TESTERS' REPORT
Page 64
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I\/ANY people may consider that at £1,008 list price the Ford Corsair 2000E is an expensive car for its size. The much larger Zephyr Mk IV costs £59 less with the V4 engine and with the V6 it only costs £15 more than the Corsair. But for a person who wants a luxurious interior and a compact car the 2000E can represent good value for money.
The almost £200 that the model costs over the cheapest Corsair brings the luxury of deeppile carpets, a plastics-covered roof, reclining front seats and a very high standard of trim, among other things. As far as handling and general performance go, the 2000E is not a great deal different from cheaper versions of the Corsair. The model provided for test was found to be a very lively car with, if anything, a surplus of engine power, better-than-average roadholding, good suspension and reasonably comfortable seats. Seat adjustment was felt to be adequate by all except one of the CM drivers who would have liked more rearwards adjustment; he also criticized a badly placed accelerator pedal position in relation to the clutch and brake.
Like the Cortina, the Corsair has a really good fresh-air ventilation system with independentlycontrollable face-level vents on each side of the dash. The use of this system has enabled opening quarter windows in the doors to be dispensed with which cuts down the noise: the Corsair is a very quiet car.
The gear-change action was superb but on the debit side there was some engine and transmission noise at high speed together with vibration which made the interior mirror unusable. The vibration period occurred at an engine speed of around 4.000 r.p.m. and a factor which had a bearing on this was that the steadying bracket on the mirror was not doing its job properly.