Landmark hatchbacks – there have been a few – the most obvious, of course, being the Volkswagen Golf.
It not only saved its maker from post-Beetle oblivion but emphatically confirmed the template for the breed after the 1964, Fiat-designed Autobianchi Primula and the 1967 Simca 1100 did the pioneering.
But after the Mk1 Golf, what came next were emulators offering much the same recipe, if sometimes with added spice. The SX version of the Talbot Horizon came with a trip computer, an advance winning it the Car of the Year trophy and its buyers regular packets of wildly inaccurate data. The Renault 14 bodyshell’s slightly banana-like curve inexplicably won it a place in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, while the magnificent, robot-flaunting TV ad for the Fiat Strada was the best thing about this lazy 128 re-skin. There were many more, but what all had in common was that none was as convincing as the Golf. The most serious challengers were the 1978 Opel Kadett, a crisp design of revvy engines and nail-breaking switchgear later available as the Vauxhall Astra, and Ford’s 1980 Escort, this the first front-drive version.
A brilliantly product-planned, pretty car that was immensely more advanced than its history-lesson predecessor, this Escort was a massive hit and should have propelled Ford towards ever-greater heights despite a couple of ear- and bum-battering dynamic flaws. But subsequent iterations succumbed to the Blue Oval’s cost-cutting ways, each more mediocre than the last, the barrel bottom crashingly struck with the Mk 4 Escort.
This car was so short of interest that one of its launch presenters resorted to caressing the admittedly appealing hillocks of steel covering its tailgate hinges to highlight a rare item of sexy design. It was far too inconsequential to prevent this publication from delivering this car the slating it deserved. Suitably stung, Ford performed a major rework. The result was half-decent, this last Escort identifiable by a surfeit of oval motifs that the design department had become obsessed with. Ford was back to its just-good-enough ways, few thinking that it was about to perform a spectacular reset on the small family hatch, not just for Ford but the entire car industry.
The first clues came with the extraordinary scoop images sneaked out of customer clinics. High-mounted, cornet-shaped tail-lights completely capped the rear pillars. Wide-spaced wheels occupied flamboyantly blistered wheel arches. Lozenge headlights flanked the slender mouth of an oval-jewelled grille. All these arresting features housed within a shapely six side-window body. Only Fiat’s Bravo and Brava hatchbacks came close for outlandish originality, and the Ford Focus had both beaten. Ford called it New Edge design. Most called it startling.
