Here’s a car I’ve only ever read about: a Ford Corcel, spotted in Chile by SoCalMetro. Quite the looker when new, and always a workhorse, it deserves better than this. This particular two-door wagon is a second generation model, though its exact model year is difficult to ascertain (I’m sure some of our best and brightest will know). If those three-lug wheels seem more French than Brazilian to your eyes, it’s because there is indeed a French connection in the Corcel story.
The Corcel shared its bones with the Renault 12, a car which made much more of a name for itself outside of the US or Western Europe, and which has yet to be covered on CC.
The first Corcel appeared in 1968, two years before its donor model’s French debut. Originally conceived by Willys (who’d been building and selling Renaults in the Brazilian market under their own name) as a replacement for the outdated Douphine, “Project M” became the Corcel after Ford’s acquisition of a controlling interest in that company’s Brazilian operations in 1967. The original car shares the Renault 12’s long nose and general profile, as well as its pushrod “Cleon” four-cylinder.
As originally equipped, the 1.3 liter engine propelled the car’s approximately 2100 pounds with 68 gross horsepower. The Corcel’s debut was plagued by quality shortcomings, and the car eventually was the subject of Brazil’s first automotive recall, with over 70,000 free repairs made to early models. By 1971, however, the Corcel became Brazil’s best-selling car.
Later revisions lent the Corcel a junior pony car look and by the end of the first-generation’s model run, its output would eventually grow to 75 horsepower (72 SAE net) from the locally developed 1.4 liter evolution of the Cléon (called the Ford CHT), with 85 horses (77 net) from the twin-carb version.
Ford was confident in the original car to retain most of its engineering for the second generation (though the front-drive U-joints were replaced by proper CV axles in 1976). The result of their styling efforts, however, was as sharp as anything they were building in Cologne, and much more up to date than anything then coming out of Dearborn. The four-door did not make it to the second generation as sedan duties were taken over by the new Ford Del Rey derivative, but the popular two-door Belina wagon returned.
I find it rather fetching, but then, I’ve always loved two-door wagons. There was even a four-wheel drive version available between 1985 and 1987, though its fragility earned it a negative reputation.
While the Corcel itself was discontinued in 1986, the Belina lived on as the Del Rey Belina until 1991, with an Audi 1.8 (as used in the original Fox and VW Passat/Dasher) replacing the Renault-derived CHT unit in 1989. What replaced the Del Rey and Belina? The Ford Versailles and Royale, Brazilian Fords based on another long-nosed European import; this time, the Volkswagen Passat Mk2 (aka Quantum and Santana).
The Corcel ultimately lived in until 1997 as the Ford Pampa pick-up (introduced in 1982). Though cleverly disguising its three lug wheels in this picture, it retained its Renault 12 underpinnings through-and-through. The only longer lived versions of this platform were the Dacia 1310, which plodded on in Romania until 2004, and the Turkish built Renault Toros, which ended production in 2000. The next time someone tries to impress you with their automotive knowledge, see if they can name the Ford built on a Renault platform and equipped with an Audi engine.
Wow…
If I were a more ambitious man, I’d try to write a book on the big American automakers’ South American operations. Everything they did seemed to be 180* apart in concept and execution with how they did things here.
I agree, Perry, those ’70s Corcels look better than just about anything Ford was putting out in the US at the time.
Well, not entirely, since Ford build the Galaxie/LTD from 1967 on (here a 1971 LTD Landau) and kept building them with basically the same design well into the late 1980’s; Chrysler had the 1967 Dart from 1970 on, GM being the only one concentrating on purely European (Opel) designs (Rekord C/Opala from 1969 on and Kadett/Chevette from 1974 on). Chrysler also build the Hillman as Dodge 1800 (later Polara) from the mid 70’s on.
I’d buy it!
South America has always been a dumping ground for automotive castoffs, but the local talent always seems to turn those lemons into lemonade. It’s really incredible.
I’m glad you posted that, Sean…I always thought the Hot Wheels “Chevrolet SS” was some strange amalgamation of American Chevies. Turns out, it was another South American oddity! That orange one looks great!
I think I missed the post on the Chevrolet Opala the first time – https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cohort-sighting-chevrolet-opala-body-by-opel-engine-by-chevrolet/
I was wondering if Holden exported to South America 47 years ago as they did 6-7 years ago (just to Brazil I think), but no that is not a Monaro as the styling is just a bit different, rather it is an Opel. GM styling similarities strike again.
As for the Corcel, there are definite signs of Renault 12 heritage, eg the dip of the window line at the front of the door by the mirror.
It could be interesting to compare the general dimensions (wheelbase, lenght,…) of the Corcel vs the Pinto and the European Escort Mk1.
Here are the specs from the brochure for the coupe version of the Corcel II, and a couple interior pix. The instrument panel looks pretty austere, but I have seen equally austere panels in 70s Rabbits
Specs from a photocopy of a page from the 1980 edition of Wold Cars.
Yes it does look quite austere but those wonderfully-shaped bucket seats help a lot to make up for that! They look so comfy and inviting.
Strange things happen in South America, like Hillmans becoming Volkswagens. The 1971 two door Corcel almost looks like a cross between an HB Vauxhall Viva and Mk.1 Ford Escort though obviously mechanically entirely unrelated, while the version in the top photo looks more like a VW Passat/enlarged Polo cross. Fascinating!
Love that Corcel II wagon. Wondered in the mid 80s, if, the Corcel being R-12 based, and the Renault 18i sold in the US being R-12 based, if the OHC 2.2 in the later years 18i could be persuaded into a Corcel, as the 2.2 had been dropped into the 18i in place of the pushrod 1.6, which was a development of the pushrod that had been used in the R-12.
The company I worked for in the late 70s had an office in Brazil. One of the guys there, hearing of my interest, picked up some Corcel and Del Rey brochures at the dealership and mailed them to me.
And what was Willys building in Brazil before they built Renaults? The Willys Aero. The tooling was shipped to Brazil after the Aero failed in the US market.
I think the Pinto looks 10 times better.
Always been interested in the way Brazilian cars seem to have a mix and match process. Some times makes for some pretty unique cars. Glad to see you back from your CC break, nice write up.
Interesting, this is the very first time I read about this car.
I don’t know much about the South American car market. They seem to like small pickup trucks based on compact cars. Fiat is a big player I’ve read.
That’s about all I know.
I saw that when I was loading shots of more common stuff onto the cohort its rare to not know what I’m looking at, if its renault 12 based it would have been quite good as those were good cars once you got past the French styling.
Since the Del Rey was mentioned: here are a few pix from that brochure.
Instrument panel a bit nicer than the Corcel.
How they measure up.
Ah! a Corcel! I never saw one here in Argentina, but I did see some Del Rey delivery vans from the early 90s.
If you compare the Brazilian auto market and the Argetinian one, you’ll see the first always prefer the two-door bodies, also in station wagons. Note the Corcel sedan didn’t last very long.
Auto comanies CEOs said that it was difficult to sell a four-door un Brazil and visceversa in Argentina.
That all began to change in the 90s with the integration of the auto makers due to the Mercosur agreement. Since that, the Volkswagen Gol (a three door) became the best seller on both countries.
The South American market is a strange place with strange creations. Look at the picture of the comparison test: a VW Passat with an Audi 80 front, but a VW badge, a Ford that is really a Renault and an Opel Ascona with a fastback grafted on – a different one than the fastback sold on Europe and North America. Basically, a lot of “what ifs” come true.
The European equation, the Volkswagen Crafter is actually the same type of van the Dodge Sprinter was based on from its Mercedes Benz Sprinter parentage.
Wow, something new every day! The second generation styling just screams Volkswagen to me for some reason in all of the model variants. A very interesting find.
The second generation styling just screams Volkswagen
That origami styling was all over in the late 70s/early 80s. Take a look at a 81-85 Mazda GLC or a Toyota Supra.
Here’s my 85 GLC
I’ve heard of this car before and had probably even seen a picture or two, but I had no idea it was a byproduct of Willys do Brasil based on the Renault 12… whoa! Renault, Willys and Kaiser all have a confusing and intertwined history in South America, I didn’t realize that Ford was a part of it as well.
Both the early version and the 2nd-gen Euro-look Corcel are really great looking cars, especially in this 2-door wagon body style. Reminds me of the VW Fox, which is another Brazilian.
Great to see you back in action, Perry!
This is what I absolutely love about CC, is that we get to see lots of cool stuff from places of which we have never heard, using technology suited to the region, or not….it is a lot more interesting than another B Body!
I am wondering how the mechanicals of a Renault 12 would stand up in a rural area in Brazil, or on urban roads for that matter. I judge my developing country car selections by my experiences in the Philippines. In Manila, only the Corolla and Sentra can survive. Kia and Hyundai do not survive the moonscape that is Manila for long. In the countryside, small SUV’s are the most popular, the little Suzuki Jimny being by far the best and hence most popular. Speed simply doesn’t matter in the Philippines; reliability and the ability to take punishment are paramount, as well as being cheap and easy to repair.
http://www.suzuki.com.ph/automobile/jimny/specifications/
I once spent a few weeks driving around the western half of Costa Rica in a Samurai hardtop. It was slow, but it took all the abuse that dirt roads, water crossings and beach sand could throw at it. That Jimny looks like a perfect replacement. I miss real SUVs, even though I understand the appeal of CUVs.
The Renault 12 was designed at a time when the French still had colonies in Africa – their cars were designed for more harsh use (including rural France) than the more recent urban runabouts. An old relative of mine had a R12 and took it to some pretty remote parts of NSW around the Broken Hill area and northwards, to no ill-effect.
What was the thinking behind three-lug wheels? Was it really to save the tiny amount of money one more stud and lugnut would cost? I feel like you are really shaving away at your margin of safety should one lugnut come loose or one stud break off.
That squareback model is especially pleasant. Looks like it uses interior space efficiently.
Dearborn should have brought it North instead of wasting money on the all-around awful Pinto.
Over and over again, Detroit admired and copied the INFERIOR work of its own Euro branches and completely ignored the SUPERIOR work of its own Southern Hemisphere branches.
There’s no way Ford would have sold a car with Renault bones in the U.S. That’s just madness.
And like the Corcel, most of the GM and Chrysler products sold in South America were actually European cars, so what you’re suggesting is, basically, that instead of taking inspiration from then-current European designs, Detroit should have been taking inspiration from decade-old European designs?
Well, the Corcel was jointly developed by Willys-Overland and Renault and went into production before the Renault version, so it wouldn’t have been old technology if it had been released here when the Pinto was.
Ford would later sell any number of cars with Mazda bones in the US and one car that was more Kia than Mazda.
Yeah, true, maybe… but I just can’t envision a scenario where Ford, in the early ’70s, would have willingly sold a car of French parentage to Americans. Not saying it would have been a bad idea, just extremely unlikely.
The Corcel was after the 1965 Renault 16 though, that was their first fwd car.
Ford had already dismissed fwd for the US market when they transferred the Cardinal project to Ford of Germany where it became the P4 Taunus 12M in 1962. Arguably with the better packaging allowed by the V4 engine it was a better solution than the Renault anyway.
The featured wagon, looks like a VW Fox runabout 2dr wagon.
Did Ford UK ever use VW as captive imports, to create that Ford Corcel… Like the way the VW Santana was used by other auto manufacturers, throughout the world?
Did you read the article?
The original Renault 12 has odd lines but I really rather like them. These Renaults were rebadged as Dacias, built in Romania and sold briefly in Canada about 1984-85. We actually had a small dealer of these things in my small city in Ontario, but after about a year they were gone, guess they didn’t sell too many .
The second-gen Corcel’s look quite nice, particularly the square lines on the 2-dr wagons. The Pampa pickup also is really neat, but I wonder about it’s load-carrying capacity with only 3 lug nuts. What size tires/rims did these things have? The Dacias had really small skinny tires if I remember correctly.
What size tires/rims did these things have? The Dacias had really small skinny tires if I remember correctly.
The Corcel and Del Rey spec sheets above call out 185/70-13 shoes.
According to Dunlop’s tire fitment guide, the VW Rabbit pickup used 175/70-13s.
I don’t know anything about the Dacia connection, but the original Renault 12’s (like the ones shown in the parking lot picture) were definitely sold in Canada as Renaults. A friend’s parents had one in Halifax, NS in the mid-1970’s. It was a well finished, quiet, and comfortable car, almost luxurious by the small-car standards of the time. I remember being pretty impressed the couple of times I rode in it.
The Pampa had a 1367 lb load capacity, which is pretty impressive. I dare say you would have to load carefully to allow this without exceeding the rear axle load limit.
Yep, Sean… Just noticed the VW pics and info bits, after I posted the comment…
I saw the top pic, and replied on a whim… D’oh.
Did they confirm your suspicion that this car is a rebadged Volkswagen?
Very much so… But upon closer examination of this lil wagon, the rear exterior styling and overhang is a tad longer and quite different.
This particular model was made in the 70’s, correct? I think the only foreign Fords, we had at the time, in the US market… were the 1st gen Ford Fiesta and rebadged Mazda based Ford Courier mini pickup truck.
Read moar:
Not a rebadged VW. Not a rebadged anything, really… although mechanically very similar to the Renault 12. If you look at the 2nd picture of the R12s in a parking lot and the 3rd pic of the original 1968 Ford Corcel, you can see the family resemblance very clearly. The car in the top picture, the topic of the article, is the 2nd generation model of this same car with updated styling.
I’d seen references to this for a while and had been wondering what the hell it was.
An car that’s interested me for a while, espcially as I doubt I’ll ever see one. I see the gen2 Corcel wears Ford Cortina MkV/Taunus TC3 front indicators, headlights and door handles; a cost-effective measure during the gen2 re-design no doubt, and also meant the Corcel bears a decent resemblance to the then Ford-Europe family look.
The 4-door version of the Corcel I (68-77) followed the styling of the Ford Taunus P6 (66-70), with some cues from the Cortina I (62-66). The 2-door, however, was a semi-fastback coupé, hinting at the Mustang. The 2nd generation squarish lines stemmed from the European Ford Granada (76-82). Its superior road manners and comfort established a new paradigma at the local market, more used to pre-war (VW, DKW) or early fifties designs (Willys Aero, Simca Vedette, Alfa Romeo 2000). A great hit for Ford but it was never able to oversell the Beetle.
The Willys-Renault co-development of Project M was well underway when Ford took over Willys in 1967, I don’t see where Ford styling cues fit either the R12 or Corcel I; and while it is true that most of what was offered in Brazil in the early 60’s was either pre-war or early 50’s, Willys do Brasil build the Renault Dauphine from 1959, which at that time was quite up date. This prototype already wears the Ford badge, but the picture was taken at the Willys design studio and a few of their design experiments can be seen i n the background – I recognize the Capeta and Interlagos.
The first prototypes of the Project M did follow the Renault design school with some changes suggested by the Willys team. When Ford took over there was already a lot of tooling at hand and they decided to keep it, for economical reasons. But the car got a boxier look, more in the line of the European Fords. Look at that wide, squarish C-pillar, at the dashboard, similar to the Cortina. Meanwhile the R12 adopted drooping front and rear clips, as seen in their R16 and later R5 and R14. The photo was taken at the Willys studio because it now belonged to Ford. And the Dauphine was just an improved 4 CV, originally launched in 1947.
The R12 has a wide C-pillar as well, and wheel openings, belt line and dimensions are identical; being familiar with both Corcel and the european Fords of that time (as well as the R12), it’s just obvious that Corcel I barely carried any Ford genes; it was not meant to compete directly with the Beatle since it was in a different class, if anything it was meant to be a upgrade from the Beatle and that’s how it was perceived by the general public: VW counterattacked with the 1600 and in its Variant incarnation it outsold the Corcel Belina.
Having learned from the huge mistake of launching the Maverick instead of the Granada to compete with GM’s very successful Opala (Rekord C), the redesigned Corcel II was visibly a cousin of the european Fords, especially the Del Rey; the first real anti-Beatle since Dauphine was the Chevette/Kadett C, and VW again counterattacked with the very successful Brasilia.
Just to add another curiosity about the Ford Corcel family of cars, there were also a Jeep version of the Pampa trucklet available for some time. Ford had the rights for the Jeep brand in Brazil but didn’t used the name following the discontinuation of the Willys CJ in the 80s, and per Brazilian laws they were due to lost these rights for lack of use, so when the first batch of Grand Cherokee arrived in Brazil imported by Chrysler, they slapped the Jeep badge on Pampa 4×4 just to show they were still using the brand, but it was too late.
Here are the brochure:
And a picture I found on Google showing the Jeep badge: