The 2026 Winter Olympics (officially known as XXV Winter Olympic Games) is commonly known as Milano Cortina 2026. Both Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo made a joint bid for the event, with the former hosting skating events while Cortina hosts the rest. While I’m no dummy when it comes to geography, I had no idea that Cortina was a location on the map. Of course, Ford had a clue and gave us a car in response.
Cortina d’Ampezzo is located in the Dolomitic Alps in the region (aka “province”) that borders Austria. Though far removed from the Alpine goodness of Cortina, Venice would be the most familiar city in the region to most. In 1956, it was the site of the Winter Olympics, inspiring Ford UK to name its new family car that was introduced in September 1962. The Cortina also was marketed as Ford’s captive import in the U.S. and was quite popular in Canada.
The most collectible version was something that was familiar to American road-race fans: the Cortina Lotus two-door, which featured the Cortina’s Kent OHV four-cylinder re-engineered by Lotus into a 1,558cc twin-cam stormer. All were white with green rear and longitudinal paint.
Four years and a month after the Cortina’s original introduction, Ford restyled it to create the Cortina Mark II. Following the design trends of the time (and sharing a slight resemblance to its cross-Atlantic Falcon cousin), the Mark II looked heavier but was actually 0.25 inches shorter. In 1967, the first model year for the Cortina Mark II, it became Britain’s biggest seller. The Cortina 1600E Mark II, also produced as a four-door, was the heir apparent to the Cortina Lotus, though it was more of a “luxury-performance” car and lacked the rallying panache of the Mark I.
American sales never exceeded 22,983 (1968), with importation ending in 1970 after 14-odd months of the Cortina sharing showrooms with the Ford Maverick.
Ford produced three more generations of Cortinas through 1982, when it was replaced by the Sierra. The sportiest version of that car was marketed in the U.S. as the Merkur XR4Ti, but that’s another tale for another Olympics.
