10 forgotten Fords

Delving into the Blue Oval archives

In the 1970s and ’80s, Ford Design was the place to work. It attracted the top talents because they knew they would be trained well, their skills sharpened in battle against each other, and they’d be paid handsomely.

It was an irresistible mix that spawned the team that created icons such as the Capri and the original Fiesta, and eventually reinvented car design – for better or worse – with the Sierra. After that, in the mid-’80s, the team began to fragment, and its members went on to glittering careers leading design at Porsche, Volvo, Renault, Jaguar and BMW Technik.

Much of this work, along with projects from Ford’s in-house carrozzeria, Ghia, has remained unseen since. I’d always wanted to write a book that takes the reader behind a car maker’s locked doors to see why key decisions were made and what was abandoned along the way. As late Jaguar design boss Geoff Lawson said: “Good design is the ability to know what to leave on the cutting room floor.”

Along the way I persuaded many designers, and Ford itself, to tell previously untold stories, and to reveal private sketches and photos of one-offs and prototypes. The result is a two-decade odyssey via marvels, might-have-beens and monstrosities.

1. Capri Kammback

The theory behind aerodynamics wasn’t totally understood during the 1920s and ’30s. So it’s no surprise that the classic ‘teardrop’ shape was in fashion for a while; a tapered rear is slippery, but not so easy to reverse park.

Wunibald Kamm’s solution was to abruptly chop the back off the teardrop, leaving designers to forever wonder if they could make a good-looking Kamm-tailed car.

Ghia’s interpretation wouldn’t win many style awards, but it was slippery and bravely tried to reinterpret the Capri for the late ’80s. The Capri Kammback’s designers were certainly bold, and surprisingly proud when they said: ‘This proposal has a unique and distinct personality – combining the sporty image of the Capri with the functional characteristics of a station wagon. The Kammback features seating for four with access through the tailgate or through centre-hinged wrap-over quarter windows, allowing easy curbside loading.’

Astonishingly, this Capri was created in Italy at the behest of Ghia’s German bosses without the knowledge of the Cologne design team.

Anorak fact The badge on the rear reads ‘Capri III’ because Ford insisted on calling the late-’70s facelifted model the Capri II

2. Project P-229

At first glance this car looks like an attractive 1990s design, but it’s not. This 1983 proposal was another of Ford’s attempts to style a small coupé and remains startlingly fresh after all these years, with a hint of retro-futurism like one of those ’50s flying cars you’d see in comics at the time.

It’s no wonder that it’s special considering the provenance of its dream team of designers, Pinky Lai (Porsche), Ian Callum (Jaguar) and Thomas Plath (BMW Technik). The first full-sized model was so exciting that the three designers flew to Hiroshima to refine it at Mazda. The plan was to base it on the upcoming Mazda 323, so a production-feasible second model was made.

Wilder ideas such as the flying-car-style rear wings were toned down, and the flush-fitting backlit numberplate was swapped for a conventional one. Ford was keen to work more closely with Mazda, but it wasn’t to be on this car – instead, we got the decidedly mundane 626-based Probe.

This little red coupé deserved more than to have lain hidden for the subsequent 40 years.

Anorak fact Ford did cooperate with Mazda on a roadster that was based on the achingly pretty 1982 Ghia Barchetta but which, after a lengthy seven-year gestation, was so bloated it couldn’t compete with Mazda’s own lithe MX-5

3. GT70 by Ghia

Len Bailey was one of several engineers who helped design Ford’s GT40. That prompted Ford’s motorsport supremo, Stuart Turner, to commission him to create the GT70, a mid-engined rally car, in 1970.

Bailey fancied himself as much a stylist as an engineer, and had four attractive-looking prototypes built for Ford to test and begin readying for production. His shape was handsome but too Lotus-like for Ford’s new design boss, Joe Oros, who had just moved to Europe after making his name with the Mustang.

Ford had recently set up a satellite design studio in Turin that would eventually be merged with Ghia; Oros tasked Ercole Spada and Filippo Sapino there to create this unique fifth GT70. The Flame Orange machine was stunning and led to Sapino’s promotion to run Ghia, which he did for decades.

The GT70’s career was unfortunately far shorter. Legendary rally driver Roger Clark tested the Bailey-designed cars and hated their handling. The GT70 programme was quickly cancelled and, although three cars remain, this Italian one-off vanished.

Anorak fact Bailey’s GT70 didn’t reach production, but its striking four-spoke road wheel did; it became the iconic RS alloy, as seen on thousands of Fast Fords

4. Erika two-seater

The creatives at Ghia loved answering questions that nobody had asked. In this instance it was to reinterpret the unfinished Escort MkIII – codename ‘Erika’– as a two-seater to challenge the Triumph TR7 and Fiat X1/9.

Like the notoriously slow-selling Triumph, the Ford had its engine at the front but it aped the style of Fiat’s mid-engined sports car at the rear. It was a bold, possibly foolhardy, attempt to do something different, but thankfully VW’s Golf GTI led Ford down the hot-hatch path with the XR3.

This is not the strangest Escort reinterpretation: Ghia made a Stateside cousin of it called the ‘Erika Rumbleseat’ – the American term for a dickey seat. Instead of pretending to be mid-engined, this wild Erika was a pick-up with a third seat in the rear – probably the only three-seater Ford ever made.

Anorak fact The Erika Escort was still a clay model in 1978, but Ghia made the two-seater fully drivable by stripping down a VW Scirocco and rebuilding it with unique Ford bodywork

5. Cortina Coupé

The 1970 Cortina MkIII was sold in left-hand drive as the Taunus, using different sheet metal and a pointed nose. The British market was fortunate to avoid the Taunus model’s beak, but it also missed out on the Coupé, which competed head-on with the German-made Capri! That was never going to last, and when the Cortina MkIV came along in 1976 it shared the Taunus bodywork for the first time.

The Taunus Coupé would have died at that point if it wasn’t for Argentina, which wanted a locally made two-door. The tooling was shipped over and the 1970 design stayed in production for 10 years.

By 1980 the Taunus/Cortina was being facelifted for a final time. Thankfully the front of the new MkV fitted straight on to the doors of the original. The result should have been a Ford-badged pantomime horse, yet against all odds the ‘Cortina Coupé’ looked far more cohesive than it had any right to.

Anorak fact The Coupé relied on panels from Dagenham, England, right after the Falklands War

6. Escort Coupé

Ford was in a bind with the Capri. It was profitable and sold so well that at one point it was the second best-selling imported car in the US after the Beetle. The problem was that ’70s coupé customers were beginning to shift towards smaller cars.

When two of Ford’s designers left for British Leyland, they began working on a Marina Coupé. Ford couldn’t let BL gain an advantage, so two young designers were instructed to design an Escort Coupé for 1975.

Klaus Kapitza created a crisp and sheer-sided machine, while Patrick le Quément drew this perkier alternative that reflected the quirks of his Anglo-French upbringing. But the Marina Coupé bombed when Morris dealers sold it as a low-cost two-door rather than at a premium.

Ford’s product planners realised its dealers might do the same with the Escort Coupé – especially worrying if it undercut the cash-cow Capri. The plug was pulled.

Anorak fact Ford of Britain wanted to make a coupé of the original Escort, but was overruled by Detroit

7. Wolf

American Tom Tjaarda had a European surname and a portfolio including the Ferrari 365 California and De Tomaso Pantera, which led to his working freelance for many Italian studios.

By the early ’70s he was at Ghia, a respected independent owned by vehicle importer and later manufacturer Alejandro de Tomaso. The larger-than-life Argentinian became friendly with the boss of another eponymous firm, Henry Ford, and struck a deal to offload Ghia (and Tjaarda). Ford soon found he had bought a jewel.

Henry had been pushing for a small car, but nothing looked as good as the Fiat 127. Henchman Lee Iacocca turned to Ghia to add some Italian flair and the result was Tjaarda’s Wolf – something so different that Ford’s design team was told: “Just go and make that.”

The lean-looking, perfectly proportioned original Fiesta emerged.

Anorak fact The Wolf looked good partly because it was ‘off package’ and too small inside – so Ghia sat decision-makers in the back of a wagon version

8. Sierra-derived Capri

Ask a Capri owner in the ’80s what he or she thought of the newfangled Sierra and it’s likely that they would have snorted that their much-loved coupé was irreplaceable.

That was a real problem for Ford: the Capri refused to die. What nobody knew – at least until now – was how many times Ford tried, behind the scenes, to replace its glamorous 2+2. Capri lovers might have hated the idea, but the execution of this Sierra-derived Capri is oddly charming and, from many angles, showed promise.

Capri owners loved the idea of rear-wheel drive, but the market for affordable coupés had long since shifted to smaller front-drive vehicles such as the VW Scirocco. Look closely and there are modified Sierra RS Cosworth doors, plus the windscreen and the small headlights from the cheapest version.

Former Ford design boss le Quément notes: “Sometimes Ghia’s stuff looked as if it had come via Transylvania, but not this one – yet I’ve never seen it before. They must have kept it hidden even from us!”

Anorak fact Ghia’s designer brilliantly reinterpreted the Sierra’s controversial design language and then added a few more touches of his own. The reverse cutout under the door is only just being used now to reduce the visual mass of current SUVs

9. Sierra Luxury Convertible

Industry legend Bob Lutz hatched a plan to take on the BMW 3 Series in the USA during the early ’80s by sending over a specially-made turbocharged Sierra, the Merkur. The Coupé-like Sierra wasn’t offered as a convertible, which hampered sales in sunbelt states such as Florida.

Then Cadillac announced a slightly crazy idea: it had commissioned Pininfarina to design and build bodies for the Allanté that were flown across the Atlantic on modified 747s to Detroit for completion.

That was too much for Ford, so it commissioned its in-house Italian hotshot designers at Ghia to turn the Sierra into this upmarket convertible. They almost succeeded: it has a premium look to it, but in a greatest hits/compilation kind of style that picks up on BMW and Mercedes detailing.

Ghia might not have turned water into wine, but this could have tasted okay. Then things turned sour after the Allanté flopped badly and yet another secret Ford was squirrelled away in the archives.

Anorak fact The US-market Ford Sierra was badged as the Merkur XR4Ti because GM still owns and uses the Sierra name in the US. Merkur was a simple translation of the word Mercury, Ford’s deceased semi-premium brand

10. Granada Coupé

The Granada was Ford’s profit powerhouse in the early ’70s and the firm was always looking for ways to drive it upmarket. However, customers for large coupés were found mainly in Germany – practical Brits preferred their family cars to have four doors.

This design is one of a family of secret Granada offspring. One aped the style of Maserati, while another could only have been loved by an Elvis impersonator. This is the most glamorous – there’s no need to guess which Bavarian motor works inspired it. Despite that, it’s difficult not to love a car with such perfect volumes and proportions.

The coupé was never made, but the four-door was a big hit. Ford was a master at dropping a ‘new top hat’ over an older car, and the 1977 Granada was a brilliant restyle of the 1970 Sweeney original.

It was designed by a team led by le Quément. “To be honest,” he says, “I was just told to make it look as beautiful as Paolo Martin’s Fiat 130 Coupé!”

Anorak fact Research revealed that buyers thought four round lights were sportier. Ford Purchasing concurred: circular lights were cheaper

Secret Fords by Steve Saxty is available at www.stevesaxty.com, priced at £39.99 for the standard edition, £69.99 for the signed collector’s edition