Ford-for-All: These Are the 20 Best Ford Cars of All Time

The Ford Motor Company has been building cars since 1903. Through sheer longevity if nothing else, the carmaker is bound to have built some great ones over 111 years. They’ve actually built enough great cars that it’s tough to pare the list down to 20. Okay, not that tough; we’re not coal miners or forest-fire smoke jumpers. But it’s all a question of how you measure greatness. And, well, our final working criteria is wildly inconsistent, contradictory, and irrational. So here, and with apologies to the late, great Casey Kasem, is our countdown of the 20 Greatest Fords of All Time. More than just a powerplant, this all-new DFV engine designed by Cosworth for Ford in the first Formula 1 car of note that used the engine as a stressed member of the chassis. In short, it was a revolution. The Lotus 49 would finish second in the constructors’ championship for ’67 while versions of the 49 would win the title in ’68 and ’70. Meanwhile, the DFV engine would take drivers to 12 Formula 1 world championships and power cars to 10 constructors’ titles. Beyond that, DFV variants would win the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice and the Indianapolis 500 a full 10 times. It’s the GT40 of off-road pickup trucks. Suspension travel and aggressive looks produce something no other manufacturer has yet dared to build. The SVT Raptor is rumored to be the most profitable vehicle Ford builds, so it's no wonder the company is planning a second-gen model based on the new aluminum-bodied F-150. It would be produced for two short model years, but the Ford GT announced to the world that the company was still capable of audacious designs and daring engineering. The styling was sort of a 13/10ths-scale version of the GT40, while a 550-hp, 5.4-liter supercharged DOHC 32-valve V-8 sat in the GT’s midsection feeding a six-speed manual transaxle. The GT is already a 21st century legend. After the hideous 1958–1960 Continental, Elwood Engel’s gorgeous ’61 Continental saved the entire Lincoln brand with its clean sides and flat hood and trunk. Influential beyond Ford, the four-door flagship inspired a generation of clean, muscular cars. And the suicide rear doors were way cool, too. Ford conspired with Carroll Shelby to build a whole new chassis under the AC Ace body and shove in the outrageous 427-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) “side-oiler” V-8. With between 425 and 485 horsepower it has set a high bar for the performance cars that followed it. Young Edsel Ford’s personal car became a spectacularly stylish, V-12–powered coupe and convertible. The first Continental remains the ultimate Lincoln. The original two-seat Thunderbird was the first truly glamorous Ford. After three years it would bloat into a four-seat mess, but the sight of an original T-Bird today is an instant trip back into a supposedly happier and pastel-rich past. A straightforward attempt to leverage the Mustang formula in Europe, Ford’s Capri was basically a sexier body fitted to the mechanical bits of the Ford Cortina. And it was quickly embraced as an affordable platform for modification. Through two generations, it was sold in the United States by Mercury dealers, ending in 1978. This was a completely new full-size car that ditched leaf springs for coil springs in the rear suspension, setting new standards in ride comfort and quietness. Elements of this car’s engineering—including its front suspension—would become the standard building blocks of NASCAR stock cars. And 46 years later, when the 2011 Ford Crown Victoria finally left production, so did the last remnants of this design. The “Fox body” Mustang had been in production since the 1979 model year and conventional wisdom was that no one cared about performance anymore. The most powerful V-8–powered 1981 Mustang used a crummy 4.2-liter version of Ford’s classic small-block, wheezing out a measly 115 horsepower. But the Mustang GT roared back in ’82 with the return of the High Output 4.9-liter small-block (marketed, duh, as a “5.0”) with a two-barrel carburetor and rated at 157 horsepower. That’s modest by 21st-century standards, but it started a horsepower war that, almost 33 years later, is still going strong. It was a small step forward but a big turning point. As American cars grew ever larger, the rest of the world needed an honest small car to deal with higher fuel prices and congested former cart paths. Anglia production didn’t ramp up until after World War II, but it firmly established Ford as a worldwide company. This was a simple, straightforward car, with a front engine and rear-wheel drive, that made Ford almost as British as it is American. Deeply beloved in the UK, it became a fierce rally car and a performance icon. (1970 model shown.) Arguably, this is the best looking truck ever made (just ask any street-rodder). It got even better in ’56 when a wraparound windshield perfected the design. And thanks to a modern chassis underneath, the beauty was more than skin-deep. Although many of these have been customized into hot rods, some are still working hard every day. Forget fat fenders and running boards, modern cars of the postwar era would have “envelope” bodies that tidily tucked everything within sleek styling. Think of it as the engineering blueprint that the entire American industry would follow for the next 35 years. In the mid-1980s, the American car industry was flailing, failing, and falling behind the Japanese. Then came the cleanly aerodynamic, front-drive Taurus and suddenly it was rational to buy an American car again. No one may ever collect one as a classic—save for perhaps the high-performance SHO—but the Taurus saved Ford. It was Ford’s first true post–World War II design, and with its “Million Dollar Cab” it was more comfortable and more usable than any pickup before it. The F-series pickups have been among the bestselling vehicles on earth ever since. Yeah, it’s merely pretty metal over the bones of a Falcon, but it (and its savvy marketing) made an entire generation of Americans go nuts for cars. Car fans will continue to disagree whether the first Mustang, introduced in April of 1964, was officially a 1964, 1964.5, or 1965 model, but the VIN pegs all first-year versions of the pony car as 1965 models. The Model T put the world on wheels, but it’s the 65-hp ’32 V-8 that brought power and style to the people. The flathead Deuce is the eternal hot rod. Fewer than 135 of these mid-engine racing machines were crafted, mixing European chassis components with production-based American racing V-8s. Built to beat Ferrari at its own game, the GT40 won four straight 24 Hours of Le Mans between 1966 and 1969. It’s simply the greatest Ford race car of all time. Our top pick for the number-one Ford of all time? Did you really have to ask? Over a period of 20 years Ford built about 16.5 million of these bare-bones, four-cylinder machines at assembly plants around the world. With the Model T, Ford really did put the world on wheels, and in so doing, the world changed.



from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1GdqYIt
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