Name The Car

[KenD]

Had three of these in varying Zephyr and Zodiac MK4 guises, plus two MK11\'s and two MK 3\'s with the last being a rare Zodiac Executive with floor change and single front seats , they made excellent tow cars :Thumbsup!

This particular one is the Zephyr Mk IV:Thumbsup!

As for the theme tune...well one starred in Auf Wiedersehen Pet and the latter episodes of Z-cars.  

Rare sight on the roads today.  I remember having a Dinky model of the Zodiac or was it the Executive?

Over to you Clive.

[Test Drives Unlimited]

I still got my Diecast Model of the Ford Zodiac in Bronze Metallic :yes it\'s worth about £20 approx

[jinx]

In the absence of another challenge....
There is a reason they are a rare sight... they were...what\'s the expression? ...Oh yes, bloody awful.  

Now I have happy memories of a two tone grey Mk2 and a gloriously vulgar Mk3 Zodiac in bottle green with shiny alloys but not the Mk IV..with it\'s huge long bonnet with spare wheel stowed in there...because they could...and the lumpy running V4 or V6 engines - the 4 so underdeveloped and badly made, in hot climates it could prove difficult to turn off!  

These things lifted an inside wheel on the first rumour of a corner and were known for dramatic handling that had strong men clenching their buttocks. Over the years Ford put anti-roll bars, radial tyres and power steering on the top models in order to try and imbue them with acceptable road manners.  The poor folks in the Zephyrs just got ever lower geared steering to offset the confusing nose-heavy, front-light, driving experience.. which just made them feel even soggier.  The body was a rust trap and there was enough of it to make a substantial pile. The seats were huge too but not any too comfortable unless you were one of those heavily built Essex lads who spent their days in a JCB!  

They were, like all Fords, costed to a tenth of an old penny then built down to a price - and in this case it really showed. (For the incongruously named \'Executive\' variant it cost Ford as much to do a whole interior in leather as Rolls Royce spent on part of one door card.)

A disappointing swan song, the MkIV\'s were the last time Ford in Britain made a car on their own, their replacement was the Anglo-German Granada. Wrong to lay the blame at a single door but one of the MkIV\'s designers went on to father another British great...the Morris Marina.:2Confused

I\'m amazed to hear they made great tow cars; accelerating without any weight on the back was like driving a blunt fronted, woolly speedboat when that big flat bonnet pointed up at the sky!  What were you towing Clive... marshmallows? :Laugh

[Casey]

Andrew, you have such a way with words :Laugh

[clive]

I\'ll find another I owned tonight when the world calms down :Viking

[clive]

Here\'s another two of my "tow" cars, both from the same stable but 11 years apart both should be easy which is why I have only shown a little :wiggle

[Brett]

Does it have a floor in those pictures? :Giggle

[clive]

Does it have a floor in those pictures? :Giggle

I would suggest that if either still exist they won\'t have any floors left in them anyway :Giggle

[jinx]

History - yes
Mystery - no.

Having said in the past to how you much preferred a Zephyr to a Mk II Jaguar (first picture), it is quite surprising to see you went on to an XJ6 (picture 2) for your tow barge. I take it the supply of £10 Zodiacs with expendable back axles had dried up?  

Mind you, as that\'s a Leyland era XJ it was a brave choice - almost randomly fitted with parts from different suppliers on different sides of the car.  I was once at a Jaguar parts counter when the customer in front of me was asked for the build date of his car. Knowing the actual date (not just the year or even month) was the only way they had of working out which of the more than a dozen different types of headlight bowl his car was likely to have been fitted with!

[KenD]

Jags.....Mark 2 and a XJ6 Series 2?

Edit...looks like jinx was there first!!

[jinx]

Very glad to see you back Ken, having been concerned that you either were, or were closely related to, the designer of the Mk IV Zephyr and had been left reeling at the vitriolic candour of my unsolicited and unkind recollections. Clive made it easy because he has mentioned before that no Jaguar he had owned ever showed any evidence of grace, space or pace. I suggested he might have paid more than £20 for one with an MOT but was withered by a single glance and never brought it up again.  

Moving swiftly on...if that\'s ok...I have absolutely no personal connection with the subject of tonight\'s puzzle except to say I\'ve seen a few...but then again...too few to mention.  It is another British bred sportscar no longer with us but, in a reversal of the usual story, this one died with a full order book coupled to a lack of interest from the manufacturer.

I was hoping this, my last for a while at least, would run for a little longer than the previous one but I somehow doubt it will. We need a few more of those obscure Latvian supercars from the late 90\'s, made for the affluent local \'industrialists\', to bring the mystery back. :Giggle

[Brett]

Look a bit Jensen Healey?

[jinx]

Jensen Healey was a good guess but, in a politically correct sense, something other than correct.

[KenD]

Thanks for the welcome back jinx.  I have been around but just busy with work and (as you saw) I didn\'t look in quite quick enough on Clive\'s last one!  Don\'t worry, I\'m no fan of the Zephyr/Zodiac Mk IV range and I think you described them reasonably accurately, admittedly I suspect, not entirely along the lines of Ford\'s sales pitch at the time:).  I did have a Capri Mk1 at one time but I was young enough to appreciate its appearance as opposed to its somewhat dubious handling qualities - having said that I\'m sure it was a vast improvement of the aforementioned Fords!

Right, your challenge....a Unipower GT?

[KenD]

For all those lovers of the Zephyr MkIV