus – and then sometimes do things that were inexplicably conservative at the same time – Windstar without a driver’s side sliding door.

      Though I’m coming at it from the North American perspective it does seem international Ford was the same way.

    3. Another one was the ovoid 3rd generation Taurus/Sable – they wanted to do something as radical and dramatic as the 1st generation models, after playing safe with the 2nd gen, but bungled it big time by just being too weird

      1. And in Australia the 1998 AU Falcon was another one. A New Edge design but it came off looking droopy and overall not cohesive – not like other New Edge designs. Even the New Edge 2000 Taurus looked clean and cohesive despite carrying over the doors from the oval one before.

        1. Ford just sort of seemed to lose the plot. And that mk4 Taurus was a low effort hack job, an obvious sign that Ford was perfectly happy not retaking #1 anymore and living off whatever crumbs Honda and Toyota missed. At least the ugly oval one was actually the result of genuinely trying.

          1. Yep. Even beneath the skin they tried to make a better vehicle in the oval one like you said, and it was received well at the time by the press, but it didn’t help they tried to move it up in price at the same time others went down. Come to think of it that was maybe the last fully North American specific or designed new Ford passenger car outside of something like the Mustang – everything since borrowed/shared someone else’s underpinnings.

  20. You, sir, never disappoint. Home made baklava for you, indeed; just let me know whenever you happen to be in Central America.
    I’m at the office right now, my colleagues wondering why on hell I am clapping like an over-caffeinated walrus. They don’t know I learned to drive on an ’85 wagon.

    Thank you, Mr. Clarke. So much.

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