PLENTY OF LOVE FOR THE XR4i

You don’t see many Sierra XR4is around nowadays, and to be fair you didn’t see to many around in the mid 1980s. The Sierra was a hard sell back in 1983, so the extrovert XR4i with plastic body cladding and outrageous bi plane rear spoiler was possibly a step too far for Cortina man.

Thankfully, today the car has a cult following and thanks to social media, we’re able to host a Annual National Meeting. This year’s meeting took place at the Old Ford Rally at Gaydon, with 12 bi-planes out of an estimated 94 left on the road lined up, from Tony Gilder’s very early dealer demonstrator launch car, to Mark Hoppers late 1985 model — only one of a handful now left.

Turbo XR4is are even rarer, so we were lucky to have Jason Kew’s Turbo Technics and Darren Mann’s Janspeed-converted cars attend this year.

By the way, I’ve owned my 1984 fullyoptioned ex-Ford Nimbus Grey car for 36 years!