I love European Fast Fords and, one day, I shall import all of them. In the interim, my old pal Chris Harris has put together a collection of some of the cleanest old Fords I’ve ever seen and he’s going to sell them on his auction site Collecting Cars. XR2s. XR3is. Sierras. Gahhhhh. I thought we were friends?
It’s almost hard to look at all of them. These cars are so minty, they should be crushed up and served next to a crispy leg of lamb. Just watch the video:
Let’s see, there’s a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth. As a former Merkur owner I can imagine what it’s like to own one, though this one doesn’t seem to come with a welded diff. It’s also a fantastic color. Chris says he’s partial to the Escort RS Turbo and, yeah, it’s definitely clean enough to make microprocessors on exhaust manifold.
I’ve had the pleasure (mostly) of working with Chris as an editor and a producer. He’s quite talented and, in addition to the driving and the humor, he does have a way of sluicing away at a topic until he gets to the core idea. I think what he says here, in the video, describes the appeal of these cars quite well:
“I look at this, and think, the social history of Ford, and what it’s meant to this country, that’s why they’re becoming valuable. Because Ford, sadly, is no longer a maker of small cars as of next year. It’s making electric things. And they’re very expensive. These were cars… excluding this stuff… everyone could afford.”
There’s more insight in the video which, I suppose, is about auctioning cars for his car auctioning business. It’s great stuff.
In that vein, I think the car I’d want more than any other is actually the 1981 Ford Fiesta Supersport. It’s not just clean, it has insane charm. Look at it. That’s not a car, it’s the damn Paddington Bear in vehicular form. Sure, it just has 65 horsepower, but I could use all 65 of those horsepower.
Chris’s auction includes some “friends” as well, including a newer Caterham and an older Pug 205 CTI 1.6 (could only be better if it was a Roland Garros edition).
Speaking of friends: It’s been a lovely friendship. When I took over the old site you hopped on as a columnist, which immediately gave us credibility. I had no idea how to make car films, really, and you were patient and helpful as I learned. But our friendship is now over (Neil, we’re still cool). Prices for these cars were already going up and now you’re thoughtlessly going to drive up the prices to the point where my daughter will have to forego her college education so I can afford one. You would do that to Bette?
Anyway, the auction is going until May 19th so, if you’re in the UK or in the mood to import a car, I suppose there are worse people you could give your money to… although I’m hard pressed to think of any at the moment.
I’ll take that Fiesta. I had a 1980 and it was my first car. Crazy bright yellow with the black S model striping down the sides and a brown interior. I loved it. It was stone reliable. I last saw it in a gas station in W. Acton, MA and it had 225K miles on it and was still in daily use nearly 20 years later.
I would gladly take any of those Escorts. It has always rubbed me the wrong way that Europe got such cool versions of these small cars while the US got such crappy versions.
Chris used to write over at that german lighting site?
I always liked him in TG. Never knew he was a collector
Harris ripping into Ferrari was a thing of beauty: https://jalopnik.com/how-ferrari-spins-5760248
And then there’s this: https://jalopnik.com/a-ferrari-a-porsche-and-soiled-pants-the-story-ive-ne-1666673419
“Look at it. That’s not a car, it’s the damn Paddington Bear in vehicular form.”
Zero to sixty faster than you can say knickerbocker glory!
I’m from Europe so I’m pretty fed up with old Fords everywhere. Not as bad as Opels, but it’s close.
Owned the Peugeot 205 convertible at some time. Great little car! Would buy one again.
Old Opels only just started disappearing from portuguese streets, so I find myself thinking the unthinkable every now and then, and lusting for clean first-gen Corsas or Kadett E I pass by (old Kadetts were still everywhere some 10 years ago). But third generation Escorts have started disappearing when Escorts were still sold new, and there are some pretty cool ones in this collection (I love the RS1600i, those hood graphics are just so cool). And that Fiesta, oh man! We didn’t even have first gen Fiestas here in Portugal. They could be ordered but that took time and money; still, some made their way over here new, but they were never officially “mareketed” here.
Strange, weren’t the first gen Fiestas built in Spain? I am thoroughly confused by how the Portuguese tariffs system used to function.
Up until 74 there were protectionist laws that made foreign-built cars very expensive (we didn’t really have SEATs here until the late 80s, most imports from Spain were overpriced Renaults and Citroens, Ebro vans and Pegaso trucks). After the revoltution, those laws were kept for a while but had to be repealled when we entered our bid to join the then-EEC in the early 80s. The fact is we had a relatively big auto industry (mostly CKD, but we built anything from Datsun sedans to military Berliet trucks to romanian AROs; the Renault 4 is very popular here because it was built locally for a long time).
But even after protectionst laws ended, many brands still didn’t see a point in having their full range available in such a small market, so there’s lots of trim levels and entire model ranges we never got. The first Fiesta to be officially imported to Portugal was the MK2.
One of my Lamborghini friends here drives a Corsa Mk1 when it rains: Actually a nice little car. But I think I’d rather have a Twingo (again) 😎
Always good to hear Chris talk about cars, and I admit the Fiestas were always ones that I wanted. I doubt I ever own some exotic car but I’ll probably have a few good, basic fun cars that I always wanted.
Funny thing is that I first knew about Chris Harris as a columnist at Jalopnik, had no idea he was a big deal before that.
Got to meet Chris at NYIAS in 2015. “Wait a minute, are you that bloke I’m giving a stack to every month to make slidey YouTube videos?!”
Apparently I was one of his biggest patrons at the time, bested only by some wealthy Saudis.
I got him to laugh at the Bentley stand when I pointed out that at the kiosk (think it was an iPad?) where you could register your interest, some of the titles aside from “Mr.” or “Mrs.” were things like, “Princess”, “Duke” and “King.”
Maybe another Horizon story is not interesting. So many repeated stories on the same cars. Maybe branch out on different interesting cars.