All-Time Favourite Ford

Frequently the best-selling car in Britain, the Ford Escort amassed a total of more than 4.1million sales across its 33 years of manufacture. With the rise in popularity of SUVs, the Escort was discontinued in 2000 but let it not be forgotten that this small family car was treasured by many. And with six generations that drove into a rally car RS style, you’d have been hard-pressed not to have owned one growing up in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.
 
Arriving in a very close second was the Ford Capri with 18% of the vote. A fastback coupe that was built between ’68 and ’86, the Capri was designed by Philip T. Clark who was also involved in the design of the Ford Mustang.

The ‘Cortina in drag’ as it was affectionally known as had a premium look and feel to it, as initially the idea was for the Capri to become the Mustang of Europe. As such, the car you always promised yourself sold just shy of 2million but couldn’t quite reach the heights of the Cortina, which naturally was the best-selling car of the 70s in the UK.
 
The battle for the last podium position was intense and came down to the wire. A rampaging Ford Focus RS hit 8.7% of the vote, which was just ahead of the Ford Mustang II King Cobra with 8.4% but fell short of the race-bred 1966 Ford GT40 which rounded off the podium with sheer style and 8.9% of the vote.

Powered by the Ford V8 engines, the GT40 was launched by Ford to go head-to-head with Ferrari and win long-distance sports car races. Production of the GT40 began in ’64, the year Ferrari took their 4^th Le Mans crown in a row. In ’65 the Ford GT40 was unable to finish the race for a second consecutive year, allowing Ferrari to take an unprecedented 5^th title in a row. However, a year later with New Zealanders Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon behind the wheel, the GT40 did exactly what it was designed to do… knock Ferrari off their perch. That victory was followed up with 1^st place in the following 3 years for the GT40, equalling the record of 4 wins in a row for the same model car in Le Mans history.
 
As the Ford Escort takes the crown and joins the rest of our ‘Alternative Auto-Trader Award winners’, we’d like to take the nostalgic moment to breathe in the beauty of cars that have been and gone. The saying of ‘they don’t make them like they used to’ has never been truer than now, although this time, it’s not in a bad light. Could you really imagine lifting the boot of a Ford Escort to discover a sink that’s found in the versatile Ford Puma? Nope, us neither!
 
We demand more, so much more from our vehicle these days. Whether it’s taking the whole family, two dogs and the aforementioned kitchen sink on a staycation or transitioning your transit into a family car from a business vehicle, the cars of yesteryear wouldn’t quite fulfil our challenging demands. But we will never forget the joyous memories that Ford brought us with the likes of the Cortina, Escort and Capri.