Ford of Britain 100: Image of the Week - 8/52

BRENTWOOD, UNITED KINGDOM – February 23, 2011: To celebrate the centenary of Ford of Britain in 2011 the company is exploring its photo archive to reveal rarely seen images.

Ford's British roots will be illustrated each week by a specially selected picture.

This week's image comes from a time before computer generated imagery and an era when, if you wanted a car to fly, you strapped it to a helicopter.

The year is 1970, and to celebrate the one millionth Ford Cortina produced for export, this model took to the skies over Ford's Dagenham site. Just two hours later this rare two-door 1600E Ford Cortina Mkll was with its new owner in Ostend, Belgium.

In two decades the Cortina range sold 4.3 million models and was Britain's best-selling car for 10 of the 20 years it was on sale: 1967, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981. It was in second place for eight years and in third for the remaining two.