Ford started later with Aero - with the Mk3 Escort, the same as the one in the US got the ball rolling - the overall shape was intended to be much better than the competition target VW Golf Mk1 - which it was.
You have to remember the car before this was flat fronted and had a live axle and cart springs when VW was already selling the Golf.
the Escort was followed by the more radical Sierra, which was sort of based on the some of the Probe prototypes of the late 1970s. This replaced the last car in your post - imagine the difference between that and this :
The aero on this was very advanced, so advanced that Ford created some "stability" problems with early models and had to add small air dams in the 3rd rear window to push the airflow out so the centre of pressure was safely behind the car at speed.
And then the Granada / Scorpio
which was an enlarged Sierra in some respects but used mechanical bits from the old (European) Granada.
The follow up Escort (remember the US got a Mazda based thing, Europe didn't) still had decent Aero but by then the mechanical bits were awful and the styling was very boring.
Which of course led Ford to get it's act together and make the Focus.