Ford Sierra
The Ford Sierra is a mid-size/large family car manufactured and marketed by Ford of Europe from 1982–1993. It was launched as a three-door or five-door liftback or a five-door estate car, with a car-derived van variant added in 1984 and the four-door Sierra Sapphire saloon car introduced in 1987 when the range was facelifted. The engine is mounted in the front with rear-wheel drive on most models and four-wheel drive on certain models.
It was designed by Uwe Bahnsen, Robert Lutz and Patrick Le Quément, and was noted for its aerodynamic styling. It has a drag coefficient of 0.34, a significant improvement over its predecessors. The Sierra debuted at the 1982 British International Motor Show in Birmingham, then appeared at the 1982 Paris Salon de l'Automobile. Sales began on 15 October 1982, replacing the Ford Taunus TC3 and Ford Cortina Mark V. The Sierra's aerodynamic styling and the initial absence of a saloon alienated many conservative buyers, including company car drivers.
Developed under the internal code name "Project Toni", the Sierra name is derived from the Spanish word for a mountain range. Most cars were manufactured in Belgium and the United Kingdom, although Sierras were also assembled in Cork, Ireland, Argentina, Venezuela, South Africa, and New Zealand.
Initial development and reception
By 1978, Ford Europe was working on a new mid-range model, codenamed "Project Toni", to replace the Cortina/Taunus twins in the early 1980s. Although still popular with buyers, the outgoing Cortina/Taunus was a 12-year old design by the time of the Sierra's launch — despite the TC2 shape being launched in 1976, and the mildly reworked TC3/Mk5 three years later, both were merely reskinned versions of the 1970 TC/Mk3, with few major mechanical changes. Ford's future model policy and styling direction had already been shown with the Escort III two years earlier, with the conventionally styled saloons of the 1970s replaced by hatchbacks with advanced aerodynamic styling.In 1981, a year before the Sierra's official launch, Ford confirmed that its new mid-range car be called the Sierra, signalling the end of the Taunus and Cortina nameplates after 43 years and nine generations, or 20 years and five generations respectively. In September 1981, Ford unveiled the Probe III concept car at the Frankfurt Motor Show, hinting at what the new car would look like when unveiled 12 months later.
After the sharp-edged straight-line three-box styling of its predecessors, the Sierra was nicknamed "the jellymould". The shape served a purpose though, producing a drag coefficient of 0.34, a significant improvement over the boxy outgoing Taunus's/Cortina's 0.45. This aerodynamic design was key for reducing fuel consumption according to Ford, and was even used as compensation for the V6 engines. The interior was more conventional, taking a page from BMW by its dashboard, angled to the driver.
Sales were slow in the first months - aggravated by heavy discounting by Ford dealers of surplus Cortina stock from the autumn of 1982 on, with more than 11,000 new Cortinas being registered in 1983. However in 1983, its first full year of sales, the Sierra managed nearly 160,000 sales in Britain, outsold only by the smaller Escort. Ford had also launched the more conservatively designed Escort-based Orion saloon that year, which found favour with buyers who would otherwise have been the Sierra's target customers.
In West Germany, it proved popular from an early stage; within months of its launch, it was reportedly achieving treble the number of sales that the Taunus had been attaining - though in West Germany, the Taunus had not been quite as popular or iconic as its Cortina equivalent had been in Britain.
It was later in the Sierra's life that the styling began to pay off; ten years after its introduction, the Sierra's styling was not nearly as outdated as its contemporaries, even though all major competitors were newer designs, though the Sierra had been tweaked on several occasions and many new engines had been added. The most notable changes came at the autumn of 1987, with a major facelift and the addition of a 4-door saloon, known in the UK as the Sapphire. As other manufacturers adopted similar aerodynamic styling, the Sierra looked more normal. At its peak, it was Britain's second best selling car in 1983, 1988 and 1989, and was still Britain's fifth best selling car in 1992. Its best year was 1989, when more than 175,000 were sold. However, it was outsold by the Vauxhall Cavalier in MK2 form during 1984 and 1985, and then from 1990 until its demise by the MK3 Cavalier. Nevertheless, it comfortably outsold its second key rival, the Austin Montego, which was launched in April 1984. Between 1985 and 1988, the Sierra faced fresh competition in Europe from the likes of the Renault 21 and Peugeot 405, while Japanese carmaker Nissan was producing its Bluebird model in Britain from 1986.
Early versions suffered from crosswind stability problems, which were addressed in 1985 with the addition of aerodynamic nolders on the rear edge of the rubber seals of the rearmost side windows. These shortcomings saw a lot of press attention, and contributed to early slow sales, when it was outsold by its key rival the Vauxhall Cavalier in 1984 and 1985. Other rumours that the car's design could hide major crash damage also harmed the car's reputation. This reached near-hysterical heights in its early months on sale, with UK press making a report that Ford would reintroduce the previous Cortina model out of desperation. These reports were swiftly denied by Ford. However, sales began to rise during 1983, and it finished as Britain's second best selling car behind the Escort. After being outsold by the Cavalier for the next two years, it regained its lead of the market sector in Britain during 1986, and a refreshed range enjoyed a surge in sales from 1987, though the MK3 Cavalier finally outsold it in 1990. Even in 1992, the Sierra was still Britain's fifth best selling car. It was nicknamed "the salesman's spaceship" on account of its status as a popular fleet car in Britain.
In contrast to the Sierra's exterior design, its drivetrain was conservatively engineered, retaining rear-wheel drive and the same engines and transmissions as the Cortina/Taunus which were effectively 12 years old as they were first used on the TC1/MkIII generation in 1970. Much of this was done to appease the important fleet market which was wary of complexity. However, there was much modification; for example the engines were fitted with breakerless ignition, improved carburettors and the option of fuel injection, whilst 5-speed transmissions were now available. Most competitors were already switched to front-wheel drive around that time. Ford claimed however this set-up was required to offer V6 engines, which had to contribute to the Sierra's driving comfort. New for the Sierra was a diesel engine, although the engine itself was not new at all. Similar to the Ford Granada, Ford used an "Indenor" engine which was designed by Peugeot in the 1950s. While the Granada was offered with 1.9, 2.1, and 2.5 diesels, the Sierra unit had a displacement of 2.3 litres. This rather outdated engine was replaced in 1989 by an all-new, 1.8-litre turbodiesel, developed by Ford itself. The Sierra had a four-speed manual gearbox as standard, with a five-speed as option but standard on the 2.3D and 2.3 V6. At a time when the rival Vauxhall Cavalier was offered with a five-speed, this led to some critics commenting that the Sierra was somewhat underpowered. In the mid-1980s, many smaller cars featured five-speed gearboxes as standard.
The chassis, however, was more sophisticated than the Cortina/Taunus, with fully independent suspension on both axles. The rear suspension was essentially carried over from the Granada, with trailing arms and coil springs mounted on a tubular subframe which also provided location for the final drive/differential housing driving the axle shafts. The front suspension dispensed with the Cortina/Taunus' double wishbones in favour of a scaled-up version of the Fiesta and Escort/Orion's layout with MacPherson struts, lower locating arms, and anti-roll bars.
One striking feature of the Sierra was its closed front panel — where typically a grille was located, later found on the 1985 Ford Taurus. The air intake was situated below the front bumper, making the Sierra a so-called 'bottom breather'. The headlights were integrated in this front panel while the indicators were mounted in the bumper within a combined unit with the foglights. However, this setup was present only on the top-of-the-line "Ghia" trim as well on the later introduced XR4i sportmodel. The other Sierra models had a more traditional front end with a two-bar grille between the headlights, being unpainted on the base model. These models had the indicators in the bumper as well, although being slimmer but wider and without the foglights. Both the Ghia and XR4i had wide headlights with two lenses while the other models had smaller lights with a single lens. For the 1985 model year, all the lower-spec models, except the base model, adopted the Ghia's and XR4i's front grille and headlight treatment. However, the second lens of the lower-spec models had no actual light within it. On the Ghia and XR4i this lens contained additional high-beam lamps. The South-African XR8 model's front end was similar to the XR4i's but featured a small grille between the headlights. The rear lights of the Ghia, as well as the very early XR4i's, were the same shape and layout as other models, but featured tiny horizontal black strakes on the lenses to give the impression that they were smoked.
The Sierra initially competed directly with the General Motors "J-car", which had been launched in 1981 with front-wheel drive and a hatchback body style to complement the saloon.
It was also a strong competitor for other rivals of the early 1980s, including the Talbot Alpine, Peugeot 505 and Morris Ital and the Citroën BX, but by 1988 it was competing with a host of new rivals, including the third-generation Vauxhall Cavalier, Rover Montego, Peugeot 405, Renault 21 and Nissan Bluebird. By the time of the Sierra's replacement it stood out from almost all D-segment rivals for its rear-wheel drive layout.
The car was replaced by the Mondeo in Europe in April 1993, though stocks lasted for about two years afterwards. The Sierra remained a popular second-hand buy and common sight on British roads until well beyond the year 2000.