The best cars ever made by Ford
Nearly half a century after it was introduced, the RS1800 is still regarded as one of the most exciting rally cars ever made. Many examples are competing today, several of them based on brand new bodyshells.
Ford Fiesta (1976)
Ford was a late entry into the European supermini class, already populated by the Fiat 127, Renault 5 and such, but the Fiesta was triumphant when it finally arrived. The first Ford with a transversely mounted engine driving the front wheels, it looked fabulous, had a reliable power source, and was efficiently spacious for its size.
The engine, known as Valencia, was actually an adapted Kent, offered initially in 957cc and 1117cc forms, then as a 1.3-litre and eventually, in the XR2 (pictured), as a 1.6. One major consequence of the Fiesta was that generations of young people would first learn to drive on – and inevitably also come to own early in their lives – a Ford.
Ford Ranger (1982)
The first Ford-badged compact pickup truck sold in North America was the Courier, which was to all intents and purposes a second-generation Mazda B-Series. While this worked well for both companies, providing extra revenue for Mazda and a straightforward entry into a new market sector for Ford, the latter soon decided it was time to create a small truck of its own.
The resulting first-generation Ranger bore some resemblance to the contemporary F-Series, but it was far smaller. Despite strong competition from the Chevrolet S-10 and its corporate cousin, the GMC S-15, the Ranger was a success, and remained on sale for a full decade before being replaced by a new version which looked very different but was mechanically similar.
Ford Sierra (1982)
Retaining rear-wheel drive for a medium-sized European family car in the early 1980s did not suggest forward thinking, but the main public objections to the Sierra on its introduction were that it looked (or was said to look) like a jelly mould and it wasn’t called Cortina.
The fuss soon abated, and the Sierra quickly became a common sight on roads across Europe. As usual, the choice of engines was very wide, and you could have a hatchback, an estate or a three-box saloon, though the latter was called Sapphire. There were even four-wheel drive versions.
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