Avian connections

Attending marketing courses over 30 years ago was confusing in the extreme – tutors claiming car makers universally employed model and series names for successful vehicular marketing, rather than number and letter derived identification. Yours truly, being the ever-awkward soul, questioned this in light of the huge sales success of Mercedes-Benz, who employed such, on occasion followed by a descriptive word if appropriate.

Pre-Second World War examples included the sports/ racer series starting with K in 1926, S in 1927 and SS and SSKL the following year. Postwar, there were many ranges including 170, 180, 190, sports models coded 190SL (open) and 190SL Roadster (hard top), and the legendary 300SL Gullwing.

The tutors hit back, quoting the greater sales successes of Ford with model names including Cortina, Capri and Sierra, which they claimed were Mediterranean winds. Wrong. Give or take, the location is not too far off the mark, but winds – definitely not, and this had to be pointed out… I wasn’t invited back.

Cortina started life as ‘Project Archbishop’ and when launched in September 1962, its name was inspired by the Italian ski resort Cotina d’Ampresso. Developed as ‘Project Toni’ the Sierra, launched September 1982, was named after a Spanish mountain range and the January 1969 Capri, loosely styled on the US Ford Mustang, was named with a nod to the attractive island off the Italian coast, the retirement home of one of the UK’s favourite all-round entertainers, Rochdale born Dame Gracie Fields. However, this wasn’t