As an Essex chap – I’m pretty much based in the heart of fast Ford territory. Nearby we have the Ford Technical Centre at Dunton, Trafford House in Basildon used to be the Headquarters for Ford UK, and a 40 minute drive away is Ford’s Dagenham plant – which was a pillar of the local economy back in the day.
There are families who live around here who have only had Fords for generations.
My dad was always quite a big Ford guy – he had Capris and Cortinas when I was younger and my Mum has had a number of Fiestas as there’s a big strong dealer network so getting it serviced etc has been super easy. That never genetically passed on I’m afraid. I respect Fords and there are several in the U.S market I’d like to own, but here I’m happy to respect from afar.
Our story today starts with the Lotus Cortina. In the 1960s Ford were looking at giving themselves a more exciting image and they figured they could do that by expanding into the world of motorsport.
Ford partnered with Lotus to build the twin-cam Lotus Cortina. 3000 were built and the car was massively successful in the British Saloon Car Championship.
At historic saloon car events across the country the Lotus Cortina is still a popular car in the Pre ’66 grid.
Ford moving into motorsport in the 1960s also created what I would argue to be their greatest car – the GT40. There was meant to be a 1968 Mk3 on display but it sadly wasn’t there on the day that I went.
There was, however, an example of the 2005 Ford GT which paid homage to the original LeMans winner.
Then in 2017 Ford released the next generation GT. This got quite a bit of hate on it’s release for having a twin turbo V6 rather than a V8, but the Ford engineers needed a compact powerplant in order to have the teardrop profile body.
I think the Ford engineers made the right call here. The V6 is plenty powerful enough and I think the design of that body is so nice.
In my opinion Ford really got this car right!
The teardrop shape of the centre of the body and external buttresses channel the air flow from around the car to the rear, pushing the back of the car into the ground when it’s at speed.
Outside of the GT line, the RS200 was another purpose built race car. These competed in the fantastic, albeit dangerous, Group B rally.
200 homologation cars were to be built, but Group B was cancelled before they could be finished. In total 144 and 148 were completed.
The Sierra Cosworth and Escort Cosworth were seen as the working man’s hero car at the time.
A silly little detail, but I really liked these locking centre caps on the Sierra. I like the way to design from the wheel carries on into the centre cap. As they lock it’s a little bit of added security too. Back in the day alloy wheel theft was quite common.
The Shelby GT500KR (King of the Road) was the top dog of Mustangs in 1968. the 428 cubic inch (7 litre) Cobra Jet V8 officially made 335bhp but most made closer to 400. They also had uprated brakes and suspension and that iconic fibreglass hood (bonnet) with the twin vents.
As mentioned earlier my Dad had a few Capris. He had a Mk3 3.0S before I was born. This is a 3.0S X-Pack which had a wider body, lower suspension and those lovely deep dish wheels.
And today we are saving the best for last. This is a Mk1 Capri Perana from Ford’s South Africa division. IT was powered by the 302 Windsor V8 from the U.S, in the small European Capri body. It won 12 of its 13 races in 1971 before rules changes retired it. Fewer than 500 of the road cars were built and only a tiny percentage left South Africa. This is a very rare and interesting little car!
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By Richard Francis
