Old Fords

[Dr Jekyll]

I've always been curious about the way some once very common cars have almost disappeared while others seem to be almost increasing. At Dunsfold yesterday there were plenty of Fords being shown off. Cortinas, Escorts, even Granadas. But I couldn'te a single Zephyr. I can understand the Corsair being a bit obscure but the Zephyr had a following even at the time. And what about the original Capri? Surely the exact combination of straightforward mechanicals and bizarre styling that normally makes for a popular classic, yet I haven't seen one for decades. Did they all rust?

[Dr Jekyll]

300bhp/ton said:

It probably depends what type of show you are at, to the content you'll get.


As for why more Escorts than Capri's. Well this is probably easier to answer than you may think.


1. Ford will have sold more Escorts than they did Capri's. So given the same attrition rate, there will still be more of them.

2. Just look at the cars being sold today. There are far more bland hatchbacks being sold than sports cars. Even for similar money people flock towards the dull and dreary. So as a classic you still get a large amount of ordinary cars vs the more interesting ones.

My point was that attrition rates seem to vary so the survivor numbers seem out of sync with the number sold. For example the way there almost seem to be more VW Beetles and T3s now than then but whereas in the 70s you might see a T2/1500/Variant for every 10 Beetles, it's now maybe 1 for 200. I'd expect the Corsair to be rare because they weren't made for long. But Mk 3 and 4 Zephyrs were pretty common in their day and they aren't just rarer than Cortinas but comparatively rarer now than then.

As for Capris and Escorts, I'd expect this


to have a lower attrition rate than this

[Dr Jekyll]

Roy C said:

The original Capri looked great, but had a terrible reputation for everything else - rust, handling, reliability, etc. They seemed to disappear (biodegrade) very quickly.
The more common Classic fared little better. Someone I knew bought one new, but it was already victim of the tin worm straight out of the factory.

I did wonder if it was a bit too early for many to survive to the crucial point in the early eighties when any old car became a Classic by definition.