Founders Blog: Ford Sierra Memories
Richard Usher, Founder of Great British Car Journeys’ follow-up to Keith Adams’ review: Ford Sierra Sapphire 2.0 GLSi (1989) on AROnline.
In the last decades of the 20th Century, the launch of a new mainstream family car was big news, especially if it involved saying goodbye to a model which had been around for many years. In 1982, for Ford who were the market leaders in the UK, it was, ‘goodbye Cortina and hello Sierra’! The angular and slightly boxy Mk5 Cortina was replaced by the Sierra’s futuristic jelly-mould styling which looked very different to anything else on the road. My older brother who needed a decent sized hatchback for a growing family, and also a growing Windscreen business, ordered the new Ford Sierra to replace his elegant but rust ravaged, Lancia Beta HPE.
I can remember the arrival of the Sierra very well, which would have been a high-spec example, and the fact that quite a large group assembled to see the jelly mould in the flesh and give varying opinions on its aesthetic merit. It may not have felt massively different to a Cortina but it certainly looked very different.
In 1989 I was in a similar position to my brother and exchanged my rocket ship Citroen BX GTI for a V6 Sierra Estate. My relationship with this big comfy car got off to a bad start when I drove it through a big puddle, which stopped it very quickly. WD40 did not do the trick: the air intake was below the front bumper and having ingested a load of water, the engine had seized solid. A new engine was supplied under warranty and the car performed entirely reliably after that. Of course, by then Ford had softened up the original styling and the Sierra had seen off the challenge posed by Vauxhall’s mark 2 Cavalier.
In the 1990s our business fleet was 100% Ford, so I borrowed ever more well-equipped Sierras if my own car was in for service. I also remember an early track day at Mallory Park, where Ford lent us a Cosworth Sierra, which was a very accomplished high-speed weapon enhanced by a mad spoiler which shouted, “catch me if you can”.
So… fond memories of another best seller from the blue oval. I do remember the non-turbo diesel as being fairly lethargic, the Cosworth was epic and the vast range in between were highly competent. The Sierra was not a major step change from the Cortina in terms of driving experience. That was to come in 1993 with the launch of the marvellous Mondeo.
Read Keith Adams review when he took our Ford Sierra Sapphire 2.0 GLSi (1989) which is available on the Drive Dad’s Car fleet for a spin on AROnline here.
