After twenty years of continuous production, the last British-made Cortina, the car modelled here, was driven off the production line on July 22nd, 1982, by Ford UK™s Chairman, Sam Toy. It was retained by Ford, road registered in December 1982 and has since remained in the company™s Heritage Collection being used for press and PR work.
This has included appearances on the TV programmes James May™s Cars of The People™ and The Grand Tour™, as well as numerous magazine articles. The UK market only Crusader edition Cortina grew out of a friendship between Toy and Victor Matthews who was then the Chairman of Trafalgar House Investments, the company which controlled the Daily Express newspaper.
Every Cortina Crusader featured the Daily Express Crusader™ emblem on the boot lid as well as Ghia-styled interior trim in Durham velour, cut-pile carpet, a long centre console incorporating a radio, wheel rim embellishers and distinctive pin-stripping with matching decals. The Crusader was launched in April 1982 and was available in three engine sizes, 1.3, 1.6 or 2-litre.
Over 30,000 of this run-out edition Cortina were produced because it offered remarkable value; the list price of a Crusader 1600 was only £5435 when the GL, which was not so lavishly equipped, cost £6054. Cortina Mk1 production commenced at Dagenham on June 4th, 1962, and in that period of just over twenty years 4.3 million Cortinas were produced with each generation selling over a million examples.
Engine: 1593cc 4IL SOHC
Power: 76bhp@5500rpm
Torque: 88Ib.ft @ 2800rpm
Maximum speed: 91mph
0-60 mph: 13.6secs
Weight: 2149lbs