Cortina: The Story of Ford’s Best-Seller is a definitive book about one of the most important British Ford’s in history and a staple of the British working class from the 1960s into the 1980s. If you grew up in the England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa it’s almost certain that either your parents had a Cortina, or one of your friend’s parents did.
Ford offered the Cortina in versions from the Mark I to the Mark V, the Mark I is the most desirable now with a body developed under the watchful eye of Chief Body Engineer Don Ward.
The car engineered by Don and his team would prove to be one of the most versatile of its age, taking innumerable race wins and championships, while at the same time being an affordable working class vehicle offered in 2-door, 4-door, and estate (station wagon) versions.
One of the secrets to the success of the Ford Cortina was the advanced (for the era) unibody frame that offered better stiffness and less weight than a traditional body-on-chassis design. The Lotus Cortina, a special performance version, put this unibody to good use on race tracks around the world and is now the most collectible iteration of the model.
This book is the work of Graham Robson, a respected motoring writer and former automotive industry insider – including a stint working at Ford in Britain. Robson has a slew of motoring books to his name, and he’s known for his engaging writing style and fastidious attention to detail.
Cortina: The Story of Ford’s Best-Seller runs to 160 pages and includes a vast array of information on all five iterations of the car, there are countless images also including early prototypes.
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
