Ford UK Sales By Model : 1965-1974

I decided to put a chart together of Ford Sales in the UK by model, the first in the series from 1965 to 1974. Back then there were few models available. In fact the models below covered the full range of Ford cars sold. At the time, all of Ford cars sold in the UK were made locally and were based around the saloon car.

Today cars are sourced from many car plants around the world and the choice of segments has ballooned. People want variety to choose from. The roads today have so many different cars. In the late 1960's, that wasn't the case. Let's consider briefly the models sold then.

The Cortina - which today would be equivalent to the Mondeo - accounted for anything from 40-60% of all Ford sales. This we see below under 'Cortina'. The first colum is sales by thousands (add three zeros) and the second the percentage of Ford sales. In 1967 165,000 cars were sold, achieving 59% of all Fords sold.

The Anglia became the Escort during this period - now known as the Focus. It took from 26 to 37% of Ford sales.


The Ford Capri was a sporty two door car that really sold well in the UK. For its specialist body style, consistently exceeding 10% of the Ford total was impressive.


The Ford Zephyr became the Granada in 1972. There is no model of this size now, due to cars getting bigger and this large car segment became overrun by the medium segment.


The Ford Corsair was a reskinned and slightly larger Cortina. Sales were quite good but it was an unusual option taken by Ford to run two model so close in size when the range was hardly that broad as it was.

The total column shows total sales by Ford in the UK, followed by the market share it enjoyed. It's share didn't change that much over the time, being more affected by total sales variance.

	Yr	Cortina		Anglia		Capri		Zephyr		Corsair		Total
				Escort				Granada
	65	117	40	85	29			43	15	44	15	289	25
	66	127	48	68	26			29	11	38	15	262	24
	67	165	59	56	20			23	8	36	13	280	25
	68	138	46	112	37			20	7	31	10	301	26
	69	116	44	85	32	33	13	16	6	14	5	264	27
	70	123	43	96	34	38	13	14	5	14	5	286	27
	71	102	42	89	37	34	14	15	6			241	19
	72	187	47	141	35	42	11	32	8			402	25
	73	182	48	114	30	39	10	40	11			376	23
	74	131	46	92	32	38	13	27	9			288	23

Data source: SMMT.

For the next in the series: 1975-84.