Monday 1st September 1980

Ford launched one of the most important new cars of the year – the third generation Escort. Codenamed “Erika”, the car, Ford Europe’s second front-wheel drive, was originally meant to be called the “Ford Erika”, but ended up retaining the Escort name. Some say this was due to British consumers reluctance to let go of the “Escort” badge (as the first two generations of Escort had been among Britain’s most popular cars, with the MK2 being Britain’s best selling car in 1976), and some say that the Germans were concerned with the song Erika, which was a famous battlemarch of the German armed forces during World War II. Unlike the Mark II, which had essentially been a reskin of the original 1968 platform, the Mark III was a completely new “wheels-up” design, and was conceived as a hi-tech, high-efficiency vehicle which would compete with the Volkswagen Golf – considered at the time the class benchmark, and indeed the car was launched with the advertising tagline “Simple is Efficient”. From launch, the car was available in base (Popular), L, GL, Ghia and XR3 trim.