Ford Cortina
The Ford Cortina was a car sold by Ford of Britain. The Cortina was produced in five generations (Mark I through Mark V?though officially the last one was the Cortina 1980) from 1962 until 1982, when it was replaced by the Ford Sierra. From 1970 it was almost identical to the German-market Ford Taunus, which was originally a different car model altogether; this was part of a Ford attempt to unify its European operations. By 1976, when the revised Taunus was launched, the Cortina was identical. In fact, this new Taunus/Cortina used the doors from the 1970 Taunus.
The Cortina was also sold in other right hand drive markets such as the Republic of Ireland where it was assembled locally, as well as Australia (where it had optional 3.3 and 4.1 litre inline six-cylinder engines), New Zealand and South Africa, where it had a 3.0 litre V6. In the late 1970s, Cortina wagons in Australia were briefly built in Renault's local factory (now closed), as Ford Australia's factories did not have the capacity. Hyundai in South Korea also assembled the Cortina until the early 1980s.
The first two generations of the car were also sold through U.S. Ford dealers in the 1960s. The Cortina competed fairly successfully there against most of the other small imports of its day, including GM's Opel Kadett, the Renault Dauphine, and the just-appearing Toyotas and Datsuns (Nissan), although none of them approached the phenomenal success of the Volkswagen Beetle. The Cortina was withdrawn from the American market when Ford decided to produce a domestic small car in 1971, the Ford Pinto.
The Cortina was Ford's mass market medium-size car and sold in enormous numbers, making it ubiquitous on British roads until 1982, when it was replaced by the Ford Sierra. In other markets, particularly Asia and Australasia, it was replaced by the Mazda 626-based Ford Telstar, though New Zealand did import British-made CKD kits of the Ford Sierra Turnier (estate) for local assembly from 1984.
The Cortina also raced in rally and Lotus did some sportier editions of the Cortina referred as Lotus Cortina.
