We are drifting again and I know this was originally intended as a US only thread about the T, and mr Rooster nominated the Ford Sidevalve but I would like to nominate the "most influential Ford" title (even if "outside the US" is added to this) to the Mk1 Cortina :
I know it looks, and is very ordinary but please bear with me.
The reason the T succeeded was the design brief - cheap to make, cheap to buy, simple to use, cheap to fix and so on. Ford didn't really care too much if it lasted because he was happy to sell you another one. The innovation in the T was not in the T itself, it was in the process.
Well, the Cortina is the same - for me. In 1959 Alec Issigonis (my login namesake) introduced the Mini for BMC. A couple of years later he also introduced the 1100 - effectively a big Mini. Ford of Britain were struggling having introduced the Ford Classic - a kind of mini Fairlane...
Although it was a decent car the styling bombed big time, and at the same time BMC introduced radical new technology - Ford of Britain was under pressure to go with FWD and do the same but they could see the problems.
Instead they imported the project management techniques of Ford USA but employed them with a monk-like zeal, far stricter than the Ford USA operation did at the time. They focussed these on the "Consul Classic" replacement which was urgent. Each engineering team had a strict timetable and budget to work to. If they wanted to add something new they had to cost it and save the same money elsewhere to have it included. They also had to keep to the timetable. The result was the Cortina went from drawing board to showroom in about 3 years. It also meant that Ford knew exactly how much each car cost to make and how much profit each one earned.
BMC at the same time were innovating themselves (with Arragonis at the wheel...) into ruin.
The Cortina as introduced was a conventional RWD car, live axle, leaf springs. It also had flow-through ventilation (also imported from the US) and better steering than the Consul (above) - but essentially the mechanical bits were the same. Compare it to the 1100, the Cortina was :
- Bigger
- Had larger engines, better performance, better economy
- More equipment
- More space for passengers
- More space for luggage
- More reliable.
The 1100 was
- Smaller, but arguably with more interior space (but you would struggle to notice)
- A massive 1098cc engine rising to a heady 1275cc later (the Cortina went up to 1.6 litres)
- Less equipment as it cost more
- Less space for luggage
- Less reliable as anything radically new tends to be.
Also as mentioned Ford knew exactly how much money they made of every Cortina sold, BMC refused to accept that they were losing money on every Mini and 1100 they made even when Ford told them in secret about it.
The results ?
Ford went on to be very conservative, the FWD German Taunus model was eventually replaced by the Pinto based, UK designed, RWD live axle Cortina Mk3 rebadged. Ford persisted with the RWD live axle Escort even after the Mk1 VW Golf and Alfasud appeared.
Ford also went on to be very commercially successful - the Cortina took Ford from No2 in the UK to No1 which they kept until the 2000s, no2 in Europe.
The Cortina begat the Lotus Cortina (more or less hand-made by Lotus but still made Ford money), begat Ford into European racing which resulted in the DFV - the best F1 engine ever. It also created the Capri (the "European Mustang") which made even more money.
BMC died, merged with Triumph and Rover to make BL, and then died again and shrank to become Austin Rover, shrank to become Rover group and finally died completely in 2005. The Mini lived until 2000.