Brit of American brand, possibly built in the Netherlands
We see here a British model of an American brand, possibly built in the Netherlands and once arrived here again via another country. This Ford Cortina has a special background.
It is sometimes difficult to associate a nationality with the Ford brand. Here in the Netherlands we would mainly call it a German brand, but historically there have also been many British influences in the originally American brand. A car that embodies this mixture is the Ford Cortina. It dates from the time when the British and German branches of Ford still operated largely independently and, just like Vauxhall and Opel for example, also released their own models. This Ford Cortina was therefore the British counterpart of ‘our’ Ford Taunus. Later the two models would merge.
Contrary to what you might think, the Cortina was also simply for sale in the Netherlands, so as a Ford customer you had the choice of two different mid-range cars. The Cortina was in a sense even more Dutch than the Taunus. Among other things, the generation we have here in front of us was also assembled in Amsterdam. We assume that this specific copy, spotted by AutoWeek forum member HarmenA, also rolled off the production line here. It is, after all, a left-hand drive Cortina. However, it is not an original Cortina delivered in the Netherlands. The car was only registered in the Netherlands in 2006. It has been with the current owner since 2021.
We are dealing with a Ford Cortina from 1967, so just after this generation came on the market. Underneath it was still partly the previous Cortina (of which you also had the famous Lotus version), but from the outside it looked much more modern. This specific Cortina has the 1.5 ‘Kent’ four-cylinder that was already in its predecessor. A fairly common choice and, as a four-in-line, also a much more conventional block than the V4s that you found in the Ford Taunus at that time. Fun fact: according to our data, there are currently still more than 150 Cortinas registered in the Netherlands.