21 rarest Fords

Britain’s Blue Oval unicorns

Ford was one of the most popular car manufacturers in the UK throughout the second half of the 20th century, and a lot of the models it produced in that period still survive in reasonably large numbers.

But then there are the unicorns – the Fords which are gradually disappearing from Britain’s roads.

We’re looking at 21 of them here, using DVLA data collated in the How Many Left? website (last updated to include information from the first quarter of 2023), and including cars which are either fully registered or subject to a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN).

They’re listed in ascending order of rarity, but we should point out that this is not necessarily a complete list, partly because of anomalies which can’t be solved, and partly because we have only occasionally set foot in the minefield of special editions.

1. Ford Anglia Super

The last, and now best known, generation of Ford Anglia was launched in 1959 with a 997cc engine, the first in what is now known as the ‘Kent’ family.

The Super, introduced in late 1962, was considerably more luxurious than the base model, and also substantially faster thanks to its 1198cc derivative of the Kent engine.

Today, it’s the rarest of all Anglias from this period, with only 414 survivors, though as we’ll see this does not make it even close to being the rarest Ford in the UK.

• Registered: 266 • 
SORN: 148 • 
Total: 414

2. Ford Classic

Officially known as the Consul Classic, this medium-sized saloon looked exceptionally odd, which might explain why Ford considered it to be worth building only from 1961 to 1963.

In all, 308 are listed as being registered in the UK in one form or another, but the number might in fact be slightly lower.

That’s because one of the cars is listed as having been registered first in 1933, and another in 1955.

If this is true, neither of them is a Ford Classic as we understand it, so there has been a mix-up somewhere.

• Registered: 200 • 
SORN: 108 • 
Total: 308

3. Ford Crown Victoria

Ford’s large sedan was officially sold only in North America, but some were privately imported to the UK.

Of the 93 survivors, all but eight were first registered here in 1998 at the earliest, so it’s very likely (though not indisputable) that they were from the second and final generation.

Five were registered before 1992, so they must be LTD Crown Victorias, which predate the first-generation Crown Victoria proper.

• Registered: 67 • SORN: 26 • Total: 93

4. Ford Escort RS 1800

With a Cosworth-designed, 16-valve derivative of the Kent engine under the bonnet, the RS 1800 was the hottest of all the rear-wheel-drive Escorts.

In standard form, it existed only so that Ford could use vastly modified versions in international rallying, where it remains one of the best-loved cars nearly half a century after it first appeared.

Although similar models have been built for competition use, only 73 Escorts are registered as RS 1800s, and just over half of them are on SORN.

Oddly, the earlier RS 1600 (the equivalent version from a previous generation, and completely unrelated to the later front-wheel drive RS 1600i) has fared better, with 137 survivors in the UK.

• Registered: 36 • 
SORN: 37 • 
Total: 73

5. Ford Consul Mk1

The first-generation Consul and its six-cylinder sibling, the Zephyr, were both exceptionally modern cars for 1951, with unibody construction and fashionably American-influenced styling.

The Consul was the shorter of the two because it had a four-cylinder engine, while the Zephyr needed a longer nose to accommodate its straight-six.

At first sight, it appears that 57 are still around today in Great Britain, but the true number might be lower because three of them are listed as having been first registered in the 1960s, at least four years after the Mk1 was replaced.

There could be several reasons for this, but we can’t discount the possibility that the paperwork for later models wrongly refers to them as Consul Mk1s.

• Registered: 47 • 
SORN: 10 • 
Total: 57

6. Ford Taurus

Ford has produced several generations of Taurus since 1986, one of them specifically for the Chinese market.

These cars have never been officially marketed in the UK, but around 40 have been in the country for several years, though with considerable variation between full registration and SORN.

In the first quarter of 2023, there were 39, but nine of these seem to have been registered, problematically, before 1986.

They could all be examples of the Taunus, since a British person unfamiliar with German Fords might easily write the more familiar ‘taurus’ instead.

• Registered: 19 • 
SORN: 20 • 
Total: 39

7. Ford RS 200

Like the Escort RS 1800 and RS 1600, the RS 200 was a homologation special designed with international rallying in mind.

Of the three, it was the most exotic by some margin, with a composite body concealing a mid-mounted turbocharged Cosworth engine which drove all four wheels.

Only 200 were built, so it’s quite impressive that 33 of them are still registered, in one way or another, in the UK, even if most of them can’t legally be driven on the road.

• Registered: 7 • 
SORN: 26 • 
Total: 33

8. Tickford Capri

The most dramatic roadgoing Capri was the one developed by Aston Martin Tickford, which took the standard 2.8-litre model, turbocharged it, altered the styling and raised the equipment level enormously.

Naturally, the price rose in a similar manner, and the resulting low demand meant there was no point in building very many, which only adds to their appeal now.

Today, 25 Tickfords (around a quarter of the production run, depending on who you ask) are still around in the UK, although only four of them are fully registered for road use.

It would be nice to think that the others are in various stages of restoration, rather than rotting away in dark corners.

• Registered: 4 • 
SORN: 21 • 
Total: 25

9. Ford Corsair V4 Deluxe

More closely related to the Cortina than it looked, the Corsair was fitted from its 1963 launch with the pre-crossflow version of the Kent engine.

Two years later, Ford abandoned this – not necessarily to the car’s advantage – with 1.7- and 2-litre versions of the ‘Essex’ V4.

The 1.7 was used in the Deluxe, which appears to have become the rarest Corsair on British roads, though it’s currently only two registrations behind the 2-litre GT.

Just 13 cars are listed as Corsair Auto, but the automatic transmission was optional on Corsairs with all engines, and might be fitted to other surviving examples listed under different names.

• Registered: 15 • 
SORN: 8 • 
Total: 23

10. Ford LTD

Only a tiny proportion of UK motorists will be aware of the LTD, since although Ford has produced several models of that name over the years, none of them was ever available in the UK.

Nevertheless, 20 have slipped into the country – and most are fully registered for road use.

A dozen were first registered before 1973, which means they must have been manufactured and sold in North America.

It’s not clear from the data where the others were built, but some of them could have come from Australia, where Ford used the LTD name for derivatives of the Fairlane.

• Registered: 16 • 
SORN: 4 • 
Total: 20

11. Ford Monarch

There are 16 cars registered under this name in the UK, but it’s difficult to determine exactly what they might be, since Ford has never produced a model called Monarch.

The seven noted as having been first registered before 1975 must have come from the Monarch brand, whose cars were built by Ford of Canada, but were not badged as Fords.

The marque was discontinued in 1961, but if any of those cars was imported to the UK as a classic it could easily have a much later first registration date.

However, more recent examples could also be Mercury Monarchs (pictured), rebadged North American Granadas sold in the 1975 to 1980 model years.

• Registered: 11 • 
SORN: 5 • 
Total: 16

12. Ford 12M/15M

From the 1950s to around 1970, Ford of Germany built two separate models called Taunus.

The smaller ones were badged 12M (1959 12M pictured) and 15M, giving an initially accurate but then increasingly approximate idea of their engine sizes.

They were never sold through official Ford dealers in the UK, but 12 are officially registered in the country today.

Most of them were first registered in the 21st century (more than half of them in 2001 alone), and were presumably imported as classic cars, since none of them could have been less than 30 years old at the time.

• Registered: 7 • 
SORN: 5 • 
Total: 12

13. Ford Mustang GLX

Around 13,000 Mustangs are registered in the UK today, and naturally enough most of them arrived after Ford began selling them in this country.

The rarest of the Mustangs imported before then is the early 1980s GLX hatchback, of which there are 11 left.

Unusually, six of them were first registered while the model was still in production in North America.

One possible explanation for this is that American personnel who moved to US military bases within the UK sometimes brought their cars with them.

Representative 1982 Mustang pictured.

• Registered: 1 • 
SORN: 10 • 
Total: 11

14. Ford 17M/20M

The larger versions of the German Ford Taunus were known as 17M (1960 17M pictured), 20M and 26M.

No 26Ms are recorded as being in the UK, but four cars with the combined title 17M/20M are listed.

One of these was first registered in 1969, during the production life of the final generation, so it could conceivably have been bought new somewhere in continental Europe and brought to Britain shortly afterwards.

• Registered: 3 • 
SORN: 1 • 
Total: 4

15. Ford Cortina Twin Cam

The high-performance version of the second-generation Cortina was initially referred to as either the Lotus Cortina or the Cortina Lotus.

It was later renamed Cortina Twin Cam, to bring it in line with the Escort Twin Cam, which was introduced in 1968 and had the same Lotus-designed but Kent-based engine.

Only four cars are registered in the UK under this name, but a further 167 are registered as Cortina Mk2 Lotus, which is basically the same thing.

By comparison, there are 256 examples of the first-generation Lotus Cortina, possibly because it is more highly prized due to its greater success in motorsport.

• Registered: 2 • 
SORN: 2 • 
Total: 4

16. Ford Escort Cosmopolitan

Ford has produced a great many special editions, usually fairly ordinary cars with equipment upgrades and styling changes to make them seem more exciting.

By way of example, we’ve chosen the Cosmopolitan, a variant of the Escort sold very briefly in 1988.

Every Cosmopolitan was a 1.3-litre Diamond White five-door hatchback with red side stripes, tinted glass, a rear wiper and a sliding sunroof, among other delights.

There are definitely at least four left in the UK, though the actual figure could be higher if some were registered without the Cosmopolitan name.

Representative model pictured.

• Registered: 2 • 
SORN: 2 • 
Total: 4

17. Ford Fiesta 957 Ghia

In its earliest days, the original Ford Fiesta was available with the ‘Valencia’ engine (a member of the Kent family adapted for front-wheel-drive applications) in the slightly unusual sizes of 957cc and 1117cc.

There were also several trim levels, the most expensive being called Ghia, after the once-independent design studio which Ford acquired in 1970.

The combination of the highest trim level and the less powerful of the available engines does not seem to have been popular, since there are only three survivors, and only one of those can be driven on public roads according to the latest data.

This has been the situation since the first quarter of 2020 (after another example appears to have been scrapped), which suggests that a Ford Fiesta 957 Ghia revival is not high on anyone’s priority list.

• Registered: 1 • 
SORN: 2 • 
Total: 3

18. Ford Consul 2.5 L Auto

The last Consul was a lower-spec version of the first-generation Granada, sold in the UK from 1972 to 1975.

The specific type we’re looking at here was fitted with a 2.5-litre version of the Essex V6 engine and the optional automatic transmission.

According to How Many Left?, whose figures do not go back to the lifetime of the Consul, the highest number of registrations for this combination is 10, and that was back in 1994.

There has been a steady decline since then, and in the second quarter of 2021 the total dropped to two, where it has remained ever since.

The lower-spec non-L Consul with the same drivetrain has fared slightly better, with three survivors, but two of those are on SORN.

• Registered: 2 • 
SORN: 0 • 
Total: 3

19. Ford Capri 1600 GT Auto

The 1600 GT was the sportiest of the smaller-engined (up to 1.6-litre) Capris launched in 1969, so it’s perhaps not surprising that only one standard version fitted with the optional automatic gearbox is registered in the UK today, at least to the extent of it being on SORN.

The situation is complicated, though, by the fact that early Capris with the X, L and R custom packs (available individually or in some of the possible combinations) are listed separately.

There is one 1600 GT auto with the L pack on SORN, and one fully registered example with all three packs.

Ford’s 1600 Capri automatics in general are very rare, as shown by the fact that there are also only one each of the second-generation GL and the third-generation LS, first registered in 1977 and 1984 respectively.

• Registered: 0 • 
SORN: 1 • 
Total: 1

20. Ford Escort ZX2

Few British motorists have any reason to know that there was a North American Escort as well as a European one, or that it was available as a coupé version known as the ZX2.

Sold from model years 1998 to 2003, it was based on a platform designed by Mazda, but had Ford’s 2-litre Zetec engine.

Two were registered in the UK in 2005, but the number dropped from one and then to zero in the next two years.

Another surfaced near the end of 2021, but has been on SORN (assuming it’s the same car) since the third quarter of 2022.

• Registered: 0 • 
SORN: 1 • 
Total: 1

21. Ford Granada 2000 Auto

There appears to be just one remaining example in the UK of a first-generation Granada in the un-named, base-trim level with a 2-litre engine and an automatic gearbox.

The engine is probably an Essex V4, since although some Granadas were fitted with the Pinto inline-four of the same size, these were not available through British Ford dealers.

This particular car was registered in 1976, and has been on SORN since late 2014.

Four Granadas with manual gearboxes, but otherwise in the same specification as this one, are still around, though three of them are currently on SORN.

Representative model pictured.

• Registered: 0 • 
SORN: 1 • 
Total: 1