Ford Sierra History

Ford Sierra

The Ford Sierra was a large family car built by Ford Motor Company in Europe between 1982 and 1993. Released on October 13th, 1982 for the 1983 model year, it replaced the Ford Cortina/Taunus, and was itself replaced by the Mondeo. (In New Zealand and South Africa, it was initially replaced by the Telstar). Its radical and polarizing aerodynamic styling was ahead of its time and was a lasting influence, but more conservative buyers found it unappealing.
Possibly for this reason, and the early lack of a saloon variant, it never quite achieved the ubiquity of the Cortina or the Taunus, although sales were still strong; a total of 2,700,500 Sierras were made, mainly manufactured in Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, although Sierras were also assembled in Argentina, Venezuela, South Africa, and New Zeland.

Styling

The first Ford vehicle to have the bold new "aero" look styling was the 1981 Probe III concept car. The good reception this received encouraged Ford management to go ahead with a production car with styling almost as challenging. This "aero" look influenced Fords worldwide; 1983's new Ford Thunderbird in North America introduced similar rounded, flowing lines, and many other new Fords of the time adopted the look. The aerodynamic features of the Sierra were essentially developed from those first seen in the Escort Mk III - the "Aeroback" bootlid stump was proved to reduce the drag coefficient of the bodyshell significantly, which was a class leading 0.34 at its launch.
The aerodynamic styling of the Sierra would later be seen in North America's revolutionary Ford Taurus, which turned out to be one of the most popular cars that Ford has ever sold in North America.
At first, many found the design blob-like and difficult to accept after being used to the sharp-edged, straight-line styling of the Cortina, and it picked up nicknames such as "jellymould" and "The Salesman's Spaceship" (the latter thanks to its status as a popular fleet car in the United Kingdom). Sales were slow at first. 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life that the styling began to pay off; ten years after its introduction, the Sierra's styling was not nearly as outdated as its contemporaries. As other manufacturers adopted similar aerodynamic styling, the Sierra looked more normal.
Early versions suffered from crosswind stability problems, which were addressed in 1985. These shortcomings saw a lot of press attention, and contributed to early slow sales.