In one of life’s little mysteries, I’ve always wondered why Ford of Britain and Ford of Germany developed two different looking cars on the one platform – the 1971 Mark III Cortina and TC Taunus. Both companies were producing visually similar Capris and the Escort from 1968 was almost exactly the same. The TC cars had different tumble homes on the sides, the Cortina had a raised profile on the rear doors, the tail treatment of the Taunus was squarer than the Cortina’s, the grille and bonnet bulge on the Taunus narrower than the Cortina and it is doubtful that any panels were interchangeable. Neither of them was sold in each other’s home country, but they did share showrooms in those countries not in the EU, such as Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Denmark. It wasn’t until the 1976 Mark IV Cortina (our TE) shared its sheet metal with the equivalent Taunus.