The Ford Sierra - A look back at Ford's jelly mould car

The sleek Ford Sierra was ahead of its time. Nicknamed the jelly mould car, at the time of its launch its aerodynamic design returned a drag coefficient of 0.34, which was only been beaten by the Porsche 924 and Citroen GS. The Sierra XR4i variant dropped that down even further, to 0.32.

In the late 70s, Ford of Europe was working on a new mid-sized car to replace the Taunus and Cortina models. Working under the codename Project Toni, the then chairman of Ford of Europe Bob Lutz, commissioned designers Uwe Bahnsen – responsible for the Capri Mk I and Mk II and the Escort Mk III – and French designer, Patrick le Quément to investigate the possibilities.

What they came up with was a polarising design, which would prove to be way ahead of its time. Despite the jelly mould design being a slow burner, Sierra still managed nearly 160,000 sales in Britain in 1982, outsold only by the smaller Ford Escort.

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