Henry Ford's idea not only became a mile-stone of industrial revolution, but also resulted in the Model T. From 1908 to 1927, no less than 15 million Model Ts found customers. This make it to be the most produced car in the world until VW Beetle surpassed many decades later. Today, Model T still holds the second place of all-time sales chart.

Compare with contemporary cars, Model T was rather simple and technological conservative. For simplicity of production, even the paint was limited to black. Henry Ford said customers could choose whatever colour as long as it was black.

What makes it to be one of the members in this classic car archive? Styling. It is rich of American features, but not as over-decorated as those American cars in later years. Elegant, tasteful, civilised ... completely contrary to muscle cars. Look at the picture ! Don't you think so ?

If you know Ford's history well, you must refuse to believe Ford developed the GT40 by itself. Yes, you are right. There is a story behind GT40 - In the 60s, Henry Ford negotiated to buy Ferrari but was refused by Enzo Ferrari at the last minute, so he decided to beat Ferrari in racing circuits by developing his own supercar wearing his badge. Therefore, from day one the GT40 was intended to be a racing car, though dozens of road cars were built for homologation as well as marketing purpose.

British racing chassis ace, Lola, was employed to design the chassis. The basic structure was a steel monocoque constructing the central part of the car. The front and rear extensions were made of square-section tubular spaceframes. The body was made of fiberglass for the benefit of weight reduction.

Most road-legal (although still very raceable) GT-40 were built in two versions. The first one, simply called GT40, was powered by a Shelby-tuned V8, which was  modified from one of the mass production American Ford V8s. So, we can call the GT40 as an Anglo-American joint venture. 4.2 litres capacity, 350 hp and 275 lbft were enough to make it the fastest car then. Later, the engine was enlarged to 4.7 litres, with 335 hp and 330 lbft, this version called GT40P. However, these two versions, despite road legal (how easy to be road legal according to the regulations in the 60s !), were never really perceived as road car. Actually, people bought them for racing. The only serious "road" version, GT40 Mk III, had a more practical cabin and detuned to 306 hp for new emission regulations. Just 7 Mk III were built.

GT40 might not be very successful as a road car, but it was by all means a great racing car - 4 Le Mans wins in a roll from 1966 to 1969, 2 Daytona titles in 1965 and 66 said it all. After Henry Ford carried out his revenge, the company never built another supercar to succeed GT40.

Shelby reworked the 289 Ford engine (already rated at 271hp) to enable another 35 hp by sharing GT-40's technology. Then the chassis received heavy modifications: added a tower bar across the front suspensions pick up points to enhance chassis rigidity, stiffened the suspensions by employing Koni shock absorbers, replaced the front drum with disc brakes, used thicker anti-roll bars, deleted the rear seats, employed a fiberglass hood to reduce weight ... as a result, handling was greatly improved in the price of ride. Eventually, Mustang GT-350 became a real sporty car.

Observing from the appearance, everybody will know the RS Cosworth must be a high performance car - undoubtedly, the huge and highly mounted rear wing was a clear statement about that. With modified nose, air dam, massive skirts and the 3-door body shell with big rear side windows, Sierra RS Cosworth looked every bit a handsome (and fearsome) sports saloon.

Cosworth worked most in the engine compartment. It created a 16-valve turbocharged straight-four, with 1993 c.c. but capable of 204 horsepower, this broke the contemporary magic mark of "100 hp per litre" (Oh yes, it was the first production car breaking that barrier) Best of all, under Group A regulations, it could be easily tuned to 350 hp in racing form. With bigger turbo and bigger intercooler, as appeared in later RS500 version, the road car was even boosted to 225 hp and race version to 500 hp !!

Nevertheless, don't think the Sierra RS Cosworth must be difficult to drive. On the contrary, it had excellent handling - partly due to the 20 kg net downforce created by the huge wing, partly because of its rear-wheel drive nature. In terms of practicality, few car with such performance could match it - simply the same room as the spacious Sierra saloon, with a useful liftback and a split rear seats. It had all the comfort and convenience of a saloon accompany with supercar performance, what a magic.

A standard RS Cosworth topped 145 mph at least, and it could accelerate to 60 mph from standstill in merely 6.2 seconds. Of course, turbo lag existed in any car of the mid 80s, but not a great problem to this Cossie. The only problem was the arrival of BMW M3, whose handling was even sharper. Anyway, Sierra was a lot quicker, also cost considerably less than the Bimmer.

In 1988, Saphire RS Cosworth (just a Sierra with boot) arrived. Meanwhile, 4-wheel drive was also added, accompany with power increment to 220 hp. However, it lost all the awesome aerodynamic kits, thus the Sierra RS Cosworth remains the King in my mind.

To be honest, the ordinary bread-and-butter Escort was a really boring family hatch. However, once Cosworth involved, everything could happen. Instead of the original transverse engine and FWD, the Sierra (Saphire) RS Cosworth's longitude engine and 4WD system were carried over to the smaller car. Power further increased to 227 hp by means of a larger turbine. The body was enclosed with aggressive aero kits like the Sierra Cosworth, in particular, a huge and highly mounted rear wing completed a family look. Since Escort was more compact and angular, the RS Cosworth looked even more aggressive than the Sierra predecessor. However, in terms of pure beauty, Sierra is still my first choice.

How did it drive ? There were some criticism about excessive turbo lag, especially when facing Toyota Celica GT4. Not as powerful and as smooth too. The Cossie handles very good, with superb grip and strong brakes in particular. Some journalists maintained that Lancia Delta Integrale had the better overall handling, but the Cossie was still leading the Celica. In 1994, Ford finally reduced the boost pressure by using a smaller turbine. Power dropped slightly to 221 hp as a result but engine response was improved. Autocar magazine praised the change. When comparing with the latest Celica GT4, it said the Toyota still had a better engine, but the Cossie scored back in some aspect of handling. The Toyota was overall slightly better in dynamic, but Escort was more practical to use and much cheaper to buy. Anyway, in rally world, Escort remained to be a loser. It did not win any world championship in spite of employing the best driver, Carlo Sainz.