Not yet disappeared from the street scene, but …
The Ford Scorpio seems to have completely disappeared from the streets. We already found it to be a rarity in February 2022, when one turned up in the wild. Reason to find out how many Scorpios are still driving around in the Netherlands.
What is a Ford Scorpio? It was the largest Ford passenger car from Ford Europe (American Fords were of course larger) that you could get in the Netherlands from 1985 to 1998. A model above the mid-sized Sierra, and later Mondeo and the successor to the Granada.
The first Ford Scorpio, designed by Uwe Bahnsen.
Hard to imagine now, but in the early 1980s a lot happened in the executive class (E-segment) with the introduction of, for example, the Volvo 760 (1982), Audi 100 (1983), Lancia Thema and Renault 25 (1984) and Saab 9000 (1985).
Scorpio succeeded the Granada
Ford took a different tack with the Granada successor. After the design-revolutionary Sierra, a segment higher also had to be overhauled and so it happened. A new name, a particularly spacious, five-door body and to convince the doubters … ABS as standard! At that time it was not available on all cars and was also a costly option, so it was remarkable enough to become Car of the Year the following year. Still, Sierra-like scenes were not achieved in this class. The conservative Granada public could not get used to the hatchback body, while the Granada was only available as a sedan and station wagon. Those body styles also came (in 1989 and 1992 respectively), but that was too late to turn the tide.
The second generation Ford Scorpio, with the frog eyes.
The extravagant second generation from 1994 even seemed laughable rather than serious, even though our royal family was a loyal customer. In 1998 it was done with the Scorpio. There was no successor. Ford was buying up a lot in those years and thought that it already had more than enough in house in the E-segment with the Jaguar S-type and the Volvo S80. 850,000 Scorpios were sold against twice as many Granadas in the same period (1972-1985) before. In the Netherlands, the counter stuck at almost 45,000 copies, in the same period Opel still wore out about 65,000 Omegas and in total (the Omega was available from 1986 to 2003) even 79,000 units.
If you see a Scorpio, chances are it’s an 86
But back to where we started: how many Scorpios are there now and what years are they from?
Year of construction Number
1985 61
1986 116
1987 88
1988 57
1989 85
1990 77
1991 70
1992 75
1993 59
1994 50
1995 39
1996 40
1997 42
1998 36
1999 1
Total 896
Source: CarTalk International
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl