Ford Cortina 1600E review

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Ford Cortina 1600E Road Test

Test date 28 December 1967 Price as tested £982

For Driving experience, standard equipment, gearchange

Against Not refined enough, poor ride

All the multitude of accessories offered (and bought) for the embellishment of ordinary cars is enough to show that many buyers want, in the American phrase, to "personalize" their transport. In an age of quantity production and increasing conformity, it is understandable that more people should wish to be slightly different.

Ford first acknowledged that need with the Executive Zodiac (now called simply Executive) and then with the Corsair 2000E: on the eve of this year's Motor Show they introduced the Cortina 1600E, which is basically a four-door Cortina GT with a number of "luxury" extras as standard. Ford's "executive" (for which the "E" stands) is reckoned as a successful young married businessman seeking a four-seater sporting saloon, with more comfort and status than is normal for this class of car.

Basic equipment includes therefore reclining seats, polished wood facia and window sills, an imitation leather-rimmed steering wheel, auxiliary lamps, automatic reversing lamps, a clock, a radio, extra storage space and even partial trimming inside the boot.

The body has four doors and sits on the lower, Cortina Lotus-type suspension with wide (5.5 instead of 4.5in.) rim "sculptured" pressed-steel wheels, which having no nave plates are partially chromium plated. Tyres are now exclusively India Autoband radial-ply, 165-13 tubeless.