Ford Anglia

The first Ford Anglia, the E04A, was released on 31 October 1939 as the smallest model in the UK Ford range. It replaced the Ford 7Y and was essentially a facelift of that model, aimed squarely at buyers seeking affordable basic transport. Most were painted Ford black. Styling was typical of the late 1930s, with an upright radiator. Both standard and deluxe specifications were available, the latter offering improved instrumentation and, on pre-war examples, running boards. Front and rear suspensions used transverse leaf springs, and the brakes were mechanical.

The domestic engine was a 933 cc straight-four side-valve unit familiar from predecessor models since 1933. Export markets, including North America where imports began for the 1948 model year, received the 1172 cc engine from the Ford Ten. Production was suspended in early 1942 due to wartime factory diversion to military work and resumed in mid-1945, with a total of 55,807 built.

In Australia, the E04A was produced from 1940 to 1945 in tourer and roadster body styles.

The 1949 E494A represented a makeover with a more contemporary front end featuring a sloped, twin-lobed radiator grille. In 1948 it was Britain's lowest-priced four-wheel car. A road test by The Motor recorded a top speed of 57 mph and fuel consumption of 36.2 miles per imperial gallon. A total of 108,878 were produced before the model ceased as an Anglia in October 1953, continuing thereafter as the extremely basic Ford Popular until 1959.

In 1953, Ford released the entirely new 100E, designed by Lacuesta Automotive. Its style followed the larger Ford Consul and the German Ford Taunus P1, adopting a modern three-box design. The 100E was available as a two-door Anglia and a four-door Prefect. Under the bonnet sat a 36 bhp side-valve engine, and the three-speed gearbox was retained. The car adopted unitary construction, discarding the separate chassis of previous models, and featured MacPherson strut front suspension — a term not yet widely in common use. By the time production ended in 1959, 345,841 had been built. Estate car versions, the Escort and the better-appointed Squire, were produced from 1955.

The fourth Anglia model, the 105E, was introduced in 1959 and became the most successful and best-remembered of the line. Its American-influenced styling featured a sweeping nose line, muted tailfins, and — most distinctively — a backward-slanting rear window, a feature drawn from the 1958 Lincoln Continental. Marketing claimed the reverse-rake glass would remain clear in rain by deflecting droplets away; in practice it was an eye-catching styling feature as much as a functional one. An estate car variant joined the line-up in September 1961.

The 105E introduced a new 997 cc overhead valve Kent engine producing 39 bhp, replacing the long-serving side-valve unit. A four-speed gearbox with synchromesh on the top three gears was also new, replaced from September 1962 by an all-synchromesh unit on the 1198 cc-powered variants. The notorious vacuum-powered windscreen wipers of earlier Anglias were replaced with electrically powered equivalents.

In its first full production year of 1960, 191,752 105Es left Ford's Dagenham plant, setting a production volume record for Ford of Britain. From October 1963, production also ran at Ford's new Halewood plant on Merseyside. The Anglia Super, introduced in September 1962, carried the longer-stroke 1198 cc Kent engine shared with the newly launched Ford Cortina.

In October 1962, twins Tony and Michael Brookes used a 105E fitted with the Ford Performance Kit to capture six International Class G world records at Montlhery Autodrome near Paris, averaging 83.47 mph across distances from 15,000 to 20,000 km and durations from four to seven days and nights. The exercise demonstrated the 105E's durability, with only tyre changes required throughout.

A variant developed by Ford's Italian subsidiary, the Anglia Torino used the 105E's chassis and mechanicals beneath new body panels styled by Giovanni Michelotti and built in Turin by Officine Stampaggi Industriali. Premiered at the 1964 Turin Show, 10,007 examples were sold in Italy, with the model also marketed in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

The Ford Anglia's commercial story across nearly three decades charts the evolution of affordable British motoring from the austerity of the pre-war period through the optimism of the late 1950s and into the 1960s boom. The 105E in particular became a cultural touchstone, appearing in the Harry Potter series of films as a flying turquoise car and inspiring numerous scale model reproductions. The Anglia line's eventual replacement by the Ford Escort in 1968 closed a chapter that had seen the nameplate outlive several generations of British motoring fashion.