For those interested in old cars.

[MrWolf]

That roadster pickup is very nice.

Forget Ferraris, that's on my lottery win list! 

As is banjo lessons...

[Enterprisingwestern]

5 hours ago, MrWolf said:

That roadster pickup is very nice.

Forget Ferraris, that's on my lottery win list! 

As is banjo lessons...

 

, and ear plugs for Mrs W?

 

Mike.

[great central]

10 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

Nice, but not a 2000E (though the wheel trim is) as it has the waist line chrome trim. Because the door handles had been designed to match the chrome trim they used a slightly different design on the 2000E where it wasn't present. Other 2000E features were a vinyl roof, a different front grille (with horizontals rather than mesh) and a aluminium/black trim piece incorporating '2000E' across the lower edge of the boot. I think two round reversing lights on the panel below the boot were also part of the package.

While the Corsair was basically a slightly lengthened Mk.1 Cortina with new front and rear and door skins, it held it's own stylistically. The chrome grille on the rear pillar shows it is a 1965 onwards 'aeroflow' model, so it should have one of the V4 engines.

 

I had a 2000E for a few weeks towards the end of it's life, FEY949E, an Anglesey registration if memory serves how it ended up in Nottingham in 1978 I've no idea.

 

Bought from auction for £50 including indemnity fee.

Needed a temporary car for a short time, the radiator leaked so I pointed the overflow pipe out of the side of the bonnet, when it blew steam I knew it needed water. Poured cold water straight in, you could hear it boiling as it went round the engine!

The ignition key barrel was so worn you could take the key out with the engine running, good job it wasn't a steering lock one!

Originally brown it had been painted purple and then black by hand I think.

There were no sills to speak of just a jagged rust eaten bit of thin steel in each side. 

Bought with about 3 Months MOT, I ran 6000 miles in 10 weeks, including a couple of weeks of daily trips to Grimsby. 

To it's credit it never let me down and I finally took it to another auction site, with a couple of weeks MOT still to run, where someone offered me £50 before it hit the auction floor. I took his money, withdrew from the auction and made a quick escape!

 

Edited April 2, 2021 by great central
Extra words

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

, and ear plugs for Mrs W?

 

Mike.

 

Unlikely, she's more than capable of drowning me out with her saxophone. She's one of those annoying people who have natural musical ability. 

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, great central said:

 

I had a 2000E for a few weeks towards the end of it's life, FEY949E, an Anglesey registration if memory serves how it ended up in Nottingham in 1978 I've no idea.

 

Bought from auction for £50 including indemnity fee.

Needed a temporary car for a short time, the radiator leaked so I pointed the overflow pipe out of the side of the bonnet, when it blew steam I knew it needed water. Poured cold water straight in, you could hear it boiling as it went round the engine!

The ignition key barrel was so worn you could take the key out with the engine running, good job it wasn't a steering lock one!

Originally brown it had been painted purple and then black by hand I think.

There were no sills to speak of just a jagged rust eaten bit of thin steel in each side. 

Bought with about 3 Months MOT, I ran 6000 miles in 10 weeks, including a couple of weeks of daily trips to Grimsby. 

To it's credit it never let me down and I finally took it to another auction site, with a couple of weeks MOT still to run, where someone offered me £50 before it hit the auction floor. I took his money, withdrew from the auction and made a quick escape!

 

 

They had an unfortunate habit of dissolving in our weather. Oddly enough I bought a Bedford CA camper from Shirebrook, Notts. registered BEY696B and towed it back to South Wales. It had been rolled into a ditch and someone had made a very bad job of trying to repair it. Rather than trying to pull out the crushed nearside front inner wing and bulkhead, they had trimmed a bit off the trailing edge of the outer wing and fitted a brand new front panel. It was a real wreck with no interior and most of the external trim missing. But, it did yield enough bits to get two other vans and a pickup back on the road.

 

 

Edited April 2, 2021 by MrWolf
Typing with hind paws again...

[PatB]

16 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

Nice, but not a 2000E (though the wheel trim is) as it has the waist line chrome trim. Because the door handles had been designed to match the chrome trim they used a slightly different design on the 2000E where it wasn't present. Other 2000E features were a vinyl roof, a different front grille (with horizontals rather than mesh) and a aluminium/black trim piece incorporating '2000E' across the lower edge of the boot. I think two round reversing lights on the panel below the boot were also part of the package.

While the Corsair was basically a slightly lengthened Mk.1 Cortina with new front and rear and door skins, it held it's own stylistically. The chrome grille on the rear pillar shows it is a 1965 onwards 'aeroflow' model, so it should have one of the V4 engines.

I've always thought Ford's middleweight  family saloon policy in the early 1960s was a bit of a dog's breakfast. Given time taken to shift old stock, it wouldn't especially surprise me to find that there was a short period during which you could buy, new, four different models (Consul, Classic, Cortina and Corsair), all roughly the same size, all intended to do much the same job. Whilst Ford clearly eventually settled on the Cortina as their staple saloon offering, there seems to have been a period when they lacked focus. Or, I suppose, were big and successful enough to try out a few large scale market research exercises to see what would work in the longer term. 

Edited April 3, 2021 by PatB

[MrWolf]

I suspect that they were testing the waters, though it is obvious that some of the models weren't destined for greatness. The Consul Classic should have been launched for the 1958 model year style wise and might then have taken the big export money away from the rival Vauxhall Victor, which was a radical design for March 1957. The Consul mk2 375, despite gaining disc brakes, still had such things as vacuum wipers. It was an advanced design in 1956, based upon the 1954 US Ford's, whereas the Vauxhall range was still largely based on 1949/50 Chevrolets.

The Corsair, whilst neat and streamlined, was still really a 1961 American car in miniature. The Cortina, despite its heavily sculpted panels and "ban the bomb" tail lights (plus, from having owned an early one, the most confusing switches ever.) managed not to look dated alongside it's nearest rival Vauxhall FB, until the new model came out in '64 with its slab sides, which at least made the Corsair look fashionable until 1967.

I think that Ford thought on their feet and looked at where design trends were going. Of course the master stroke came in the early 80s with the Sierra, because within a year or two, everything looked like a Sierra, continued to do so and Mr Wolf loses all interest in cars. 

 

When I was about seven, I thought I wanted to design cars when I grew up. By the time I was ten, I realised that was a stupid idea.

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

5 hours ago, MrWolf said:

The Cortina, despite its heavily sculpted panels and "ban the bomb" tail lights (plus, from having owned an early one, the most confusing switches ever.)

 

My dad had a grey Cortina, 136 FWT which I also drove in my early years, a most strange switch arrangement, although quite simple compared the "new Mini's", which, unless they've (hopefully) been redesigned have a confusing array of non matching switches, not very clearly or sensibly marked scattered buckshot style all over the passenger compartment, I mean, why would you need different coloured interior lights?!

 

Mike.

[BernardTPM]

6 hours ago, PatB said:

I've always thought Ford's middleweight  family saloon policy in the early 1960s was a bit of a dog's breakfast. Given time taken to shift old stock, it wouldn't especially surprise me to find that there was a short period during which you could buy, new, four different models (Consul, Classic, Cortina and Corsair), all roughly the same size, all intended to do much the same job.

The 'Mk.II' Consul was discontinued in 1962, the Cortina introduced that year, the Corsair replacing the Classic in 1963, so really it's not that confusing (well except they were all called Consul at least in part*) and overlapping of old and new is unavoidable unless you deliberately create a break in availability**. The important point is that the Corsair, unlike the Classic, was relatively cheap to develop, being an extended Cortina. The Mk.III 'Z' cars were a little bigger than their Mk.II predecessors so the Corsair provided an extra step in the ladder at low cost to Ford. In fact it was a very similar size to the Victor FB and FC models, BMC's 1.6 Farinas or the Humber Sceptre so clearly there was demand there.

 

* Consul 375, Consul Classic 315, Consul Capri, Consul Cortina, Consul Corsair - the last two lost the Consul part of the name in 1964 and 1965 respectively.

 

**  e.g. Ford Capri, Vauxhall Tigra. Both models were discontinued and, after a gap, the name came back on a similar vehicle but on new underpinnings.

[Northmoor]

8 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I think that Ford thought on their feet and looked at where design trends were going. Of course the master stroke came in the early 80s with the Sierra, because within a year or two, everything looked like a Sierra, continued to do so and Mr Wolf loses all interest in cars. 

 

Whether it was a master stroke or not is open to debate.  Remember, initial reaction of the car-buying public to the Sierra was a resounding NO. Ford knew the only way to overcome this resistance was to get the public familiar with the shape, to get enough sold so that it appeared "normal".  To achieve that, Ford are believed to have intentionally lost £1000 per car sold in the UK for at least the first year (that's probably over 20%) in order to flood the market.  Their competitors obviously didn't have the financial might to match this (Auston Rover certainly couldn't, although their range was very tired by 1982 anyway).

[RJS1977]

I can remember as a boy crying my eyes out the day my father drove to work in his chestnut brown Cortina Estate company car (which I loved) and came back in a Sierra. Of course, I got used to it, and he had two more Sierras after that, the third of which he purchased on retirement and continued to drive for a number of years before trading it in for a Punto.

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

Whether it was a master stroke or not is open to debate.  Remember, initial reaction of the car-buying public to the Sierra was a resounding NO. Ford knew the only way to overcome this resistance was to get the public familiar with the shape, to get enough sold so that it appeared "normal".  To achieve that, Ford are believed to have intentionally lost £1000 per car sold in the UK for at least the first year (that's probably over 20%) in order to flood the market.  Their competitors obviously didn't have the financial might to match this (Auston Rover certainly couldn't, although their range was very tired by 1982 anyway).

There was initial resistance to the Sierra, primarily because of the radical shape compared to the boxy Cortina everyone and their Uncle were used to.

But it was borne out of the wind tunnel and we had quite a few Audi 100 vehicles in for wind tunnel comparison tests (Germany)......I remember early days of video editing we had a Rank Cintel special effects and graphics computer on loan (cost an absolute bomb back then) and for fun I took a Cortina image and stuck an Audi 80 nose on it, it actually looked quite smart, one of the “coloured crayon” chaps took a look and decided computer graphics was the way to go in design.......I never even got a thank you! 

[RJS1977]

To be fair, I thought the Sierra looked a lot better when they redesigned the front end to incorporate rounded headlamps.

[RANGERS]

On 02/04/2021 at 09:43, BernardTPM said:

Nice, but not a 2000E (though the wheel trim is) as it has the waist line chrome trim. Because the door handles had been designed to match the chrome trim they used a slightly different design on the 2000E where it wasn't present. Other 2000E features were a vinyl roof, a different front grille (with horizontals rather than mesh) and a aluminium/black trim piece incorporating '2000E' across the lower edge of the boot. I think two round reversing lights on the panel below the boot were also part of the package.

While the Corsair was basically a slightly lengthened Mk.1 Cortina with new front and rear and door skins, it held it's own stylistically. The chrome grille on the rear pillar shows it is a 1965 onwards 'aeroflow' model, so it should have one of the V4 engines.

Also missing the "winged" emblems on the rear quarter pillars, just above the vents. I can't believe the silver paint is original, it usually lasted about 20mins and numerous 2000 and 1600E's were resprayed within a few years. My own 1600E (NUT982F) started life in silver in 1968 but was repainted a horrible brown colour in about 1972, some of the paperwork that came with the car suggested the colour change was between Sept 1971 and May of 1974. No idea why anyone would pick such a dull colour for such a prestigious car, even at four or five years old.

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 hour ago, RJS1977 said:

To be fair, I thought the Sierra looked a lot better when they redesigned the front end to incorporate rounded headlamps.

 

Remind me, which was the front end?!!

 

Mike.

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, RANGERS said:

 I can't believe the silver paint is original, it usually lasted about 20mins and numerous 2000 and 1600E's were resprayed within a few years. My own 1600E (NUT982F) started life in silver in 1968 but was repainted a horrible brown colour in about 1972, some of the paperwork that came with the car suggested the colour change was between Sept 1971 and May of 1974. No idea why anyone would pick such a dull colour for such a prestigious car, even at four or five years old.

I take it the colour wasn't Saluki Bronze, the factory colour of my mate's 1968 Twin-cam?

[w124bob]

More 2cvishness, a couple of lovely period garage street scenes crying to be modelled. 

 

Edited April 3, 2021 by w124bob

[PatB]

8 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

The 'Mk.II' Consul was discontinued in 1962, the Cortina introduced that year, the Corsair replacing the Classic in 1963, so really it's not that confusing (well except they were all called Consul at least in part*) and overlapping of old and new is unavoidable unless you deliberately create a break in availability**. The important point is that the Corsair, unlike the Classic, was relatively cheap to develop, being an extended Cortina. The Mk.III 'Z' cars were a little bigger than their Mk.II predecessors so the Corsair provided an extra step in the ladder at low cost to Ford. In fact it was a very similar size to the Victor FB and FC models, BMC's 1.6 Farinas or the Humber Sceptre so clearly there was demand there.

 

* Consul 375, Consul Classic 315, Consul Capri, Consul Cortina, Consul Corsair - the last two lost the Consul part of the name in 1964 and 1965 respectively.

 

**  e.g. Ford Capri, Vauxhall Tigra. Both models were discontinued and, after a gap, the name came back on a similar vehicle but on new underpinnings.

Not saying it was confusing, just that Ford had a lot of similar models covering the same market segment over a short period of time. OK, I'll concede that the Consul was long in the tooth and due for withdrawal and replacement, and, as such, the Classic made some sense, but it ended up an orphan that didn't really tie to anything else, apart from a bit of common DNA with the 105E Anglia. Then the Cortina turned up in very short order, suggesting that Ford realised the Classic was a turkey with no long term future quite early in its production, given that you don't create and tool a new design overnight. And then, only a year later, the Corsair arrived ; a car which, sharp styling aside, had fairly limited point in a world which already contained the Cortina and the  Zephyr 4. Were the few extra sales to people who really wouldn't have bought one or the other worth the cost of tooling up and running a separate production line? 

 

Given that, in the 70s, Ford managed very nicely with the Escort-Cortina-Granada trifecta, supplemented with the Fiesta when the supermini boom got going, I would suggest that their 60s line up was over-complicated. At least BMC and Rootes tended to create internal competition for themselves by badge engineering basically the same car, rather than multiple different platforms aimed at the same market. If we gloss over the simultaneous availability of the Austin A40, Morris Minor and 1100/1300 range, or the same situation with the 1800 and the Farinas, anyway . 

[Northmoor]

43 minutes ago, PatB said:

If we gloss over the simultaneous availability of the Austin A40, Morris Minor and 1100/1300 range, or the same situation with the 1800 and the Farinas, anyway . 

Also one of the worst examples of competing with yourself instead of the foreign competition, the Triumph 2000/2500 and the Rover P6.

[BernardTPM]

Ford had a four car range for most of the '70s: Escort, Cortina, Capri, Granada.

I agree the Classic might have better been dropped rather than launched, but really the Corsair was an extension of the Cortina range, rather than a competitor to it, at least up to the revision of the Mk.II Cortina in 1968. They could have dropped it them though, at the time the Cortina 1600E came out and before the launch of the Capri.

BMC/BLMC just seemed to add more and more overlapping ranges and couldn't afford to consolidate and put things right in the '70s.

[Jol Wilkinson]

14 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Also one of the worst examples of competing with yourself instead of the foreign competition, the Triumph 2000/2500 and the Rover P6.

Perhaps they were rather ahead of their time, recognising the importance of the  "brand". Nowadays it is all important in getting the image conscious to part with their money and the other difference is that the platforms are the same while just the visible bits are different, so cutting costs and creating more profit.

[BernardTPM]

20 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Also one of the worst examples of competing with yourself instead of the foreign competition, the Triumph 2000/2500 and the Rover P6.

Of course, when they were developed they were two competing firms, not part of the same group.

 

[Hobby]

I was thinking the same thing, they were competitors from different companies originally.

 

A better example would be the Marina and Allegro.

[alastairq]

2 minutes ago, Hobby said:

A better example would be the Marina and Allegro.

 Wasn't the Marina initially [and finally?] aimed at the fleet market?

Also, the Allegro was a bit too modern tech compared to the Marina, so may not have appealed to those like us [automotive luddites?]?

 

Personally I like the Marina, in it's day. I once hired one to take family [and MIL] on a bit of a drivit holiday, around North Wales [before they got the quick in-&-out roads?]

Truly a busman's holiday in every sense.  

However, it was a 1.3 coupe, and I was impressed how it managed to carry 4 adults and a hooligan  around the mountains. 

I was also impressed by the amount of front passenger legroom it had, with the cut-away dash...my Missus of the time could sit and cross her legs, without hitting anything.   MIL happy in the back as well....

I had use of an Allegro estate much later....it felt a most disconnected car to drive.

 

Around the same time, a work colleague had a fairly new Escort Mex [mk2]. I  discovered the plastic used by Ford gave off an 'aroma' which made me heartily car sick as a passenger.

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, PatB said:

At least BMC and Rootes tended to create internal competition for themselves by badge engineering basically the same car, rather than multiple different platforms aimed at the same market. If we gloss over the simultaneous availability of the Austin A40, Morris Minor and 1100/1300 range, or the same situation with the 1800 and the Farinas, anyway . 

Brand loyalty was quite a big thing up until the 60's then it seemed to peter out. The Austin A40 and the 1100/1300 range gave a choice of front or rear drive but front wheel drive won out in the end. The Morris Minor was already an anachronism but people wanted to buy them nevertheless so BMC carried on making them. The 1100/1300 (ADO16) often outsold the Cortina, it was only due to the different badges and that sales were recorded by make that it wasn't apparent. When the Mk. IV coffin nosed Z cars were introduced the Corsair updated with the V4 engines fell into the gap created by the increasing size at the top of the range. Problem was the V4 wasn't Ford's greatest engine.

Edited April 3, 2021 by PhilJ W