Car Show Classics: 2018 Carlisle Ford Nationals – Part Five – European Fords, Ford Trucks and Other Fords

As reflected in my multi-part series, the Carlisle Ford Nationals has pretty wide and extensive coverage of Ford vehicles.  I have covered most of the North American made Ford cars, but I haven’t shown you any of the overseas Fords.  Surprisingly, there was a decent showing of these Fords and some pretty interesting finds among them.  Fords built outside of North America fall out of my wheelhouse, but I still find them interesting nevertheless.  There were quite a few trucks at the show as well, although many of them were modern or heavily modified, and I tended to focus on the older trucks.

This beautiful Ford Anglia is great way to start off.  This was a wonderfully restored example and it belongs in the AACA.  It’s amazing how much smaller these European Fords are compared to the American Fords of the day.  Even compared to an American Falcon, it’s pretty tiny.  In Canada, being a commonwealth country, we had a fair number of English cars, although I remember Vauxhalls, Austins and MGs, more than these Fords.

The Anglia 100 was built from 1953-1959.  It was powered by a 1172 cc four-cylinder side-valve engine, which looked pretty tiny even in the little engine bay.  Mind you, it didn’t need much motivation to move around.  This Anglia was only 152″ long, and weighed about 1625 lbs.

One of the best known cars from Ford of Europe was the Capri.  This small sporty coupe was loosely based on the Ford Cortina but had a distinctly sportier body, with Mustang-like proportions.  The German-made version was imported and sold in US Lincoln-Mercury dealers in beginning in 1970.  Initially it was powered by the Pinto 1.6L four; a 2.0L four was added in 1971 and the 2.6L Cologne V6 in 1972 (which later grew to 2.8L).

The Capri was redesigned in 1976, and the US market versions were called the Capri II.  Newly added was the hatchback.  This example here appeared to be a mostly original surviving car.  It sports New York plates, and if it spent its life there, it must have been kept out of the inclement weather.

The European Capri stopped being imported to the North America in late 1977, but the Capri continued on in production until 1986 in Europe.  In North America, it was replaced with these Fox-bodied Capris in 1979, which were really just a badge engineered Ford Mustang.  Other than a few minor styling traits, the 1979 Capri shared nothing with its European predecessor except for the Cologne V6, which was optional for the first year. For 1983, the Capri got its unique “bubble” hatch window, which you can see in this yellow car above.

The Capri was only built from 1979-86 before Ford pulled the plug. Capri sales started out strong with 110,144 units being produced in 1979.  However, that was the peak production, and it went down quickly from their.  By 1984-86, there were only about 20,000 cars per year produced.

The Merkurs had a good showing; they were sold in the US for a brief period.  There is a small but dedicated group of enthusiast who own these cars, and the examples that showed up were well-preserved machines.

Ford introduced the Sierra in September 1982 to European markets as a replacement for the Cortina and Taunus.  In mid-1983, the XR4i, a sporty variant powered by the Cologne 2.8L V6 was added.   Bob Lutz thought that the ride and handling of the XR4i was impressive and decided to introduce it to the North American Market.

The car was adapted for the North American market and it was decided to sell it under a new Lincoln-Mercury sub-brand, Merkur, as it was felt the new brand would have more cachet with European car buyers.   One of the most significant changes for North America was the engine.  The 2.8L V6 was replaced with a turbocharged 2.3L inline-4.  Ultimately the Merkur XR4i was a failure in the North American market, and only 42,464 were produced between 1985 and 1989.

While the Merkur XR4i was a sporty 2-door hatchback, Ford also introduced the Merkur Scorpio as a 4-door hatchback (5-door) model for Merkur brand.  Like the XR4i, the Scorpio was adapted from an existing European Ford, the Ford Scorpio.  It was sold for three model years, 1987-89, and all were imported from Germany.

Ford may have been on the right track in believing that many European car buyers would not consider a Mercury or Lincoln.  However, one of the problems with the Merkur sub-brand was that they were sold at Lincoln-Mercury dealers.  It was unlikely that European car buyers would set foot in  a Lincoln-Mercury dealer.  Even it they did, the salesman were likely to have little knowledge and interest in Merkurs and were far more interested in moving Town Cars and Sables.

The Scorpio was powered by a 2.9L Cologne V6 engine that produced 144 hp.  This resulted in rather sub-par performance compared to its competitors.

While the Merkurs were German Fords adapted for and sold in the North American market, this 1994 Ford Escort RS Cosworth is an original German market car.  The owner had it imported to the US.  The Escort RS Cosworth was the successor the Ford Sierra Cosworth.  It was produced between 1992 and 1996.  Only 7,145 cars were produced in that time.  It also was used to compete in the World Rally Championships between 1993 and 1998. Note the engine orientation; these were AWD, and were actually based on the Sierra, but with Escort body panels.

These engine was a 2.0L Turbocharged 4-cylinder producing an impressive 224 hp, and it only had a curb weight of approximately 2800 lbs.  In stock form, they were able to run 0-100 km/h (62 mph) in 5.7 sec and had a top speed of 144 mph.

This was one of my favourite finds, a 1988 Ford Falcon Utility (Ute).   Like the US market Ranchero and El Camino, this is a car based truck, in this case based on Ford of Australia’s XF Falcon. This Ute spend most of its life in Australia and contrary to its near pristine original condition, it had accumulated somewhere around 400,000 kms (250,000 miles).

This Falcon Ute is powered by a 4.1L inline six, which has its roots in the old Falcon six introduced in 1960.  While Ford of USA was abandoning this engine by the late 1970’s, Ford of Australia updated it in 1976 with a crossflow head.  This was later updated have an aluminum alloy head followed by EFI.  This particular example is a carbureted crossflow six, and produced 131 hp@3750 RPM and 225 ft-lbs @ 2400 RPM.

I spoke with the owner for sometime and he was a very knowledgeable and friendly fellow.   He advised me that he was lucky to find one in such condition as they are very prone to rust. Interestingly, he told me that the US Ford Falcon clubs refuse to recognize the truck as a genuine Ford Falcon and refuse to allow him to join.  That just seems utterly ridiculous, but not surprising as many car clubs seem to be too close minded

While not a truck show, there was quite a large number of Ford trucks on the field.  Many were later models, that had been jacked up and modified in that fashion, which really have no interest to me.  There was some older trucks though too, with a mixture of stock and customized.  This ’36 Ford pickup above was probably one of the oldest I saw, although it was heavily modified.  I have several friends who like the style of vehicles from this era, but want more modern performance, drivability and comforts.  Vehicles like this appeal to them.

I, on the other hand, would rather have something a little newer and closer to stock.  This 1952 F1 Ford is more to my liking and was probably the nicest Ford truck I saw at the show.  It was an impeccable restoration, and was brought back to be 100% correct, as it left the factory floor.  It originally was sold in June of 1952 for a total price of $1717, including all options.  This particular truck’s options were a heater, 6.50 x 16 tires, deluxe cab, 11″ clutch, rear bumper and electric wipers.

And surprise, surprise, a Ford truck with no V8 under the hood.   A 215 inline-six that produced 101-hp powered this truck.  It had a three speed column shift transmission, the first year Ford offered this in their pickups.

Another featured truck at the show was this 1969 Bronco.  This particular Bronco is powered by a Ford 302 V8 engine.  While the majority of this truck appeared to be restored to factory specs, the engine did have some modern components, such as an updated alternator and ignition system.  While maybe that doesn’t meet the standards of a purist, at least it improves the drivability of the truck.

One of my favourite era of trucks, is the late 1960’s and the 1970’s.  These trucks were modern enough to have some refinement and comfort while still being a traditional work vehicle.  There was a good showing of Ford pickups from 1967-79.  The 1967-72 trucks are commonly called “bump sides” while the 1973-79 trucks are called “dent sides.”

Pickups aren’t exempt from resto-modding as seen by this ’68 that has been heavily modified.  It was a well-built truck, even if not necessarily my style.  This truck even has patina, that everyone but me seems to like these days.  When you clear coat over the patina, like this truck appeared to have, is it really patina anymore?

Much like how Meteor was created for the Lincoln-Mercury dealers to have a low-priced car, Ford of Canada had Mercury trucks for these same dealers.  Since Canada was sparsely populated over a large geographic area, sometimes a Meteor-Mercury-Lincoln dealer might be the only Ford dealer in an area.  Having Mercury trucks sold at these dealers ensure that Ford could sell trucks in all parts of Canada.  Mercury trucks were badge engineered Ford Trucks with few differences to Ford trucks.  As opposed to the “F-series” they were called “M-series.”

While not 100% factor correct, this truck is more my style. This 1968 is powered by a mildly modified 390 -4bbl engine, with typical modifications including a mild cam and headers.  It has a 4-speed and 3.90:1 gears in the 9″ Ford rear axle.  The owner of this truck has owned it since 1971, when he was in Grade 12.  He completed a full restoration in 2009.  The paint colour, chrome yellow, is the original colour.

Ford Motorsports built this restomod truck, with no expense spared.  It seems to me “bump side” trucks are quite popular for restomods and performance builds, much more so than the dent side trucks that followed.

Dent side trucks have seemingly been less desirable than the earlier bump sides, but as of late the interest seems to be increasing. This particular ’77 F-100 was powered by a 302-2V engine, had factory A/C and is an original black truck. While it was in great shape, the owner was asking a rather lofty $24,900.

The dent side trucks have long been popular with the 4×4 off-road crowd, likely partially due to the fact that much higher number of 4×4 trucks were sold during this generation than the previous ones.  There were quite a few trucks from this era that were modified with off-road type modifications.

This ’79 F-150 Ranger was for sale on the swap meet side. It was a decent looking truck, other than the tacked on blue oval.   In contrast to the black ’77, this one was bargained priced, somewhere around $3000 if I recall correctly.  I thought it was a good deal for a seemingly fairly solid truck.  My only concern was the newer paint.  Based on the undercarriage, it was not from a rust free environment.  So it’d require closer inspection to see what sins hide under that paint.  Note the factory aluminium wheels on this truck.

There were lots of modern Ford pickups on site, but I don’t have much interest in Ford pickups after the 1970’s.  The 1993-95 Ford Lightenings are one of the few exceptions though.   Ford introduced the Lightning as a competitor to Chevrolet’s 454SS pickup.  The Chevrolet, was essentially was a regular cab short box 1/2 ton truck that had a lo-po 454 from a 1-ton pickup. While the Lightning was an all-round performance package which was created by the SVT division.   It had a high-performance 351W that produced 240-hp, an E4oD transmission, and a 4.10:1 8.8″ rear axle.  The truck was lowered 2.5″ over stock, and had 1″ front and rear anti-roll bar while the steering was reworked for improved response. There were only 11,563 Lightening’s built over the three model years.

Of course no Ford show would be complete without some Cobras.  Unfortunately I only saw replicas.

But this 1964 Shelby Daytona Coupe was closer to the real deal, being a continuation car.   This car is CSX-7072 and it started life as a Shelby FIA roadster.  With Carroll Shelby’s permission, a Shelby Dealer rebodied the car in 1998 to be a Daytona.  Pete Brock, the designer of this car (and the 1963 Corvette), assisted in re-creating what the original Daytona coupe looked like during its first race in 1964.  Other than the required modern safety equipment/modifications. as per vintage racing rules, it has been made to the exact specs of the original car.  It is powered by a 289 V8, and uses Girling brakes, and Koni Shocks.

Henry Ford was a farmer at heart, and so Ford tractors have to be included to truly be representative of Ford.  As you can see from this picture, there was a decent showing of vintage Ford tractors.

I am not a tractor guy, but I have a soft spot for these old N-series Fords.  This 8N was very similar to the first vehicle I ever drove.  At 8 years old, Dad let me take the helm on Aunt Kay’s old 8N when we were visiting her on her farm.  We had a lot of fun with that old tractor.

How about this for something different, a hot rod 8N tractor.  It had a Ford 302, a T5 transmission and used a F-150 rear axle.  While I am not sure how much tractor is actually in this hot rod, it was a pretty unique build.

Like most swap meets, there were lots of interesting finds on the field.  There were some pretty interesting engines for sale too, include this modern version of the Ford SOHC 427 FE.

There were also lot of model cars, neat old toys and other collectibles for sale.  This old ’58 Ford toy car was a really neat find, but I recall it being very expensive.

And to finish off the swap meet, I saw this ’55 Ford golf car cruising around the fair grounds quite a bit.  This golf cart was actually really well done, and was pretty well detailed.

That concludes my coverage of the 2018 Carlisle Ford Nationals show.  I know many can’t make this show or have never been, so I hope you enjoyed the series.  This show really does an excellent job at capturing a huge variety of postwar Fords.  After attending this show, I’d definitely go back to Carlisle to a GM, Corvette, or Mopar show.


2018 Carlisle Ford Nationals Series

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four