This lovely specimen is a Ford 'Zephyr' from the late fifties.Okay, so the paint may be a little bright, and the wheels certainly are a bit of custom nonsense, but the car is essentially complete.
This is one of the more dignified designs to come out of Essex.
The next version had a low-slung appearance with big fins at the back(or was that the Zodiac?), but eventually 'Zephyr' came to mean the huge, long-bonnet boxy square machine that kept going into the early seventies.
The Zephyr died when Ford brought out a 'EuroFord' called the Granada/Consul.
The Consul was a stripped out version designed to appeal to surviving brand loyalty for the 'Consul Classic'.
Innovations on the Granada/Consul included rubber suspension bushes to cut down noise and vibration form the road.
The Granada was eventually termed Scorpio in the late nineties, before Ford Europe finally quit manufacturing large, 'executive' models altogether.
By then, terms such as 'lawyer's' or 'doctors' or 'bank managers' car were dead.
Now all we have is 'aspirational' branding like BMW or Audi.
What a bore.
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