Not your everyday China car – the Ford Sierra
When I was a wee small lad, my father had a 1.6 Ford Sierra complete with front electric windows, and amazingly enough a sunroof AND electric wingmirrors. I was totally blown away by the ultimate ‘James Bond’ car that my dad had bought.
So it came to my suprise that a Ford Sierra, albeit the 2.0l version, was spotte in Qingdao:
Whilst the above example is far from being in first class condition, probably due to the lack of spare parts for it in the PRC, it is cool to see something from your childhood here. The black plates means that this car is registered to a foreign company, or foreign resident in China, which makes us wonder what sort of man would desperately would want to bring his Ford Sierra with him to China?
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I’ve never seen a Sierra here, but I have seen a few 1st-gen Mondeos and Taurus, and even a Crown Victoria!
Other cars on my “why bother bringing it over” list of sightings include a Chevy Corsica and Mazda MX-3. Ok, the MX-3 might actually be sort of cool, but it was a real POS and I bet getting it serviced here is a lot of fun.
What’s amusing is that many of the cars which are directly imported from North America have a smaller (narrower) rear license plate recess so they end up folding the sides of the Chinese plate to get it to fit in the recess or adding a bracket to bring it out. Looks pretty ugly either way – I’ve seen this done on luxury cars too.
Oh, I did spot a new Mustang the other day, that was pretty cool.
A couple of years ago I saw a Fiat 127, in Shanghai, still registered with Danish license plates and till this day I wonder how the person got the car into China and then driving around on foreign plates (without dual plates like they do in Hong Kong and Guangdong for crossing the border)
Does anyone know the origin of this Sierra?
I don’t recognise the rear lamp clusters, they’re not European spec, but do appear to fit the bodywork, so I’m guessing they are original.
Was the Sierra built anywhere else?
Sierra was built in Co. Cork Ireland and Port Elizabeth South Africa – there might have been a few CKD in other countries as well.
This Sierra has gone now, there was a woman selling soft drinks out the trunk the other day though.
I saw a Sierra recently in Turpan in Xinjiang. It was in a pretty beat up state.