√Ford Cortina: When Australia made a good car bad

The Ford Cortina was a fundamentally good car. Then Ford Australia shoe-horned a six-cylinder under its snout. The results weren’t great.

Story originally published in Drive on 14 May, 1999

In September 1972 Ford added a six-cylinder engine to its Cortina model, completely transforming the nimble but not especially quick medium-sized sedan.

What Ford transformed it into was a nose-heavy, fuel-gulping disaster with horribly heavy steering and deadly understeer.

Granted, it was quick in a straight line, but so is a brick dropped from a window. And the dismal build quality which had been a hallmark of Cortinas received no real attention during the makeover. The Cortina just became a faster pig.

But why was it so? The story went something like this …

In the early 1970s Ford was leading the medium car segment with its locally made (but English-sourced) four-cylinder Cortina.

It was nice work if Ford could get it, but it wasn’t hard to see that the situation was temporary. The Japanese were going gangbusters and it was only a matter of time before Ford was overhauled.

The company’s solution was to take itself out of the race; adding a six-cylinder engine to the options list for the TC series and thereby moving its car into a different segment.

As well as differentiating the Cortina from the primarily four-cylinder Japanese competition (and hopefully injecting some excitement into the range), the extra cylinders enabled Ford to directly take on Holden’s Torana six.

There was an aspect that appealed to the bean-counters, too: the reused Falcon “six” mechanical parts were mostly cheaper than the imported parts used in the four-cylinder Cortina, yet a six could always command a higher price than a four.

Cortina Six buyers had a choice between the Falcon’s 200 and 250 engines, displacing 3.3 litres and 4.1 litres respectively.

To justify the extra price, they got a “power bulge” in the bonnet (it wasn’t just for show – the Falcon engine was both taller and longer) and that very ’70s symbol of prestige motoring: quad headlights.

And if they really, really wanted to impress the neighbours, they could order a white vinyl roof.

Putting the six in the Cortina required a lot of re-engineering. The same amount of effort might have been better spent improving the woeful build quality – and logic said nobody needed a car with the running costs of a Falcon but the interior room of a Cortina.

Logic, however, is not a strong argument in buying patterns; Australians already were signing up for Torana sixes in large numbers.

An updated TD six-cylinder Cortina was produced from October 1974, then from July 1977 the completely new-look Cortina TE was available. In both series, the six-cylinder engine was available alongside the four.

The TE was based on the German Taunus. It looked so different and was so superior that many questioned why the name Taunus hadn’t been used, burying the Cortina’s poor public image in the process.

In 1980 Ford launched the revised TF. By then high costs had ensured that the Euro experiment was all but over; production in Australia was discontinued in 1981.

It wasn’t until Ford played the if-you-can’t-beat-them-join-them game and switched to Japan for its medium car (with the Mazda-based Ford Telstar) that it once again enjoyed the rarified air at the top of the medium car segment. It didn’t take a six, either; just a well-built four.

Did you ever own a six-cylinder Cortina? What was your ownership experience like? Let us know in the comments below?

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