Back in the late 1960’s, and over the following three decades, the company car or fleet sales market in the UK was almost unique, certainly in Europe, in that it was a crucial and huge part of the mainstream motor industry. Introduced as a way of giving employees pay rises but without actually increasing the numbers on their salary slips, the company car became not just a status symbol, but a cornerstone of the British motor industry, and by the mid 1970’s each of the major UK manufacturers – led by Ford – produced ranges of cars designed primarily to appeal to the fleet market. It’s worth stating here that at the time, very few companies bought “foreign”, so Ford, BL and Vauxhall basically had the corporate car market in the UK to themselves.
The Ford Cortina, launched in 1962 and initially with Super, Deluxe and GT trim levels, was already a success, which the Mark 2 built on, especially with the 1600GT and 1600E, and by the time of the 3rd-generation model – the “coke bottle” – launched in 1970, Ford had created a range structure that would suit all levels of corporate hierarchies, which would go something like this:-
Junior Representative – possibly in training to become a fully qualified Company Rep, would be given a sparsely-equipped basic Ford Escort, in all probability, a 1.3-litre.
Company Rep (a road warrior, probably racking up 25,000 and more miles a year) would get a basic Cortina 1.6, especially if he was really piling up the miles, and a Senior Rep or Account Manager would be given a 1.6L, maybe even a GL.
His (and in those days, it usually was a man) Area Manager would also have a Cortina, but he would have a 2.0L, and on promotion up to the next rung of the corporate ladder as Regional Manager, might be rewarded with an upgrade to a 2.0GL or even a GLX. These cars were seen as mobile offices, essential tools of the trade, and were generally changed every two to three years due to the high mileages their drivers racked up, keeping demand high.
The Regional Director would be in a Granada, with trim levels following a similar pattern with the top of the tree being 2.8 or 3.0-litre Ghia (depending on which decade we’re in) for the Managing Director. This was one sector where Rover did compete reasonably well with the introduction of the SD1, although reliability and quality issues meant that it always lagged behind the Granada.
The Chairman, of course, would be in a Jag or, in a very few cases, a Roller – just about the only market sector where Ford didn’t compete; it was Mercedes and BMW who started to nibble way at Jaguar’s supremacy at the luxury end of the corporate market as it became gradually more acceptable to buy European, and it has to be said, as Jaguar quality fell short of their rivals.
Ford’s domination of the company car market continued through the 4th and 5th generation Cortina’s, though these were by now pretty dull and conventional – British Leyland and Vauxhall were left trailing in their wake, with Chrysler even further behind, not least because of their adequate but uninspiring alternatives, in the shapes of the Morris Marina and the first-generation Cavalier (or Opel Ascona). Trying to sell Marina’s, Princesses and Ambassadors into a Ford fleet was a thoroughly unrewarding experience – I know, it was my job for three years.
Working for Vauxhall’s Fleet Sales division was almost as frustrating – competent as the Cavalier MkI was, it was no more than that. It looked OK – more than OK in Sports Hatch form, an option not available with the Cortina – but otherwise just wasn’t good enough to loosen Ford’s hold on the medium-sized saloon segment, which remained as strong as ever; Ford were the IBM of the fleet sales market – no fleet manager would ever lose his job for basing his company fleet on Ford, and especially on the Cortina.
Ford’s success in this sector was ably assisted by the halo effect of their motor-sport campaigns with the Cortina – not least the Lotus Cortina and Cortina GT models, which added motor-sport glamour to the range – and later the Sierra, but what really kept them ahead in this particular game was that their cars were solid, reliable, and told your neighbours how successful – or otherwise – you were in terms of your career development.
As a result, the Cortina was Britain’s best-selling car from 1972 to 1981, and almost 2.6 million were sold from the Mark 1’s launch in 1962. And then, in 1982, things began to change….
Perhaps emboldened by their market-leading position, Ford had already started to feel that it was time to replace the Cortina – now in its 5th and possibly least interesting iteration – with something more modern, more adventurous, a feeling that was given added urgency as the launch of the second-generation Cavalier in 1981 had made quite significant inroads into their previously invincible sector leadership, offering an altogether higher standard of performance and – crucial in this high-mileage sector – fuel economy than the Cortina, and something had to be done about it.
That something was the introduction in 1982 of the Ford Sierra, which caused shockwaves in the fleet market, but not of the kind that Ford had expected…
The Sierra was – by comparison with the Cortina and indeed most other mid-sized saloons at the time – a radical design. Where the Cortina – and Cavalier – had previously been fairly rectilinear with the odd curve introduced for interest, the Sierra had rounded lines and didn’t have a conventional boot.
It was far more aerodynamic than the Cortina, with a drag co-efficient of 0.34 compared to its predecessor’s 0.45. It looked very different, and in the conventional and small-c conservative world of the fleet market, it looked radical, even though mechanically it was every bit as conventional as the Cortina. The engines were the same as those used in the Cortina, and the layout was still rear-wheel drive, at a time when more and more small and medium-sized cars featured front-wheel-drive, allowing for better interior packaging.
In fact, so reluctant were fleet buyers to embrace the Sierra that the Cavalier caught up, then overtook it and stayed out in front through 1984 and ’85 as acceptance of the “jelly mould” was slow in coming, but it did come, and by 1986 the Sierra was the market leader, but it was the introduction of the more conventionally handsome notchback – if less interesting – Sierra Sapphire that really put Ford back in front, with BL’s recently launched rival, the Montego, never really challenging these two, and the Princess and Ambassador were themselves both too radically styled and too unreliable…
The Vauxhall Cavalier MkII really took the fight to Ford – it looked more modern than the MkV Cortina, was available from the beginning as both saloon and hatchback, out-performed and yet was more economical than the Cortina, was roomier thanks to its front-wheel-drive layout and better equipped. So it was already making some progress in the Cortina’s market segment – although the Ford was still market leader at this point- and the introduction of the Sierra presented Vauxhall with an opening that they drove straight through. Vauxhall reps at the NEC Motor Show walked around with broad smiles on their faces for a couple of years as they sold more cars than ever before. Sadly for them, their time at the top of the fleet sales tree didn’t last beyond that, but the Cavalier continued to be a viable competitor to the Sierra right to the end.
Over 2.8 million Cortina’s were sold across the model’s five generations, including almost half-a-million Mark V’s just in the 1980’s, despite the advance of the Cavalier. The Sierra was never going to be able to match those numbers, despite a decent start, but still sold just a handful fewer than 1.4m in its 12 year run up to 1993. By comparison, Vauxhall sold almost 250,000 examples of the Mk1 Cavalier (somewhat surprisingly, it was outsold by the inferior Morris Marina), with 807,624 examples of the second generation Cavalier sold between 1981 and 1988, and a similar number of the Mk3 found buyers. By any measure, these were popular cars.
Today, the Cortina/Sierra and Cavalier remain direct alternatives for those classic enthusiasts looking for a relatively low-cost entry into classic car ownership (the exception being the high-performance and extravagantly be-spoilered Sierra XR4i and Sierra Cosworth, and of course Lotus Cortina’s, with the latter in particular fetching high prices). Regular Cortina’s, Sierra’s and Cavaliers can all be bought in very good condition for well under £10,000, but for how much longer? Considering they sold in such vast numbers, they have – like so many of the road-warriors of the not-so-distant past – shrunk in numbers quite dramatically; just c.1500 Cortina’s, 2851 of all Sierra variants and a mere 1836 Cavaliers remain in the UK. Interestingly, of the surviving Sierra’s, 1183 – over 40% – are Cosworths, which have actually increased in number as their values have gone up, a trend similar to the E-Type.
I ran 4 Cavaliers as company cars at various times back in the 1980’s – a brown 1.6L Mk II and three Mark III SRi’s – one a pale metallic blue saloon (my favourite), the other two being the 5-door versions; they were pretty quick, and looked pretty cool, I thought. The only Sierra I got to drive was bog-standard 1.6 for a couple of months, while I was waiting for a new Cavalier; I disliked it…
So which would you go for today? For me, I’d probably look for a Cavalier SRi or Sportshatch, though the latter is particularly hard to find, but the lure of a Sierra Sapphire Cosworth would be strong…
