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[CortinaD]

Closer To The Rising Sun

Source: Wheels Dec 1980

This article was typed and submitted by Matthew Woolard.



Ford believes its Cortina has suffered a poor reputation and been overshadowed by the Falcon for too long. Once more it has done something about the problems with the new TF Cortina. Noise and harshness of the TE have been largely surmounted and fuel economy reportedly improved. Ford hopes it now has a serious foe for the Japanese…

PRETTY AS it was, the Cortina had to be changed - and changed quickly. Ford itself has admitted as much after the event. With the two-litre market segment the fastest growing in Australia and the Sigma running, Ford needed more than a pretty face in the ring.

We acknowledged the Cortinas potential in our six-car two-litre comparison [February, 1980], liked it’s smooth-road handling and ride, it’s roominess and went so far as to say: "The Cortina is a case of so-near-yet-so-far. It has a lot going for it…" Then we went on to talk about it’s average performance and fuel economy, high noise levels and its disappointing rough road handling. A robust local it may have been; a serious challenger to the Japanese market leaders it wasn’t.

Whether the facts had dawned on Ford before or after that comparison appeared isn’t recorded but the huge success of the Sigma must have made it’s marketing men well aware that all wasn’t as it should be. The so-called middle segment of the market [neatly represented by the six cars in the aforementioned comparison] took off soon after the release of the TE Cortina in 1977 and Ford says today that segment has grown 50 percent in that time. That change represents the most dramatic jump in the Australian car-buying market in the last two decades. And while it should have been up there slugging, the TE Cortina was taking a battering.

Price strategies by the Japanese made things difficult for the Cortina but its so-near-yet-so-far reputation certainly didn’t help. As we said, things had to change.

Things have changed. The TF Cortina, revelling in the influence of an $80 million development injection by Ford of Europe into its "Theresa" Taunus-Cortina, is a changed car. Maybe not a market segment leader and certainly not an innovator, it now deserves at least a front running, though whether it is all too late remains to be seen.

The fact that it is not Japanese is probably enough to ensure it has a limited role to play in Australia.

The Cortina now drives like it should have done all along. It still has problems but it presents itself as a more driveable, sounder, conventional two-litre car: the type of car you’d take home to meet your mother. Nothing fancy, nothing elaborate, just sound. Or, more specifically, lack of sound. A good part of the $8 million Ford Australia pumped into its TF program went towards attempting to cure what engineers have privately admitted is an incurable acoustical problem inherent in the Cortina. It seems that try as you might, designing a more resonant sound box on wheels than the current-shape Cortina is near impossible: the car has sonorous crevices and humming haunches that came straight from the unwitting designers. But it looks terrific.

Stuck with its likable body shape, Ford set about the Cortinas curious resonances and came up with a successful sound package, marred only by a stubborn hum from the Borg-Warner 35 automatic transmission in the six-cylinder cars which sets in at 3000 rpm and dies off after about 4500 rpm. The full Cortina range has been sound-packaged from floor to roof - and even in the hitherto neglected C-pillars - with sound-proofing materials devised and advised by the Swiss Keller Corporation, the sound wizards to whom Ford sent a Cortina and an NVH engineer.

The sound package hasn’t eliminated engine and road noise but, helped by changes to driveline angles, a laminated exhaust system and the two-piece driveshaft-and-damper arrangement instigated by Ford Australia, has reduced what was induction roar and road rumbling to more subdued levels - levels Ford rightly believes buyers in the so-called middle segment now expect.

"Throaty" is a better way of describing Cortina noise these days.

Ford openly says the Commadore set new standards of noise suppression and that the rest of the market had to fall into line. As far as Ford is concerned, it is one manufacture which has at least equalled the Commodore’s standard with the XD and now the Cortina.

The Cortina range - the price-leading L, volume-selling GL, the tricked-up S model, and fully-equipped Ghia - now gets soft-rimmed steering wheels, with the L and GL getting a Falcon-type spoke arrangement in which the top two spokes are flat [parallel to the floor]. The Ghia wheel [which also goes into the S] remains unchanged, with the top two spokes slant upwards slightly. They are both good steering wheels and a big improvement over the plastic wheels Ford points out are still used by some of the Cortinas competitors. Of the two, the L and GL wheel is probably the better because it gives a marginally better view of the instruments.

Those instruments are basic but informative. More basic in the GL than we’ve seen for some time [having driven Cortinas with Sports Pack instrumentation since we can’t remember when]. The L and GL feature a speedometer flanked by fuel gauge and water temperature gauge each with an in-built warning light - one for oil and the other for alternator. Minor switch gear is beneath the instruments binnacle and indictors and wash-wipers are stalk-mounted. The Ghia and Sports Pack models feature more comprehensive instrumentation, with the central speedometer flanked by a tachometer on the left and a combination oil, fuel gauges and warning lights gauge on the right. Both systems work well. The instruments don’t benefit from the XD’s transistorised system but the effect is similar to that in the XD, in that the panel is clean and easy to read. Interestingly, Ford hasen’t opted for a standard vacuum gauge.

Glass area has been increased mainly by thinning-out the roof panel without compromising structural integrity, and the result is an even more airy feeling in the cabin and visibility is increased 15 percent front and sides and 10 percent rearward.

Cortina seats now use components from the XD seats and incorporate XD-like see-through head restraints. The driving position in the car has always been good and the slightly increased visibility serves to help matters. There is the sensation of much more head room both front and rear, which somehow encourages the driver to strike a more relaxed driving posture - not lazy, just relaxed. With the steering wheel pretty close to ideally positioned, good visibility and good reach to both pedals and gear-lever, the driver is made to feel at home.

Both front and rear seat passengers also benefit from the fact that the Cortina doesn’t follow the practice of some Japanese car builders who create the illusion of interior space by positioning the seat squabs behind the B-pillars. So rear leg room is good and front seat occupants aren’t made to feel claustrophobic.

The four-cylinder GL feels surprisingly manoeuvrable underway, with its nicely weighted manual steering and good throttle response. Braking in both the four and six cylinder cars is good both at the pedal and on the road. Ford has used a new, alloy brake master cylinder which gives excellent pedal feel.

Weight saving features like the use of XD style RIM [Reaction Injection Moulding] bumpers, 5.5 kg-lighter Borg-Warner rear axle and of course , the adoption of the 22.4 kg-lighter alloy-head six have been incorporated into the car. But the four-cylinder Cortina makes up for its weight loss with an equal amount of new NVH equipment, while the six comes out ahead, with 30 kg less all-up.

The four feels balanced in both suburban and open road going, though like the six-cylinder car it still suffers wind noise problems at highway speeds. Handling is much improved [possibly helped by the fact that the engine has been lowered marginally to help reduce driveline angles and thus rid the car of some of its vibrations]. Even rough road ride has been helped by using variable rate coil springs, revised shock absorber valving and a new front stabiliser bar for the four-cylinder car. Presumably, the shock absorbers are stiffer and the variable rate coils help distribute loads to provide a happier ride-handling compromise.

The six-cylinder Cortina doesn’t have the manoeuvrability of the four but provides the good, old-fashioned torque Ford believes a lot of buyers - particularly people who tow boats and caravans - still want. There is really no more discernible power than you’d find in a 2.6 Sigma but Ford hopes to win sales on the Cortina’s reputation as a bigger interior package. It also firmly believes in that growing breed of Australian, the downsizer. Ford says the downsizer is the buyer who is prepared to spend more on his new car and will look for value for money.

"People who have accepted the Commodore in preference to the Falcon have taken some interior package compromise", is the way one Ford executive puts it. "We can sell a Cortina six to those buyers quite readily. Once they have accepted the fact they haven’t got a six-seater car, a six-cylinder Cortina or Commodore is the alternative."

As you can see, Ford still views the Commodore as a middle segment car - what the company calls a C/D class car - despite what a lot of other people in the motor industry might think.

The four-speed manual Borg-Warner gearbox is unchanged. It is a good shift in which the lever travels a long way but feels positive once it has reached its destination. Happily, the gear change is light to use despite its length of travel. The three-speed Borg-Warner automatic works well enough though it does have the drone from 3000 rpm onwards.

Axle ratios have been changed in both the fours and sixes, partly for the noise suppressing benefits and partly for better fuel economy. The six has gone from 2.92:1 to 2.78:1 while the four has gone from 3.7:1 to 3.42:1. Engine speed has been reduced 4.8 percent in the six-cylinder cars and 7.6 percent in the fours.

Though we didn’t get to check fuel consumption, Ford claims 9.5 km/1 [26.9 mpg] and 14.34 km/1 [40.4 mpg] for city and highway consumption respectively from the two-litre four and 8 km/1 [22.6 mpg] and 12.5 km/1 [35.3 mpg] from the 3.3 litre six, all figures being measured to Australian Standard AS 2077. All figures, except the city figures for the six-cylinder car are about two mpg better than those of the TE.

Ford believes its new input into the TF Cortina will be enough to boost Cortina sales 10 to 15 percent and plans to build between 18,000 and 20,000 cars a year with the ratio of fours to sixes about two to one. While that volume won’t turn the tide of the Japanese, it will give Ford a greater foot hold on the middle segment - a bigger piece of the action, if you like. It is entering the segment with four equipment levels - including the S-pack with its European-influenced styled alloy wheels - and both four and six-cylinder engines though, significantly, without a five-speed gearbox.

The marketing men say the five-speed box isn’t essential in view of the new, taller rear axle ratios and fuel economy improvements and that Australians aren’t demanding five-speed gearboxes anyway. Still, the five-speed would be an extra selling point. And when you need selling points to offset the very real price advantage of the Japanese middle segment contenders, every one counts.