Bring back ... the Ford Cortina Mk III

Few motors ("motor", mind - no mere car) are as redolent of the late Seventies and early Eighties as the Ford Cortina Mk III - the high point of a model that wanted to make boy racers of an entire generation. Back then, 10-year-olds reared on the road-eating antics of The Dukes of Hazzard saw in the Cortina the outlaw swagger of a suburban General Lee. Equally importantly, this cheap 'n' cheerful hotrod was a car you coveted precisely because you had mates whose parents picked them up from school in it.

Of course, the Cortina came a poor second to its Ford stablemate, the Capri, the rich man's piece of hand-me-down americana on wheels. But whereas you can still catch sight of the Capri every now and again, the Mk III Cortina is nowhere to be seen. Nasty Mk IVs clutter up the roads to this day and the earlier marques are now collectables, but the determinedly unfashionable Mk III refuses to make a comeback from the country's scrapyards and is all the more desirable for it.