Sometimes a car is less significant for what it is than what it represents, and the original Mercury Tracer definitely falls into this category. Although it had a Ford sibling, the Asia-Pacific market Laser, both…
Posts tagged Ford
Ford Fiesta Mk1: The Blue Oval’s Supermini
“Mini cars,” Henry Ford II infamously once said, equal “Mini profits.” Ironically, what he’d have termed a “mini” car turned out to be the Blue Oval’s most important product of the 1970s: the Mk1 Ford…
Ford Festiva: The Cult Favorite
As is often the case with the cheapest new cars, nobody expected very much of the Ford Festiva. When new, it was a bottom-feeder. It was a cut above similarly cheap cars like the Hyundai…
1968 Ford LTD: The Brougham Branches Out
Over the course of about 25 years, the LTD name filtered through dozens of family Fords, from the biggest and broughamy-est land yachts of the 1970s to a midsize Fox variation in in the 1980s…
Ford Fairmont: The First Fox
The Ford Fairmont was Dearborn’s first “downsized” car. Unlike GM, Ford started at the middle of its lineup post-OPEC and worked outward. But like GM’s “Project 77” cars, what became the Fairmont actually started off…
Mazda Navajo: Kentucky, not Hiroshima
“America builds one for the Japanese!” read the headline introducing the Mazda Navajo. It came after almost two decades of American brands offering “captive import” Japanese vehicles (starting in the early 1970s with the Dodge…
Ford Bronco Mk1: A Horse Untamed
It could be fairly said that 1964 was Ford’s year of the horse. That April, Ford’s epoch-defining Mustang debuted at the New York World’s fair. The Mustang not only created an entirely new market, it…
SUV Mania: 1993 Ford Explorer Limited
The year was 1985. Just a year earlier, famous auto exec and future Chrysler and GM product Czar Bob Lutz had returned to Dearborn, Michigan. He was still working for Ford then, and fresh off…
Ace Archbishop: Ford Cortina Mk1 GT
In the 1950s, English Fords had done quite well in the USA, but aside from the Anglia they had been swept aside by the Falcon. But the Falcon didn’t compete directly with the smallest cars…
Square to Flair: 1966 Ford Thunderbird
“Sports car” fans were furious when Ford added two rear seats to the Thunderbird in 1958 – but they were the only ones who disliked it. Ford GM Lewis Crusoe had seen the original T-bird…
French Flathead: Simca Vedette Trianon
The Simca Vedette began life as the Ford Vedette – and its history is as complex as a Château Latour red. This Vedette Trianon, the base model at the time, dates from 1955, a period…
Ford’s Roadrunner: 1969 Ford Torino Cobra
Despite the slightly earlier arrival of the 1964 Plymouth Barracuda, Ford was the first company to introduce a compact-based “pony car” as they became popularly known – and it took GM, Chrysler, and AMC until…