It’s time for our weekly trip into the sewers in which the dirty dishwater of yesterdays memories ebb and flow. With so much history swept into our drains every day, it’s up to some of us to get busy with the sieves and see if we can strain out one or two tasty morsels. Welcome back to The Carchive.
In a change to the nature of our usual programming, today we’re not looking at a car. We’re looking at what Ford could offer those who already owned a product of the Blue Oval to make their car even more special to them. Welcome to the Ford Accessories catalogue, 1987.


The catalogue starts with the Audio section, with its enticing selection of suspiciously Blaupunkt-derived black boxes. The thing I find the most intriguing 0ut of the four pages of musical treats on offer, is that, while the ECU2 system is recognisable from the actual Ford car range – offered in the Sierra and Granada Ghia as well as the Scorpio – there are several other units that were only offered as accessories through your Ford dealer.
You could even choose the P21 MW/LW mono radio, if your car was that poverty-specced as to have no entertainment on board at all.
You could buy electrically operated telescopic antennas, a feature that my father’s Sierra Ghia had and which lasted about two thirds of the way through his ownership of the car, until one day it went TATATATATA and retracted one final time. My own Saab 9000 had an electric antenna mast, too, and it would usually retract to about a third of its full length.
If you were a high roller and owned a post ’85 Granada you could choose a rear seat entertainment system, with twin headphone outlets and individual volume controls. As a child weaned on the pleasures of Ghia trim, I thought this was unassailably cool.
There are people, good, upstanding people, who are more interested in safety than music. For them, page eight offers a pair of additional brake lights. I’ve seen two sets of these in my entire life, one – memorably – was in the back of a Pontiac Grand Prix. The other was in the back of a Fiesta driven by a behatted gentleman who was presumably rear ended once too often.
You could also buy a pair of additional rear seat reading lights (Granada only) and a key with a built in torch. This latter item was also standard equipment for several ’80s Fords, including the Sierra Ghia from the beginning in 1982. Ford was, like, living in the future.

Let’s get back to looking, and staying cool. A little sweaty during the twelve minutes of time the average British summer provides? Why not avail yourself on the ‘Pepperpot’ design as seen on the Fiesta XR2 and Ford Capri Injection, the ‘Other Pepperpot’ design as seen on the Sierra Ghia and Orion Ghia Injection, or the ‘Cloverleaf’ design as seen on the Escort XR3.
Or if you’re sticking with steelies, a set of chrome wheel rim embellishers lends that touch of class. As seen on virtually every MK4 Cortina GL sold.
Spoiler alert! After something a little racy for your Escort 1.6 L? How about a big black rubber spoiler? Spoilers of the rubbery black plastic type so popular in the ’80s had absolutely no function other than stating that you’ve spent some money in your local Ford accessories department.
Other peculiarly ’80s styling touches that were inexplicably popular were rear ‘applique’ panels which ran between the rear lights. Unlike in America, where even cars as utterly unspectacular as the Buick Century had full-width rear lighting panels, these applique panels weren’t illuminated, unless you were an enterprising sort and rigged up a few bulbs.

 
Excuse the blurriness: Let the glory shine through. Ford would sell you, in 1987, a complete set of plastic components with which you could transform your 1985 Ford Granada into a 1985 Ford Granada weighed down by several hundredweight of plastic.
It seems hard to believe that these deep chin extensions or side skirts were designed by the same people who styled the cars they would later find themselves bolted to, particularly in the case of the Granada Mk3. However the Ford RS seven-spoke alloy wheels are an enduring, classic design. Seriously.archi
(All images are of original manufacturer publicity materials, photographed by me with a phone camera that used to be spot on but appears to have turned into a potato. Copyright remains property of Ford Motor Company)