10 Of The Coolest Foreign Fords You Couldn't Initially Get In America

Ford Motor Company is not just a giant of the auto industry in the United States, it is a giant worldwide. Its first foreign manufacturing facility was established in Ontario in 1904, primarily for selling cars in Canada while avoiding tariffs on products made outside of the British Empire. While Ford exported its vehicles almost immediately after establishing the company, its first foreign assembly plant was established in Trafford Park, England in 1911. Ford's international business has been an integral part of the company throughout its history, and today its products are produced in 65 facilities around the globe and employ 175,000 people.

The needs of British drivers differ greatly from those of American drivers, owing heavily to the streets following ancient routes in compact city spaces, so Ford designed a new car in the States to be built in Britain for Britons. Sold from 1932 to 1937, the Model Y, which replaced the Model A, became the first car built for an international market to wear the Ford emblem. A steady succession of foreign Ford models have come from Ford's operations in Europe and elsewhere, some of which Americans may have wanted to buy. Today, most Ford models are built on global platforms and homogenized among all of its markets with a few exceptions, but you can buy the older international models as long as they are at least 25 years old. Nonetheless, here are 10 of the coolest examples of those foreign Fords (initially) unavailable on American shores.

The Ford GT40 was not the only mid-engine race car created and sold to the public by the company. In the 1980s, the FIA Group B class of rally racing was heating up and manufacturers were scrambling to get cars entered that could win — that's how we got the superb Porsche 959. The European racing division of Ford was just as eager to compete as the others and had plans to build an Escort for the circuit but scrapped those plans in favor of a more competitive clean-sheet design that would be introduced for the 1986 season.

Ford introduced a prototype of the Ford RS200 in 1984. Ghia styled its exterior while Ford created the rest from scratch, including a bespoke monocoque and tube-steel chassis with a fiberglass body and turbocharged 1.8-liter 4-cylinder sitting amidship and producing up to 444 horsepower on track-ready cars. Consumer models were limited to 246 horsepower. It also had an advanced suspension setup that, combined with its low weight, made for an extremely fast and agile car.

Sadly for Ford, Group B was canceled in 1986 before the RS200 could be fully certified. Ford built its 200 cars anyway and put them up for sale. They had been rushed and the finished quality was shockingly poor. Ford had to correct the quality issues and then sold them all to the public, although it drove the price beyond that of a contemporary Ferrari. Today they sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You must be seriously geeked out over Ford's production history to know that its cars were once manufactured in France. Documentation online of the early history of Ford of France is spotty at best, but in the post-war era, Ford sold a few original models built in its factory in Poissy. Easily the most beautiful and elegant of these is the Comète.

The most popular Ford of the era and in that area was the Vedette, a typical European sedan of the early '50s. But using the chassis of that car, Ford had a body styled by Stabilimenti Farina — predecessor to the coachbuilder Pininfarina — and built by the Facel Vega predecessor, Facel-Métalon. French fords of the day used the smaller Ford Flathead V8-60, which displaced 2.2 liters and produced just 66 horsepower, although that would later increase to 80. It was built to high standards of luxury and looked the part from the outside but with a basic and spartan interior, although at least some were upholstered in leather.

Comète production ran from 1951 to 1955. This was during the post-war period in which France was in the process of rebuilding and little money for hand-built luxury cars existed. As a result, only 699 of these gorgeous cars were built. In the rare circumstances that these appear at auction, bids in the $50,000 range are expected to win.

When Ford started building in Australia, it resulted in some uniquely cool cars that the locals could claim as their own. This included the Falcon, at least in part because of some of the special high-performance variants produced, such as the Ford Falcon Cobra XC.

While the Aussies were designing and building their own cars, they were also still making Fords, which meant they had the intellectual property and parts supplies from the parent company. That allowed them to build an Australia-specific model powered by the same 351 V8 found further north. When combined with a hardtop coupe version of the Falcon and custom paint, it made the car worthy of also bearing the Cobra logo.

When the Cobra XC was released, the hardtop coupe model was on its way out due to waning sales of that body style. Ford used this excuse to expend excess inventory and the special edition was meant to build excitement. The bodies are all painted Bold Blue and the Sno White paint is applied over it, even though it looks as if it would be the opposite. Options included four-wheel disc brakes, dual exhaust, and a limited-slip differential paired with a unique front air dam and rear spoiler to make an exciting car with genuine muscle car looks. In all, Ford built 400 copies which have since become highly collectible. They rarely come up for sale, but Shannons auctioned one in Sydney in 2016, and the winning bid hit $100,000.

The European Ford Escort first appeared in dealers as a 1968 model as Dord's mass-market small car. It found instant success, racking up record sales and hitting the 2 million unit mark by 1974. While it did well on the streets, it also appeared on many racing circuits, including at least a few driven by Cosworth-built engines. The success continued through multiple generations, and in 1991, the Mark V Escort debuted with fresh and modern styling. Accompanying the regular passenger cars was the Ford Escort RS Cosworth, unleashing the engineering and power of rally racing on public roads.

Borrowing from the popular Sierra Cosworth, Ford placed the same 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine with a Cosworth-engineered head and a turbocharger with a two-stage intercooler under the bonnet. This meant placing the body of a smaller escort hatch onto the chassis of the Sierra — it did not just use the same engine. Coachbuilder Karmann was recruited to merge the two cars into one race-ready platform that could be produced in sufficient numbers to satisfy homologation requirements. Regardless of the Frakenstein process in producing the car, it turned out to be a brilliant machine with looks that have aged very gracefully.

Ford built the Cossie from 1992 to 1996 with a production total of 7,145, the first 2,500 units made to satisfy homologation. All of them have become quite valuable and remain exciting cars. The last one built in 1996 recently sold for €53,700 (about $57,822) by Collecting Cars.

While Australia is known for utes, the South African version is called a bakkie. However, while utes are trucks based on cars, bakkie generally describes any kind of small truck, some of which are also based on cars.

In the '60s, Ford South Africa developed plans for a new light pickup, creating prototypes built from the Taunus, Corsair, and Escort before landing on the Cortina as the ideal platform. Sales of the new truck began in 1971. Although Cortinas were popular cars in many other markets and top sellers in Europe, the bakkie was to be an original South African creation. Kent 1.6-liter 4-cylinder engines powered the first examples out of the factory but were soon joined by a 2.5-liter V6 option. An updated model arrived in 1977 with an optional Essex 3-liter V6.

The Cortina bakkie is significant for South Africa as it was the first Ford built in the country to be exported. The second-gen model, which had been officially known as the Ford Pickup, was renamed the Ford 1-Tonner as Ford wanted to reinforce its heavy hauling ability and distance its association with a passenger car. No matter what they called it, the bakkie was a huge success in Africa and Europe, and it continued in production for another three years after the Cortina was replaced by the all-new Sierra. No matter what it's called, the bakkie was a cool little truck Americans were never offered, but it should have been.