Ford Sierra
Looking back, it’s almost impossible to imagine the level of fuss that surrounded the arrival of the Ford Sierra.
Thousands of company car drivers choked on their Little Chef ‘Early Starter’ breakfast as they set eyes on the Sierra on the pages of The Motor.
Gone was the conservative four-door saloon styling of the Ford Cortina, replaced instead with a jelly-mould design quite unlike anything else on the road.
The Jaguar E-Type made a similar impression when it arrived 20 years earlier.
But whilst the beautiful Jag heralded the sound of a million jaws hitting the ground in sheer wonderment, the Sierra simply signalled the sound of thousands of company car buyers rushing to the safety of the Vauxhall Cavalier.
Although the Sierra wasn’t able to emulate the success of the Cortina, it did prove to be very popular, especially when the likes of the XR4x4, XR4i and Cosworth versions arrived on the scene.
Nearly 1.3 million cars would be sold by the time the Sierra went out of production in 1993, to be replaced by Mondeo.
Nissan Bluebird
But don’t think for one minute that the Cavalier and Sierra had things their own way. Because in 1986 a new threat was to arrive from the Far East. Or should that be the Far North-East?
It was the British-built Nissan Bluebird, designed to appeal to company car buyers and manufactured at a new factory in Sunderland, securing hundreds of jobs in the process.
It was never the most exciting of vehicles, but as company car managers would soon to discover, it would prove to be incredibly reliable.
In fact, Britain’s modern car manufacturing industry owes a great deal to Nissan’s Sunderland legacy of the 1980s.
There are around 1000 Nissan Bluebirds on the roads of Britain today, a testament to their superior build quality, cheap running costs and reliability.
The Nissan Bluebird company car driver may not have led the most exciting life on the road, but one thing’s for sure, he could never blame lateness on a broken-down car. And he was always home for tea in the evening.