This is the best video I’ve ever seen of the 105E. They were very popular here in New Zealand, and would have been assembled here from knock down kits supplied from Britain. I’ve never owned a British Ford, but I can totally understand why their simple “good enough” philosophy was so popular.
The 105E was the first car I bought in 1980 when I was 18 for £90 in two tone grey, great little car and they seem so small today but that was the norm back then :-)
My first car was a 105e too. Bought in 1970 for £27 and 10 shillings - and we argued over the 10 shillings(50p) - sold 2 years and 20,000 miles later for £40. Mine was an early model with a 3-speed gearbox. It was also composed mostly of cocky paste, fibreglass and rust and in order to shut the driver's door it was necessary to open the window, lift and slam because there was no bottom hinge.
Another Fantastic Video Ed, as a Ford Enthusiast this really appealed to me, i was never a fan of the Anglia but really appreciate the car for what it did for Ford.
My first car, in 1960, was a Ford Anglia 105E. primrose yellow with white top, and light grey interior. I lovely little car, with light steering, excellent gear change , lively engine, very good road holding and brakes. Faultless in fact, Moved up to a 1500 Cortina , 5 yrs later. another very good Ford.
I have been watching your videos for quite a time now and I've seen you get better and better. That was your best yet. There's only so much you can say about the car, it's the setting of the context and significance that was done so well in this. It takes talent to tell a story so well.
Excellent video! My Dad had a 105E, in light blue, I think. I was about five years old at the time. Your comments about the business case is spot on as well.
My father had one of those cars, the Ford Anglia, colour green. Bought in 1967. Beautiful car. Unfortunatelly, he had to sell it in 1984, and it had a lot of rust in the bottom. I remeber the licence plate of the car HC-72-75 (Portugal, Oporto). It's part of my childhhood memories.
My first car in 1978. FRL 787D. It even had the original tax disc holder from the dealer in Truro. Loved it, it was a deluxe in velvet blue. My next car was a signal yellow RS2000! Bloody hell
I bought a 123E around 2 months ago, it was fitted with the Cortina 1500GT engine in period and keeps up with modern traffic. I also have a 1300 Beetle and depending on my mood, one always sees its way out of the garage on a weekly basis. Thanks for the review.
Interesting video, Ed. Unusually, I have a correction. MacPherson was working for GM of Europe, aka Vauxhall, when he developed the front strut suspension. He held the Patent, and when his project was cancelled he moved to Ford, taking his strut suspension design with him. The reverse canted rear window was developed to allow the rear window to retract behind the rear seat. On the 58, 59, and 60 Lincoln the reverse canted window was on the Continental Mark III, IV, and V. Regular Lincoln models had a fixed convex rear window. The only other reverse canted rear window that was fixed that I can think of was the 63/64 Meteor models designed for the Canadian market. Cars with the retractable rear window were badged as "Breezeway". That is really interesting. Fords of that vintage are interesting to me, because here in Canada we saw a few of them. In fact, the 1959 Zodiac owned by a neighbour was the first car I saw that passed the 100,000 mile mark. The 100E was a sharp little car. It would be interesting to see a head to head between the Anglia, Vauxhall Victor Super, a Volkswagen Beetle, and whatever BMC had in the same price bracket in 1959. I keep having to remind myself that little cars like the Hillman Minx and Triumph Herald are actually a size class up, as they are all tiny compared to what I was seeing as a kid in the 60s. Even the Valiant, Ford Falcon, and Chevrolet Corvair are huge in comparison, and those were our "compact" cars. The Anglia looks like it could be carried in the boot of a Continental as a spare car!
@@TwinCam I learned that from reading an article in a magazine called Collectable Automobile. They did a large and in depth article about the Mark I Consul, Zephyr, and Zodiac. Over the last 30 years or so the magazine has done articles on many, many different cars. The articles are always very carefully researched and well written. The magazine has won many awards for the quality of the writing. Could be worth a look. Most of the cars are American, or imports that were sold in the USA, but they do sometimes cover cars not available here. They also, where possible, have drawings and pictures of the car in question being designed as well as featuring interviews with designers and other movers and shakers in the motoring world.
I purchased from my cousin an Anglia in the same colour scheme as this one back in 1979. It was registered in November 1959 reg 432MPD being a Surrey registration. I did sell it to someone in the Ford 105E Anglia owners club so a good chance of it being around seeing it was an early example.
You'll be glad to learn Peter, she is still around and just relicenced to July 2024 !.Any ' 59 105E still in existence should rank as rare as a ' 59 Mini !
@@Roger.Coleman1949 Thank you, that is good to know. I also owned a MK1 Ford Escort two door saloon reg TPC375F registered on 1/1/1968 again an early example. In the days you could collect your new car from the showroom on new years day. How times change. Cheers 🍻
@@peterward3965 Was your early Escort the one captured on an old film with you getting out on a London bridge ?.I remember someone recognising himself and the car captured on an old b/w film of London streets seen around a year ago .The TPC reg. seems to ring a bell !.I have a '61 Austin 7 Mini registered 1/1/62 , another date where this would never happen again as it became a bank holiday .
@@Roger.Coleman1949 yes that's right Roger. Hello again , I do remember our last chat as such. As you say late 59 minis are sought after , also Triumph Hearld was launched at the end of 59 as well. Yes I can't believe I'll be on RUclips way after I'm gone with my Escort lol 😂 I wish we could go back to simpler times when motoring was a joy. Cheer 🍻
@@peterward3965 Hello again Peter, yes indeed , '59 a great year for innovative new car designs and also the largest sales ever for motorcycles and scooters , probably as it was a great summer !.Shame your early Escort did not have the longivity of the Anglia !.
Had two of these. Bought one with my inheritance from my Grand Aunt in Morecambe ... 300 quid.. Total rot boxes. Now in Wisconsin, l love my 2017 Toyota Camry SE 2.5.... It is like new.
Victoria Police (Australia) had some Anglia in a light blue colour. Remember 1964 on the Kerford Road Pier when cops drove one half way down, got out to walk to the end where boys were playing up and fighting. When they turned to come back, the Anglia was gone. Some boys had 'bounced' it of the pier into the water. No railing to stop it.
I had one for three years. One of its best features was visibility, a lost art in todays designs. You could see all four corners of the car, making driving and parking a dream. DIY maintenance was simplicity itself, engine removal a snip, brakes easy....but it was a rust bucket underneath, I discovered to my cost once!
Yes, I remember these very well. Not for me and - a common fault with them in the day - was that the indicators would go mad and flash all four at once, thus inventing hazard warning lamps. If you could afford the 1200 engine it was a lot better.
My first car. Back in the sixties, boy racers either went for a mini or anglia. I chose Ford. Out came the engine replaced with bored out 1350 with Webber carbs, lowered suspension, five and and a half J rims and tyres “ bucket seat” slip on seat covers etc. Good memories
So nice to see these lovely forgotten cars. And as usual Ed, beautifully researched, presented and showcased for the enjoyment of all of us auto enthusiasts. Many thanks indeed. I wonder if you could get your hands on one of these lovely cars which was featured in Tintin, the Doctor’s Citroen Ami 6, whose roofline, body shape and silhouette was rather similar to this Ford Anglia.
Beautiful cars I've had five of them since the mid 70s and still have two. Still viable today but it helps if a few performance mods have been done. My best one (still 997 cc) could sustain over 80 mph on the strait and it surprised and shut down many a small Asian shitbox especially going uphill.
Another corking video. The Anglebox's key to its sucess was good old metal for your money. The Mini might have been a bit shorter but unless you had a very small parking space .... so what. You could get holiday suitcases in an Anglia ...... try putting your clothes in a Mini's doorbins. When it came to spares and servicing the Anglia was streets ahead. Fleet buyers loved them as did dads who didn't want to go round corners at Warp Factor 9 but did want to work on their car without special tools or double jointed wrists. And you are utterly right about the Anglia being profitable. Ford had their own body stamping factory and trimming shop. BMC relied on Pressed Steel as did Rootes and the other British companies. Ford and vauxhall did tinwork in-house rather than paying someone to do it and limiting profit. The only downside to the Anglia that kept it from being number one was its two door only configeration. Corrected with the Escort.
The difference is in efficiency, which does matter, but also in dynamics and performance, which doesn't to the vast majority of people. As I mention in the video, the average person didn't and still doesn't care for a car that's technically better, and that's what the Mini's small size allowed - agility and speed!
The Ford Anglia 105E was my first car I ever bought and that was back in 1972. If anyone sees one going around with the registration: 952 GLE, (yes, I still remember it), please let me know. If anyone sees it for sale, please let me know. I am now 68 and I would love to see it if it is still going, which is doubtful. I had it for one year then traded it in for a Cortina, FGF 68C. My early days of motoring, but great fun.
Great review - well reasearched and well-presented - many thanks. For my money the Anglia was a better car than the Mini, partly because I prefer the styling, but mainly because from the POV of maintaining the car, most jobs on an Anglia are not too difficult, and most things are accessible. Whereas with a Mini, the poor mechanic is faced with car which is a nightmare to work on. However, for a small car from this era, I'd prefer the Renault 4 or a Citroen Ami 8, which are both hatchbacks, and therefore more practical. And there was a valid argument for buying a Hillman Minx (the Audax body shape) as well. I love the styling of many of the cars from this era, far more than most cars of today. But I'd far sooner have the far greater safety of most modern cars than I would drive a classic car like this, where if you have a crash you might not survive it to tell the tale...
Thanks Tim 🙂 I wouldn’t at all say the Mini is a nightmare to work on though - more complex and smaller than an Anglia, yes, but a Mini is infinitely easier to work on than anything modern!
Trapezoidal grille, the way the rear side window kicks up into the c-pillar, I reckon that if the Anglia were styled in the modern era, it would look something like the 2013 Fiesta.
i'd buy that in a heartbeat. in the same way that royal enfield has presented a "new" classic market, notably the 350 classic, maybe the motor industry should have a look: classic lines, modern components. bmw tried it with the mini, which has been a massive hit, so why not? in these unpalatable times, charm and nostalgia sells.
My first car was a 105E in exactly the same maroon and grey colour scheme. It was the same build year as me, 1963, and was nicknamed Peanuts as the number plate was 5008 KP😂. I sold it to a fellow Ford apprentice. I later learnt that he made a good profit when he sold the number seperately 🙁.
Oh the 105E! I think this is the car that turned me off of Ford. Yeah, I know, I'm a bit nuts. It always looked out of date to me when compared to the ADO16. I never got the fascination with the brand myself. I do remember riding in the back of one that belonged to the mother of a good friend of mine at the time. Her driving wasn't what you would call a great credit to her so the car was always dented and scratched. Bits fell off at regular intervals. On one ocassion I remember the arm rest being thrown into the passanger footwell after it "came off in her hand" as she slammed the door. Every trip was a mixture of hilarity and panic as she bowled along the road seemingly oblivious to other drivers around her. Her husband, and eventually both her younger sons, ran a very good body shop so this always caused some, at times, rather cruel jokes among family and friends. Poor ol' Doreen, she was lovely but quite scatty.
REMEMBER PLAN X 33000 I hope this is correct ?Well this was the rage in those days, Ford MK3 MONDEO'S are Brill TOO ! The 2006/2007 ones, Thanks to Jackie Stewart ! and Ford Designers. WELL DONE FORDS.
Good summary. Even here in the US I'd see these Anglias 40+ years ago (they still pop up at shows). Always thought they wre hella ugly - not that we didn't have breezeway Mercs - but somehow it didn't translate well. (Even a stripped 2d Monterey sedan from say 1963 looks somehow better full scale). I'd argue none of the 'American' style UK stuff has held up all that well in terms of styling (perhaps the Capri), though I can certainly understand the marketing rationale at the time, and some were better than others (Farina sedans, Cresta).
I owned a few of these 105E and rust was always the problem. The mechanics were very strong and reliable but the braking was awful. The Anglia was a favourite for tuning and replacing the 997 with a 1500 cortina engine was fairly simple and made a huge difference to performance. Anglia cars were never designed for fast driving and revising the steering and converting the front brakes to suspension/brakes from Ford classic was another leap forward. With these 2 changes to the basic car along with wider wheels you had potent car by the standards of early 1960’s. If we could have seen what we have on the road now as fairly basic cars we would have been astonished.
Well I bought a very nice puke green 997 cc used Ford Anglia in 1969, ner. The missus made me buy it when she got pregnant year after we married, she said "I'm not holding our baby on the pillion of our 250 cc Honda, or strapping it on the rack". So instead we put her in a basket on that nice rear shelf behind all the Holiday luggage piled on the back seats. Worked like a charm.
The 105E was certainly a styling jump on the older E93A Prefect ' Poplar or Anglia. The 100E was just a more modern body on a tired engine and still a 3 speed non synchro 1st gearbox when BMC had gone to 4 speed boxes years before, vacuum wipers for Pete's sake, put the foot down and they slow up in heavy rain , one needed to decelerate to see out the windscreen when the wipers would speed up. Early side valve engines were underpowered and the 6 volt electrics were problematic. They were prone to breaking axles especially crash starting in first or reverse, when 2nd should have been used. The 105E finally got an OHV engine and a 4 speed gearbox but was reasonably reliable and robust but nothing special in its performance or handling. The early E 93A Prefects were known in New Zealand and Australia as "roll your own's" due to their propensity to fall over if rounding a corner too quickly, in its defence you could just get some help and push it back off its side onto it wheels, check the oil and drive off again with minimal body damage, ..........ask me how I know this! Foot flat to the boards 62 mph. The 105E's sold reasonably well in the Antipodes as a second car for Mum however Dad usually opted for a Zephyr or slightly later in Australia/NZ a Falcon or Fairlane if choosing a Ford.
The packaging of the Anglia was particularly excellent , room for four , yet a capacious boot . All this with an in line engine driving rear wheels. Nowadays we all associate the transverse FWD concept as a means to create more passenger capacity within the volume of the car, although in modern vehicles this has retarded due to increased safety features in the cars .
You're absolutely right to a point, though the space beneath the heater intake is criminally underused in the Anglia! Just a big void with the gearbox at the bottom!
Ironic therefore, that Ford currently seem to be distancing themselves from the market that found them so much success - r.i.p. Fiestsa, Focus and Mondeo.
When I was a veterinary student at Liverpool University in the early sixties myself and a friend used to persuade local dealers to let us road test cars and publish our findings in the faculty student magazine appropriately called « Rumen ». We did the Anglia 105E , the HA Viva and finally la pièce de résistance the Rover 2000. When I got my first job in 1966 I was offered the choice of either the Ford or the Vauxhall to thrash around country lanes and farm tracks. I chose the Viva which had the optional extra of a heater fitted ! I never got to have a Rover 2000 unfortunately but did own a Land Crab followed by two Citroën GS Breaks before settling for a series of Saabs. Nowadays in what is probably my third mid life crisis I bought one of the last Guiliettas in 2018.
That’s an amazing story! I’ve always had a soft spot for the Landcrabs. One thing though: you don’t settle for a Saab, they’re amazing cars. I miss my 900 SPG…
@@graemeking7336 You can do both. The only time I saw the Beatles though was at the 1961 Fresher’s Ball , Tower Ballroom , New Brighton. They were backing up Terry Lightfoot’s Trad Jazz Band ! I did meet Brian Epstein in his office at NEMS, Great Charlotte Street to negotiate for bands such as Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders to play at functions at my hall of residence. Wayne threw me the keys of his car once just before a break in their performance to go and get them some fish and chips , it was a Cooper S and I think I covered about 15 miles in it to just nip down the road to the local chippy !
My dad had a1964 one , and I had a 1966 estate as my first car in 1975. I can still remember the huge but skinny steering wheel, and long but very precise gear lever. All cars of that era rusted prematurely, but my God if rusting were an Olympic sport ,the Anglia ( along with Viva HA ) would be gold medalists 😢.
Ford brought in innovative fresh air ventilation, the Cortina for example having eyeball-style swivelling fascia vents. But my used 105E also had effective ventilation-on lifting the footwell mats, you saw the road whizzing by through big rust holes! My MkIII Cortina similarly rusted in short order. Rustproofing was a game changer from around the late 80s. (And yes, BMC, Renault, Lancia, Alfa, etc. all rusted like crazy back in the day.)
A second-hand 105E was my first car too. The rust was so bad that firms supplied pre-formed steel components that could be welded in for MOT purposes. I remember these being welded onto mine to prevent the leaf springs forcibly ending up in the boot. Almost any other well-worn Anglia key would open the door locks and start the car. Still, it was relatively reliable for the time, cheap to repair and maintain, and had quite a personality. The 1200cc engine didn't seem unduly slow, and was quite flexible. I'm just amazed by the picture of this one, and can't imagine how it was preserved. Does any of the original body remain?
@@cnocspeireag I once locked myself out of the MkIII Cortina mentioned above (much easier to do in those days) in a pub car park. A fellow wandered up, smiling, coolly opened the door with his own Ford key, and sauntered away again...
I worked at Dagenham when the 105E was launched, as management trainee, and spent a week or two in the foundry. They were very proud of the fact that due to the short stroke of the Kent engine, which was seriously over-square, they were able to cast the crankshaft, as the crank throws were very short, and the pistons correspondinlgly wide. This was much cheaper than the more traditional forged crank-shaft, which I believe was the norm for every other vehicle then on the market. The cast crank was also lighter, as it was hollow.
Correct , but it was only a 3 main bearing one on the early Kents , and the center main would invariably start to rumble at 70000 miles or so ,( by which time most had rusted away anyway).
Very few vehicles of any make got past 70,000 miles, as there was little or no concept of rust protection. The designs included areas from which water could not escape, door sills being a good example. The Macpherson strut design was good, bit the chances of the strut popping up through the wing after not many miles was quite high. In those far off days, before global warming, there was much salt spread on the roads in the winter, which quickly accelerated corrosion. My 12-year old Focus has no rust whatsoever, and will probably see me out! (I'm 81).
Ah, the Anglia 105e. My grandfather had one for many years - it was grey when he bought it. He brush painted it pale blue with cellulose - I think you could buy DIY kits in those days? A lovely, lovely little car, full of character. I’ve come to be really fond of this era of ‘Ford Of Britain’. The Classic and Capri are both lovely, if rather unsuccessful in their day. But the 105e is a little jewel of a thing. I’d love to own one!
I had a 105e when going to university and whilst there went on holiday with my girlfriend and a vey full boot of camping gear and food. We crossed on the hovercraft and drove to Athens, A truly memorable car and holiday.
My first two cars were 123Es, same car but a 1200cc engine. Most 123Es were Anglia Supers, which is a higher standard of trim. Lovely cars, very reliable.
In 1965 I bought a 1962 105E - 507GTM. Thrashed it mercilessly for two years, including a trip four-up to what was then Yugoslavia, reaching Zagreb. Never let me down. Only sold it when I emigrated to Canada. I still miss it - many happy memories.
The 105E could not hold a candle to the Minor 1000. The Anglia had worse roadholding and poor fuel economy and as mentioned by a previous poster it rusted at an alarming rate. The Anglia was a marketing success mainly due to Ford' s enormous advertising budget, it was not anything special as a motor car.
I also took driving lessons in one in 1965. There was always a problems with it, so many I can't remember them all. Once none of the indicators worked and another occasion when the speedometer didn't work, I had to guess how many mph I was doing; good job they didn't have cameras then. It put me off buying a Ford until last year when I finally bought a Kuga 2nd-hand. So far, it's good apart from the alarm going off every now and then when I open it and it saying it didn't recognise the key.
Loved this, my first car was a 105E, followed by another one! Great car to work on, plenty space and few tools necessary., essential for the impecunious. Being young and daft, I did a few "performance tweaks". Eventually ending up with the 123E, the 'luxury' model, the flexibility of Ford engines and gearboxes meant that 123E eventually ended up with a twin cam Lotus Ford engine, detuned slightly , disc brakes and modified rear suspension.
Had three Anglias, one of my all time favourite cars, personally i never found it underpowered, but yes in did rust quickly, so i learnt to weld, many happy memories of this lovely car.
The dashboard with the instrument binnacle on one side and the shape mirrored on the other side was a simple way to allow for the left hand drive European versions, with no major build changes. Mine was a blue one with white roof, think Harry Potter, bought for £15 in 1974, the insurance for a year was also £15. Loved it, looking for a left hand drive one now.
I wonder why Lotus didn't choose the Anglia to be refined by them. Lighter than the Cortina. All right. 105 HP would have been dangerously powerful for such a nimble car ! But there are a few modern conversions with a Lotus twin cam.
Watching this channel is like watching a young James May with the information and presentation style. Love it. Really enjoyable channel and I'm so glad I found it.
Indeed. Early drafts of this video did talk about Halewood, but the segment felt wedged in, so as it wasn't awfully important, I decided to cut it out. The history of the Halewood factory could make a good video someday though!
@@chrischandler833 When I was an Anglia-smitten teenager. I saw the very first Halewood-produced Anglia at what was then Merseyside County Museum. There was a Mk3 Escort beside it, which I believe was Halewood's millionth car.
@@MakerfieldConsortthe Anglia is in the Liverpool museum with registration number AKF1 in yellow a Merseyside area registration number at the time if my memory serves me right that was the first build off the production line
I owned a couple of 105E's back in the day and they were fine cars. Light and airy inside with great all round vision and back windscreen that never got dirty. They had pretty good acceleration for the time. They didn't handle particularly well with the Armstrong lever dampers and neither were they particularly good on gas. They did rot sadly. I had a Riley Elf after and a Vauxhall Victor 101 FD which were both better all round cars.
To be fair to them, the lever dampers were only at the back. Obviously not perfect, and though the Mini and later cars had telescopic dampers, older cars like the Morris Minor had lever arm dampers all round! That being said, handling was never their strong suit!
@dufushead Yes, I recall those Armstrong units on my A35. Pretty easy to replace, like the leaf springs and even the king pin bearings (if you had a press), but they wore out at mileages we would consider pretty low today. Expectations were rather more modest, though, back in the 60s/70s. Only when I swapped my BSA motorbike for a car did I discover it made me much more popular with girls...
My father owned an Anglia Deluxe (which looked almost identical to the Harry Potter car) from 1961 to 1985, and I learned to drive in our old dependable Anglia!
Gutless, well below basic and uncomfortable. I know, I had one, a car planned by some idiot who had never experienced a motorway as a driver the Anglia with its 997cc engine was an anagram of 'car' with a 'p' stuck on the end. Imagine driving North on the M6, a double - deck bus in front in the first lane. Mirror, signal, check again, pull out to overtake, half way past the bus driver looks at you grins and accelerates and leaves you stranded at 69 mph! So, don't extol the virtues of Ford's most useless "family" car, it was rubbish.
Had one of these (used) in the 60's. As a young Engineer I couldn't help but feel it was underpowered and fitted a Twin Cam Lotus. A car I remember best despite such competition as owning a Jaguar XK150S
In addition to my comment of yesterday, may I add that the 4-speed gearbox was really a 3-speed, with an overdrive 4th gear. Being such a short stoke one could ref the a..e off the Anglia in 3rd gear, which gave one about 75mph, slip into top, the speed remained at 75, but the revs dropped. I caned my Anglia when I was a sales rep, and it never let me down.
The best UK motoring content anywhere. Thank you so much for your time and effort into this, thanks to you I now have a new respect for the 105e and I never ever expected that. I will say this though, as good as the 105e was those 1.3 million cars disappeared from UK roads extremely fast, I remember as a kid in the 60s seeing an abandoned rusting 105e in a garage block next to our home, it had been there rusting as far back as I can remember. When I started to learn to drive and take an interest in cars at the end of the 70s I cannot remember seeing any 105e for sale and they had long since disappeared from the roads. Of course this was not unique to the Anglia. I remember in the 70s my neighbor had to get new wings (fenders) on his Vauxhall viva to pass it’s 1st MOT at 3 years old and it was a rust bucket by the time it was 6 years old.
Yup, Dad had one, complete with ‘flag’ indicators, which as a child I loved! The car itself was (and still is) a great looking car! Great video as always! Thanks for posting.
Oh hell this brings back memories, my dad had one of these black in the 70s. I’ve always had a soft spot for the mk3 cortina’s as my first car I was given by an uncle back in 1986 and I had the estate ghia 2.0 black vinyl roof in what I’d describe in metallic racing green and I can still remember the reg which was WNL741T I ran that car for years and loved it that much that when it had got to the point it was going to cost more than it was worth to get it through its mot it was sadly time to let it go. Then five years later I found another but in saloon in metallic brown and we went on honeymoon in it. But then I had an accident at work which severely damaged my spine and I was taken off the road and was forced to sell it as I needed the money and now I wish I’d survived on bread and milk knowing what I know now and the condition it was in but we can’t turn back the clock. But I’m still driving fords today with the focus st. So maybe in years to come my st will be worth something but it doesn’t give me the smile as my cortina’s did.
Is there any other car with a backward sloping rear window?....My grandad had a dark blue Ford Anglia...I really miss old cars...Car design has now become like Hollywood where car designers are frightened to try anything new and play safe...so...we get cars that all look the same and films that all follow the same sensational format
Remember sitting in the back of my friend's dad's Anglia 1200, terrified as he drove round a roundabout the wrong way. They lived next door and one cold morning I counted 48 attempts to start the engine before it caught. Must have had a good battery.
The firing order 1-2-4-3 of a Ford Kent engine is something special you didn't mention compared to the current inline 4 standard 1-3-4-2. I have a Toyota Corona 1966 with an old Toyota 2R engine. Both of them have a very special sound in some RPM range while accelerating, although I can easily distinguish one from another.
My first car was a 1967 Anglia 123E Super, the Anglia with a 1200cc engine and a dash pad but otherwise a 105E. This was in 1981. Was a wonderfully reliable car but the tin worm crawled all over it like flies around a cowpat. It was eventually replaced with a Mk2 Esacort 1300 Popular Plus, a logical successor to the Anglia Super and a car that took me on my honeymoon touring the Scottish highlands and islands with a tent in the boot. Ah. Those were the days. 👍
My first 4 cars were Angleboxes. The best was the Super with 1200cc engine and synchro on all 4 gears. Great engines, You could rev them up all day long !
Having more manual gears was always driven by Euro/UK markets 10-20 years before. My 1970bFord Maverick had 3sp on the steering column, which had been their standard since 1940. 4sp in BMC/BL had driven US sports into 4sp...then the overdrive gear or button pushed US and Japan sports into 5sp Overdrive by 1980.
This is the best video I’ve ever seen of the 105E. They were very popular here in New Zealand, and would have been assembled here from knock down kits supplied from Britain.
I’ve never owned a British Ford, but I can totally understand why their simple “good enough” philosophy was so popular.
In the mid 70's my Dad wanted to own one of these. As you said in NZ they were really popular at the time.
Not a bad motor...had one but could never keep the wheels tracked.
my dads still got one from 30 years ago putting a 1550cc bored pre crossflow side draft in it new zealand
Thanks mate, very kind of you to say :)
And also 'knocked down' for Australia. Never that popular here but 100% appreciated.
Imagine a car that weighs 739kg now…at least three times that for a crappy electric thing…
Light cars are the best cars.
Almost light enough to fly.. ✨
The 105E was the first car I bought in 1980 when I was 18 for £90 in two tone grey, great little car and they seem so small today but that was the norm back then :-)
My first car was a 105e too. Bought in 1970 for £27 and 10 shillings - and we argued over the 10 shillings(50p) - sold 2 years and 20,000 miles later for £40. Mine was an early model with a 3-speed gearbox. It was also composed mostly of cocky paste, fibreglass and rust and in order to shut the driver's door it was necessary to open the window, lift and slam because there was no bottom hinge.
I absolutely love your classic car reviews, cheers from Australia
Thanks mate :)
Another Fantastic Video Ed, as a Ford Enthusiast this really appealed to me, i was never a fan of the Anglia but really appreciate the car for what it did for Ford.
My first car, in 1960, was a Ford Anglia 105E. primrose yellow with white top, and light grey interior. I lovely little car, with light steering, excellent gear change , lively engine, very good road holding and brakes. Faultless in fact, Moved up to a 1500 Cortina , 5 yrs later. another very good Ford.
I have been watching your videos for quite a time now and I've seen you get better and better. That was your best yet. There's only so much you can say about the car, it's the setting of the context and significance that was done so well in this. It takes talent to tell a story so well.
Thanks Peter, that's very kind of you to say :)
Excellent video! My Dad had a 105E, in light blue, I think. I was about five years old at the time. Your comments about the business case is spot on as well.
I had 2 x 105E's and they were great cars. Yes they rotted like all cars did back then (late 60's early 70'. Would love one now. Good video!
This was the first car I bought, it had a lazy starter especially in winter, put a van battery in it and never had an issue again.
My father had one of those cars, the Ford Anglia, colour green. Bought in 1967. Beautiful car. Unfortunatelly, he had to sell it in 1984, and it had a lot of rust in the bottom. I remeber the licence plate of the car HC-72-75 (Portugal, Oporto). It's part of my childhhood memories.
My first car in 1978. FRL 787D. It even had the original tax disc holder from the dealer in Truro. Loved it, it was a deluxe in velvet blue. My next car was a signal yellow RS2000! Bloody hell
The 105E was very popular here in Australia. Great little cars, simple to work on and quite reliable.
I bought a 123E around 2 months ago, it was fitted with the Cortina 1500GT engine in period and keeps up with modern traffic. I also have a 1300 Beetle and depending on my mood, one always sees its way out of the garage on a weekly basis.
Thanks for the review.
Interesting video, Ed. Unusually, I have a correction. MacPherson was working for GM of Europe, aka Vauxhall, when he developed the front strut suspension. He held the Patent, and when his project was cancelled he moved to Ford, taking his strut suspension design with him.
The reverse canted rear window was developed to allow the rear window to retract behind the rear seat. On the 58, 59, and 60 Lincoln the reverse canted window was on the Continental Mark III, IV, and V. Regular Lincoln models had a fixed convex rear window. The only other reverse canted rear window that was fixed that I can think of was the 63/64 Meteor models designed for the Canadian market. Cars with the retractable rear window were badged as "Breezeway".
That is really interesting. Fords of that vintage are interesting to me, because here in Canada we saw a few of them. In fact, the 1959 Zodiac owned by a neighbour was the first car I saw that passed the 100,000 mile mark. The 100E was a sharp little car. It would be interesting to see a head to head between the Anglia, Vauxhall Victor Super, a Volkswagen Beetle, and whatever BMC had in the same price bracket in 1959. I keep having to remind myself that little cars like the Hillman Minx and Triumph Herald are actually a size class up, as they are all tiny compared to what I was seeing as a kid in the 60s. Even the Valiant, Ford Falcon, and Chevrolet Corvair are huge in comparison, and those were our "compact" cars. The Anglia looks like it could be carried in the boot of a Continental as a spare car!
Ah! That's very interesting to hear!
I knew he worked at GM before Ford, but I didn't know that. Every day's a school day.
@@TwinCam I learned that from reading an article in a magazine called Collectable Automobile. They did a large and in depth article about the Mark I Consul, Zephyr, and Zodiac. Over the last 30 years or so the magazine has done articles on many, many different cars. The articles are always very carefully researched and well written. The magazine has won many awards for the quality of the writing. Could be worth a look. Most of the cars are American, or imports that were sold in the USA, but they do sometimes cover cars not available here. They also, where possible, have drawings and pictures of the car in question being designed as well as featuring interviews with designers and other movers and shakers in the motoring world.
Didn't know they were still making 'em. That one looks like it rolled off the production line yesterday. Well, almost. 😆 Lovely example.
??
I purchased from my cousin an Anglia in the same colour scheme as this one back in 1979. It was registered in November 1959 reg 432MPD being a Surrey registration.
I did sell it to someone in the Ford 105E Anglia owners club so a good chance of it being around seeing it was an early example.
You'll be glad to learn Peter, she is still around and just relicenced to July 2024 !.Any ' 59 105E still in existence should rank as rare as a ' 59 Mini !
@@Roger.Coleman1949 Thank you, that is good to know. I also owned a MK1 Ford Escort two door saloon reg TPC375F registered on 1/1/1968 again an early example. In the days you could collect your new car from the showroom on new years day. How times change. Cheers 🍻
@@peterward3965 Was your early Escort the one captured on an old film with you getting out on a London bridge ?.I remember someone recognising himself and the car captured on an old b/w film of London streets seen around a year ago .The TPC reg. seems to ring a bell !.I have a '61 Austin 7 Mini registered 1/1/62 , another date where this would never happen again as it became a bank holiday .
@@Roger.Coleman1949 yes that's right Roger. Hello again , I do remember our last chat as such. As you say late 59 minis are sought after , also Triumph Hearld was launched at the end of 59 as well. Yes I can't believe I'll be on RUclips way after I'm gone with my Escort lol 😂 I wish we could go back to simpler times when motoring was a joy.
Cheer 🍻
@@peterward3965 Hello again Peter, yes indeed , '59 a great year for innovative new car designs and also the largest sales ever for motorcycles and scooters , probably as it was a great summer !.Shame your early Escort did not have the longivity of the Anglia !.
Your example has probably the best color combo offered.
Had two of these. Bought one with my inheritance from my Grand Aunt in Morecambe ... 300 quid.. Total rot boxes. Now in Wisconsin, l love my 2017 Toyota Camry SE 2.5.... It is like new.
Interesting video - my Dad had two 105Es! - but the 635i next door is even more interesting!
Victoria Police (Australia) had some Anglia in a light blue colour.
Remember 1964 on the Kerford Road Pier when cops drove one half way down, got out to walk to the end where boys were playing up and fighting. When they turned to come back, the Anglia was gone. Some boys had 'bounced' it of the pier into the water. No railing to stop it.
They make me smile even today. As a child I always thought that they were pulling a face at me.
I had one for three years. One of its best features was visibility, a lost art in todays designs. You could see all four corners of the car, making driving and parking a dream. DIY maintenance was simplicity itself, engine removal a snip, brakes easy....but it was a rust bucket underneath, I discovered to my cost once!
I do remember them on the roads of Sydney. Great video.
Thanks as always Russell 🙂
Outstanding presentation!
I had one of these back 1978 or thereabouts. In Suva, Fiji, of all places. She was well past her best days by then, but they got around, obviously.
Yes, I remember these very well. Not for me and - a common fault with them in the day - was that the indicators would go mad and flash all four at once, thus inventing hazard warning lamps.
If you could afford the 1200 engine it was a lot better.
My first car was 1965 Anglia 105E in 1978 but passed my test in a 123E 1200 in 1979.
My first car. Back in the sixties, boy racers either went for a mini or anglia. I chose Ford. Out came the engine replaced with bored out 1350 with Webber carbs, lowered suspension, five and and a half J rims and tyres “ bucket seat” slip on seat covers etc. Good memories
So nice to see these lovely forgotten cars. And as usual Ed, beautifully researched, presented and showcased for the enjoyment of all of us auto enthusiasts. Many thanks indeed.
I wonder if you could get your hands on one of these lovely cars which was featured in Tintin, the Doctor’s Citroen Ami 6, whose roofline, body shape and silhouette was rather similar to this Ford Anglia.
Thanks mate, very kind of you to say, as always!
I'd love to do a video on an Ami. I love Citroens. If ever I get offered one, I'll jump at it!
The Ami had the 2-CV 2-cyl engine. A later version had the 4-cyl GS engine. Its front was downright ugly.
Beautiful cars I've had five of them since the mid 70s and still have two. Still viable today but it helps if a few performance mods have been done. My best one (still 997 cc) could sustain over 80 mph on the strait and it surprised and shut down many a small Asian shitbox especially going uphill.
A terrific video, of a very important Ford! Top work, the research and archive materials were excellent.
Thanks mate :)
Another corking video. The Anglebox's key to its sucess was good old metal for your money. The Mini might have been a bit shorter but unless you had a very small parking space .... so what. You could get holiday suitcases in an Anglia ...... try putting your clothes in a Mini's doorbins. When it came to spares and servicing the Anglia was streets ahead. Fleet buyers loved them as did dads who didn't want to go round corners at Warp Factor 9 but did want to work on their car without special tools or double jointed wrists. And you are utterly right about the Anglia being profitable. Ford had their own body stamping factory and trimming shop. BMC relied on Pressed Steel as did Rootes and the other British companies. Ford and vauxhall did tinwork in-house rather than paying someone to do it and limiting profit. The only downside to the Anglia that kept it from being number one was its two door only configeration. Corrected with the Escort.
The difference is in efficiency, which does matter, but also in dynamics and performance, which doesn't to the vast majority of people. As I mention in the video, the average person didn't and still doesn't care for a car that's technically better, and that's what the Mini's small size allowed - agility and speed!
The Ford Anglia 105E was my first car I ever bought and that was back in 1972. If anyone sees one going around with the registration: 952 GLE, (yes, I still remember it), please let me know. If anyone sees it for sale, please let me know. I am now 68 and I would love to see it if it is still going, which is doubtful. I had it for one year then traded it in for a Cortina, FGF 68C. My early days of motoring, but great fun.
Thanks for a fascinating documentary. Loved it. Keep up these great vids.
Thanks Kevin 🙂
Seem to remember the length of the gearbox was the same from after the war to -88 when the modern twin cam arrived.Going from three to 5 gears...
My American Ford Escort GT had a 1600cc Kent engine.
Great review - well reasearched and well-presented - many thanks. For my money the Anglia was a better car than the Mini, partly because I prefer the styling, but mainly because from the POV of maintaining the car, most jobs on an Anglia are not too difficult, and most things are accessible. Whereas with a Mini, the poor mechanic is faced with car which is a nightmare to work on.
However, for a small car from this era, I'd prefer the Renault 4 or a Citroen Ami 8, which are both hatchbacks, and therefore more practical. And there was a valid argument for buying a Hillman Minx (the Audax body shape) as well.
I love the styling of many of the cars from this era, far more than most cars of today. But I'd far sooner have the far greater safety of most modern cars than I would drive a classic car like this, where if you have a crash you might not survive it to tell the tale...
Thanks Tim 🙂
I wouldn’t at all say the Mini is a nightmare to work on though - more complex and smaller than an Anglia, yes, but a Mini is infinitely easier to work on than anything modern!
Trapezoidal grille, the way the rear side window kicks up into the c-pillar, I reckon that if the Anglia were styled in the modern era, it would look something like the 2013 Fiesta.
the first car I ever sat in, eggshell blue and white, harry freel's next-door neighbour, in the good old days, pre 1967 !
Well done. Excellent exposition.
Thanks Fred :)
My mate had a 105E Super with 1200 cc engine!! . We used to do road Rallies with some success. Great days with me on the maps 😂
i'd buy that in a heartbeat. in the same way that royal enfield has presented a "new" classic market, notably the 350 classic, maybe the motor industry should have a look: classic lines, modern components. bmw tried it with the mini, which has been a massive hit, so why not? in these unpalatable times, charm and nostalgia sells.
The problem here is that being filmed away from home, I'm missing the Hitchcockian dog passing in the background. 😂
My first car was a 105E in exactly the same maroon and grey colour scheme. It was the same build year as me, 1963, and was nicknamed Peanuts as the number plate was 5008 KP😂. I sold it to a fellow Ford apprentice. I later learnt that he made a good profit when he sold the number seperately 🙁.
Awesome car for its day.
Nice looking Ford.
Oh the 105E! I think this is the car that turned me off of Ford. Yeah, I know, I'm a bit nuts. It always looked out of date to me when compared to the ADO16. I never got the fascination with the brand myself. I do remember riding in the back of one that belonged to the mother of a good friend of mine at the time. Her driving wasn't what you would call a great credit to her so the car was always dented and scratched. Bits fell off at regular intervals. On one ocassion I remember the arm rest being thrown into the passanger footwell after it "came off in her hand" as she slammed the door. Every trip was a mixture of hilarity and panic as she bowled along the road seemingly oblivious to other drivers around her. Her husband, and eventually both her younger sons, ran a very good body shop so this always caused some, at times, rather cruel jokes among family and friends. Poor ol' Doreen, she was lovely but quite scatty.
Totally agree on that point. The 1100 was a very pretty car.
REMEMBER PLAN X 33000 I hope this is correct ?Well this was the rage in those days, Ford MK3 MONDEO'S are Brill TOO ! The 2006/2007 ones, Thanks to Jackie Stewart ! and Ford Designers. WELL DONE FORDS.
My first car, in 1971. Cost then 150 UK pounds.
Good summary. Even here in the US I'd see these Anglias 40+ years ago (they still pop up at shows). Always thought they wre hella ugly - not that we didn't have breezeway Mercs - but somehow it didn't translate well. (Even a stripped 2d Monterey sedan from say 1963 looks somehow better full scale). I'd argue none of the 'American' style UK stuff has held up all that well in terms of styling (perhaps the Capri), though I can certainly understand the marketing rationale at the time, and some were better than others (Farina sedans, Cresta).
There are a few Hillmans that I think are lovely looking things, but in general, I think you make a fair point.
I owned a few of these 105E and rust was always the problem. The mechanics were very strong and reliable but the braking was awful. The Anglia was a favourite for tuning and replacing the 997 with a 1500 cortina engine was fairly simple and made a huge difference to performance. Anglia cars were never designed for fast driving and revising the steering and converting the front brakes to suspension/brakes from Ford classic was another leap forward. With these 2 changes to the basic car along with wider wheels you had potent car by the standards of early 1960’s. If we could have seen what we have on the road now as fairly basic cars we would have been astonished.
Well I bought a very nice puke green 997 cc used Ford Anglia in 1969, ner. The missus made me buy it when she got pregnant year after we married, she said "I'm not holding our baby on the pillion of our 250 cc Honda, or strapping it on the rack". So instead we put her in a basket on that nice rear shelf behind all the Holiday luggage piled on the back seats. Worked like a charm.
The 105E was certainly a styling jump on the older E93A Prefect ' Poplar or Anglia. The 100E was just a more modern body on a tired engine and still a 3 speed non synchro 1st gearbox when BMC had gone to 4 speed boxes years before, vacuum wipers for Pete's sake, put the foot down and they slow up in heavy rain , one needed to decelerate to see out the windscreen when the wipers would speed up.
Early side valve engines were underpowered and the 6 volt electrics were problematic.
They were prone to breaking axles especially crash starting in first or reverse, when 2nd should have been used.
The 105E finally got an OHV engine and a 4 speed gearbox but was reasonably reliable and robust but nothing special in its performance or handling.
The early E 93A Prefects were known in New Zealand and Australia as "roll your own's" due to their propensity to fall over if rounding a corner too quickly, in its defence you could just get some help and push it back off its side onto it wheels, check the oil and drive off again with minimal body damage, ..........ask me how I know this!
Foot flat to the boards 62 mph.
The 105E's sold reasonably well in the Antipodes as a second car for Mum however Dad usually opted for a Zephyr or slightly later in Australia/NZ a Falcon or Fairlane if choosing a Ford.
The packaging of the Anglia was particularly excellent , room for four , yet a capacious boot . All this with an in line engine driving rear wheels. Nowadays we all associate the transverse FWD concept as a means to create more passenger capacity within the volume of the car, although in modern vehicles this has retarded due to increased safety features in the cars .
You're absolutely right to a point, though the space beneath the heater intake is criminally underused in the Anglia! Just a big void with the gearbox at the bottom!
Ironic therefore, that Ford currently seem to be distancing themselves from the market that found them so much success - r.i.p. Fiestsa, Focus and Mondeo.
They wiped out the escort and capri big mistake.
Indeed, though Ford's downfall has been expected for a number of years as they haven't kept up with buying habits.
When I was a veterinary student at Liverpool University in the early sixties myself and a friend used to persuade local dealers to let us road test cars and publish our findings in the faculty student magazine appropriately called « Rumen ». We did the Anglia 105E , the HA Viva and finally la pièce de résistance the Rover 2000. When I got my first job in 1966 I was offered the choice of either the Ford or the Vauxhall to thrash around country lanes and farm tracks. I chose the Viva which had the optional extra of a heater fitted ! I never got to have a Rover 2000 unfortunately but did own a Land Crab followed by two Citroën GS Breaks before settling for a series of Saabs. Nowadays in what is probably my third mid life crisis I bought one of the last Guiliettas in 2018.
That’s an amazing story! I’ve always had a soft spot for the Landcrabs. One thing though: you don’t settle for a Saab, they’re amazing cars. I miss my 900 SPG…
If I were in Liverpool in the early sixties, you would find me in the cavern, rather than the uni....
@@graemeking7336 You can do both. The only time I saw the Beatles though was at the 1961 Fresher’s Ball , Tower Ballroom , New Brighton. They were backing up Terry Lightfoot’s Trad Jazz Band !
I did meet Brian Epstein in his office at NEMS, Great Charlotte Street to negotiate for bands such as Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders to play at functions at my hall of residence. Wayne threw me the keys of his car once just before a break in their performance to go and get them some fish and chips , it was a Cooper S and I think I covered about 15 miles in it to just nip down the road to the local chippy !
@@markbennett9787 Liverpool Uni mid- to late-sixties, me, in a £25 A35 van. Those were the days, my friend ...
@@stuartofblyth I had a £25 Austin A40 Somerset as my first car in 1962 then an A35 in 1965.
My dad had a1964 one , and I had a 1966 estate as my first car in 1975. I can still remember the huge but skinny steering wheel, and long but very precise gear lever. All cars of that era rusted prematurely, but my God if rusting were an Olympic sport ,the Anglia ( along with Viva HA ) would be gold medalists 😢.
Ford brought in innovative fresh air ventilation, the Cortina for example having eyeball-style swivelling fascia vents. But my used 105E also had effective ventilation-on lifting the footwell mats, you saw the road whizzing by through big rust holes! My MkIII Cortina similarly rusted in short order. Rustproofing was a game changer from around the late 80s. (And yes, BMC, Renault, Lancia, Alfa, etc. all rusted like crazy back in the day.)
The 105E was my first car, not too reliable. Finally rusted away.
A second-hand 105E was my first car too. The rust was so bad that firms supplied pre-formed steel components that could be welded in for MOT purposes. I remember these being welded onto mine to prevent the leaf springs forcibly ending up in the boot. Almost any other well-worn Anglia key would open the door locks and start the car. Still, it was relatively reliable for the time, cheap to repair and maintain, and had quite a personality. The 1200cc engine didn't seem unduly slow, and was quite flexible. I'm just amazed by the picture of this one, and can't imagine how it was preserved. Does any of the original body remain?
@@cnocspeireag I once locked myself out of the MkIII Cortina mentioned above (much easier to do in those days) in a pub car park. A fellow wandered up, smiling, coolly opened the door with his own Ford key, and sauntered away again...
@@kh23797
You could see Alphas and FIATs rust before your eyes.
Excellent video! Young man you are with out doubt the best classic car presenter on RUclips !! Well done !! 👍
He should have been born a few decades earlier, he would have been great on Top Gear in the 90's before it became the Clarkson/May and Hammond show.
Thanks Alan, that's tremendously kind of you to say :)
I worked at Dagenham when the 105E was launched, as management trainee, and spent a week or two in the foundry. They were very proud of the fact that due to the short stroke of the Kent engine, which was seriously over-square, they were able to cast the crankshaft, as the crank throws were very short, and the pistons correspondinlgly wide. This was much cheaper than the more traditional forged crank-shaft, which I believe was the norm for every other vehicle then on the market. The cast crank was also lighter, as it was hollow.
Correct , but it was only a 3 main bearing one on the early Kents , and the center main would invariably start to rumble at 70000 miles or so ,( by which time most had rusted away anyway).
A homely looking car if there ever was one.
@@bobgorman9481
Very few vehicles of any make got past 70,000 miles, as there was little or no concept of rust protection. The designs included areas from which water could not escape, door sills being a good example. The Macpherson strut design was good, bit the chances of the strut popping up through the wing after not many miles was quite high. In those far off days, before global warming, there was much salt spread on the roads in the winter, which quickly accelerated corrosion. My 12-year old Focus has no rust whatsoever, and will probably see me out! (I'm 81).
@@andybone8873 Don't worry, a friend of mine is 88 this year , and still drives HGV s , passes his medical every year with flying colours!
Ah, the Anglia 105e. My grandfather had one for many years - it was grey when he bought it. He brush painted it pale blue with cellulose - I think you could buy DIY kits in those days? A lovely, lovely little car, full of character. I’ve come to be really fond of this era of ‘Ford Of Britain’. The Classic and Capri are both lovely, if rather unsuccessful in their day. But the 105e is a little jewel of a thing. I’d love to own one!
I'm guessing you are not including the later Capri which had a long and successful life.
I had a 105e when going to university and whilst there went on holiday with my girlfriend and a vey full boot of camping gear and food. We crossed on the hovercraft and drove to Athens, A truly memorable car and holiday.
My first two cars were 123Es, same car but a 1200cc engine. Most 123Es were Anglia Supers, which is a higher standard of trim. Lovely cars, very reliable.
In 1965 I bought a 1962 105E - 507GTM. Thrashed it mercilessly for two years, including a trip four-up to what was then Yugoslavia, reaching Zagreb. Never let me down. Only sold it when I emigrated to Canada. I still miss it - many happy memories.
The 105E could not hold a candle to the Minor 1000. The Anglia had worse roadholding and poor fuel economy and as mentioned by a previous poster it rusted at an alarming rate.
The Anglia was a marketing success mainly due to Ford' s enormous advertising budget, it was not anything special as a motor car.
I learned to drive in one of these in 1966. Wonderful little car, would have owned one in a heartbeat.
Great views through the rear window too - didn’t get wet in the rain.
I also took driving lessons in one in 1965. There was always a problems with it, so many I can't remember them all. Once none of the indicators worked and another occasion when the speedometer didn't work, I had to guess how many mph I was doing; good job they didn't have cameras then. It put me off buying a Ford until last year when I finally bought a Kuga 2nd-hand. So far, it's good apart from the alarm going off every now and then when I open it and it saying it didn't recognise the key.
I absolutely love these cars, both the 105E and the 100E that was it's predecessor. I've owned both and would love to find another one of either!
I learnt to drive in a side valve Anglia. It took all the crap gear changes I threw at it. It was a great car.
Loved this, my first car was a 105E, followed by another one! Great car to work on, plenty space and few tools necessary., essential for the impecunious. Being young and daft, I did a few "performance tweaks". Eventually ending up with the 123E, the 'luxury' model, the flexibility of Ford engines and gearboxes meant that 123E eventually ended up with a twin cam Lotus Ford engine, detuned slightly , disc brakes and modified rear suspension.
My first car was a 105E. To be fair, it was nearly 20 years old, but it was a sack of rubbish and I don't look back on it with any fond memories.
20 years old 🤣
Had three Anglias, one of my all time favourite cars, personally i never found it underpowered, but yes in did rust quickly, so i learnt to weld, many happy memories of this lovely car.
Cool, does it come with the flying gear or is that optional
The dashboard with the instrument binnacle on one side and the shape mirrored on the other side was a simple way to allow for the left hand drive European versions, with no major build changes.
Mine was a blue one with white roof, think Harry Potter, bought for £15 in 1974, the insurance for a year was also £15. Loved it, looking for a left hand drive one now.
Back then, FORD made beautiful and iconic cars, like the Anglia, Escort, Cortina, Capri...
This must be one of the British cars that never made it to the US. I have only seen them in pictures. Thanks to Ed for his time and work.
They were sold in the US.
@@runoflife87 Really? Never saw one. Years back there were Jag's, MG, Triumph's and Austins everywhere. I would love to have a real Mini Cooper.....
Thanks as always mate :)
They were certainly sold in Canada. I remember a girl at my first job in that country in 1967 had one.
Hi Ed. So well researched and so brilliantly presented. Fantastic stuff...many thanks.
Thanks mate :)
I wonder why Lotus didn't choose the Anglia to be refined by them. Lighter than the Cortina. All right. 105 HP would have been dangerously powerful
for such a nimble car ! But there are a few modern conversions with a Lotus twin cam.
Watching this channel is like watching a young James May with the information and presentation style. Love it. Really enjoyable channel and I'm so glad I found it.
Thanks mate, that's very kind of you to say :)
The Anglia was built in Halewood from October 1963
And the Anglia 105E was the first car to be produced at the new Halewood plant.
Indeed. Early drafts of this video did talk about Halewood, but the segment felt wedged in, so as it wasn't awfully important, I decided to cut it out. The history of the Halewood factory could make a good video someday though!
@@chrischandler833 When I was an Anglia-smitten teenager. I saw the very first Halewood-produced Anglia at what was then Merseyside County Museum.
There was a Mk3 Escort beside it, which I believe was Halewood's millionth car.
@@MakerfieldConsortthe Anglia is in the Liverpool museum with registration number AKF1 in yellow a Merseyside area registration number at the time if my memory serves me right that was the first build off the production line
Right, off to make a coffee, and sit down to enjoy this, for it will be good! 🙂
Hope you enjoyed it!
@@TwinCam I most certainly did! 🙂 Informative, entertaining, enthusiastic and detailed, without getting too bogged down in minutiae...spot on!
I'm sure that as a kid I recall seeing the police using these as local patrol cars.
Also used in Heartbeat
Yep, Panda cars (Panda stood for something, I think). In later years, they switched to Allegros.
They were named Pandas purely because of their pattern. The white and blue as opposed to the white and black of a real Panda!
I has a couple of 105Es, went to Switzerland in one of them with a mate, it was the estate wagon body with a 997cc after a rebuild
I owned a couple of 105E's back in the day and they were fine cars. Light and airy inside with great all round vision and back windscreen that never got dirty. They had pretty good acceleration for the time. They didn't handle particularly well with the Armstrong lever dampers and neither were they particularly good on gas. They did rot sadly. I had a Riley Elf after and a Vauxhall Victor 101 FD which were both better all round cars.
To be fair to them, the lever dampers were only at the back. Obviously not perfect, and though the Mini and later cars had telescopic dampers, older cars like the Morris Minor had lever arm dampers all round! That being said, handling was never their strong suit!
@dufushead Yes, I recall those Armstrong units on my A35. Pretty easy to replace, like the leaf springs and even the king pin bearings (if you had a press), but they wore out at mileages we would consider pretty low today. Expectations were rather more modest, though, back in the 60s/70s. Only when I swapped my BSA motorbike for a car did I discover it made me much more popular with girls...
I could listen to this lovely man ALL day folks,,I happily subscribed 👌👏👏👏👏🇬🇧
My father owned an Anglia Deluxe (which looked almost identical to the Harry Potter car) from 1961 to 1985, and I learned to drive in our old dependable Anglia!
Passed my driving test in one of these.
Gutless, well below basic and uncomfortable. I know, I had one, a car planned by some idiot who had never experienced a motorway as a driver the Anglia with its 997cc engine was an anagram of 'car' with a 'p' stuck on the end. Imagine driving North on the M6, a double - deck bus in front in the first lane. Mirror, signal, check again, pull out to overtake, half way past the bus driver looks at you grins and accelerates and leaves you stranded at 69 mph! So, don't extol the virtues of Ford's most useless "family" car, it was rubbish.
That’s a funny comment - as motorways didn’t exist when the Anglia was launched. Intrigued to hear how anyone could have experienced a motorway 🤔
Had one of these (used) in the 60's. As a young Engineer I couldn't help but feel it was underpowered and fitted a Twin Cam Lotus. A car I remember best despite such competition as owning a Jaguar XK150S
In addition to my comment of yesterday, may I add that the 4-speed gearbox was really a 3-speed, with an overdrive 4th gear. Being such a short stoke one could ref the a..e off the Anglia in 3rd gear, which gave one about 75mph, slip into top, the speed remained at 75, but the revs dropped.
I caned my Anglia when I was a sales rep, and it never let me down.
The best UK motoring content anywhere. Thank you so much for your time and effort into this, thanks to you I now have a new respect for the 105e and I never ever expected that. I will say this though, as good as the 105e was those 1.3 million cars disappeared from UK roads extremely fast, I remember as a kid in the 60s seeing an abandoned rusting 105e in a garage block next to our home, it had been there rusting as far back as I can remember. When I started to learn to drive and take an interest in cars at the end of the 70s I cannot remember seeing any 105e for sale and they had long since disappeared from the roads. Of course this was not unique to the Anglia. I remember in the 70s my neighbor had to get new wings (fenders) on his Vauxhall viva to pass it’s 1st MOT at 3 years old and it was a rust bucket by the time it was 6 years old.
Thanks as always Andrew :)
I think that in the UK they put salt on the roads in winter which would have kicked off the rust. In Australia that wasn't necessary.
A great car but it was very prone to rust
Yup, Dad had one, complete with ‘flag’ indicators, which as a child I loved! The car itself was (and still is) a great looking car!
Great video as always!
Thanks for posting.
Thanks mate :)
Never seen a 60s anglia with flag indicators
Learnt to drive in one of these back in '87..
My father’s 1962 105E Anglia de luxe in lime green and white cost £400 from Taylors of Gloucester.
39ft turning circle per the brochure.
Oh hell this brings back memories, my dad had one of these black in the 70s. I’ve always had a soft spot for the mk3 cortina’s as my first car I was given by an uncle back in 1986 and I had the estate ghia 2.0 black vinyl roof in what I’d describe in metallic racing green and I can still remember the reg which was WNL741T I ran that car for years and loved it that much that when it had got to the point it was going to cost more than it was worth to get it through its mot it was sadly time to let it go. Then five years later I found another but in saloon in metallic brown and we went on honeymoon in it. But then I had an accident at work which severely damaged my spine and I was taken off the road and was forced to sell it as I needed the money and now I wish I’d survived on bread and milk knowing what I know now and the condition it was in but we can’t turn back the clock. But I’m still driving fords today with the focus st. So maybe in years to come my st will be worth something but it doesn’t give me the smile as my cortina’s did.
Is there any other car with a backward sloping rear window?....My grandad had a dark blue Ford Anglia...I really miss old cars...Car design has now become like Hollywood where car designers are frightened to try anything new and play safe...so...we get cars that all look the same and films that all follow the same sensational format
Remember sitting in the back of my friend's dad's Anglia 1200, terrified as he drove round a roundabout the wrong way.
They lived next door and one cold morning I counted 48 attempts to start the engine before it caught. Must have had a good battery.
The firing order 1-2-4-3 of a Ford Kent engine is something special you didn't mention compared to the current inline 4 standard 1-3-4-2. I have a Toyota Corona 1966 with an old Toyota 2R engine. Both of them have a very special sound in some RPM range while accelerating, although I can easily distinguish one from another.
My first car was a 1967 Anglia 123E Super, the Anglia with a 1200cc engine and a dash pad but otherwise a 105E. This was in 1981.
Was a wonderfully reliable car but the tin worm crawled all over it like flies around a cowpat.
It was eventually replaced with a Mk2 Esacort 1300 Popular Plus, a logical successor to the Anglia Super and a car that took me on my honeymoon touring the Scottish highlands and islands with a tent in the boot.
Ah. Those were the days. 👍
My first 4 cars were Angleboxes. The best was the Super with 1200cc engine and synchro on all 4 gears. Great engines, You could rev them up all day long !
Having more manual gears was always driven by Euro/UK markets 10-20 years before. My 1970bFord Maverick had 3sp on the steering column, which had been their standard since 1940.
4sp in BMC/BL had driven US sports into 4sp...then the overdrive gear or button pushed US and Japan sports into 5sp Overdrive by 1980.