DATABASE: FORD CORTINA (1962-1982)

Mk1 SPECIFICATIONS

It’s not that often that a car – one that became a major success story – came about as the result of a nose being put out of joint. But that’s what happened when Sir Patrick Hennessy, Chief Executive of Ford of Britain heard that Ford Germany was building a new small saloon that would not only be sold in the USA as a Beetle competitor but also sold in all of Ford’s European showrooms.

This was the postwar era when not everything made in Germany was warmly welcomed and Dutch customers would buy thousands of Cortinas over the Taunus. The Taunus project came to nothing in the USA.

The Cortina was designed and put into production in just 21 months in a “we’ll show’em” moment of inspiration. More than just a car, it transformed and modernised Ford Britain as a company and also dramatically changed the UK car market.

THE FIRST CORTINA ARRIVES

The Cortina Mk1 was the Ford that probably surprised Ford itself. Whilst the 1950 Mk1 Consul and Zephyr dragged the firm out of the sidevalve age and into the modern world, the first Cortina is the car that really put Ford on the map in the UK. It gave Ford the means to sell a lot of cars and make a lot of money because the previous cars had been surprisingly lean on profits. The 1961 Ford Classic is a prime example. You can say what you like about the styling but it arrived two or three years too late. It was solidly built and thus very heavy and also cost a lot to make and even at a modest profit, it was too expensive. Whilst BMC seemingly tried to find out how much money they could spend building the 1100, Ford went the other way.

The Cortina was a masterpiece in production engineering. It was light, with a bodyshell built along the lines of stressed aircraft fuselage design. There was no boot floor because once the big flat fuel tank was bolted in, there was your boot floor right there under the standard rubber boot mat. Everything was designed to be just strong enough, the first Ford not to be grossly over engineered. Rally experience with the later 1500GT showed that just strong enough was, well, strong enough. Nobody ever really broke a Cortina Mk1.

Project Archbishop began in early 1960 under Roy Brown Junior, stylist of the unfortunate Ford Edsel. The story goes that he’d been posted to Britain as some sort of punishment but he certainly redeemed himself.

With an 1198cc engine giving 48 bhp and driving through a four speed all-synchro box, the Cortina was launched in September 1962 just