Having followed the progress of the recent Austin Montego project with interest, I was struck by a certain parallel with a car that I once owned – aFord Zephyr MkIV V4 Deluxe. Like the Montego, the Zephyr (and its big brother the Zodiac) were and still are fashionable cars to knock, and yet on the whole I very much enjoyed my three years of ownership. I have to concede, though, that even as someone with a bit of a soft spot for the MkIV Zephyr/Zodiac range, mine did have its Achilles’ heel.
If I may cite two recent examples of discrimination against the range from within these very pages (pause for sharp intake of breath!) I refer the reader to Classic Tails from December 2021 and to the Post-War Fords supplement of the Spring 2022 issue. In each of these the MkIV range is portrayed as something of a misfire by Ford, and so I’d like to try and redress the balance with some of my recollections of MkIV Zephyr ownership, though in reading through my first draft I did begin to doubt my own sanity in those far off days. Incidentally, all photographs were taken on something called ‘film’ (younger readers, get Googling) using a camera that wasn’t part of a phone and was built to last a lifetime.
I wasn’t especially looking to change my car when the offer of KDR 948G came along from a friend. At the time I owned a 1970 H-reg Cortina Mk2 1600. This would have been in 1979 and so my daily driver Cortina was
