This is how rare the Ford Scorpio has become

What is a Ford Scorpion? It was the biggest Ford passenger car from Ford Europe (American Fords were bigger of course) that you could get in the Netherlands from 1985 to 1998. A model above the mid-size Sierra, then from the Mondeo and the successor to the Granada.

The first Ford Scorpio, designed by Uwe Bahnsen.

Hard to imagine now, but in the early 1980s a lot happened in the executive class (E-segment) with the introduction of, for example, the VOLVO 760 (1982), Audi 100 (1983), Lancia Thema and Renault 25 (1984) and Saab 9000 (1985).

The Scorpion took over from the Granada

Ford threw it with the Grenadesuccessor on a different track. After the Sierra with the revolutionary design, an upper segment also had to be revised and that’s what happened. A new name, a particularly spacious five-door body and to convince the skeptics… ABS as standard! At that time, it was not available on all cars and was also an expensive option, so it was notable enough to become Car of the Year the following year. Still, Sierra-like scenes weren’t done in this class. Conservative Granada audiences could not get used to the hatchback bodywork, while the Granada was only available as a sedan and station wagon. These body styles also came (in 1989 and 1992 respectively), but it was too late to reverse the trend.

The second generation Ford Scorpio, with frog eyes.

The extravagant second generation from 1994 even seemed laughable rather than serious, even though our royal house was a loyal customer. In 1998 this was done with the Scorpion. There was no successor. Ford was buying a lot in those years and thought it already had more than enough in-house in the E-segment with the Jaguar S-type and Volvo S80. 850,000 Scorpios were sold against twice as many Granadas in the same period (1972-1985) before. In the Netherlands, the counter remained at nearly 45,000 units, in the same period Opel still used about 65,000 Omegas and in total (the Omega was available from 1986 to 2003) even 79,000 units.

If you see a Scorpio, chances are it’s an 86

But back to where we started: how many Scorpios are there now and what years are they from?

Year of construction Number

1985 61

1986 116

1987 88

1988 57

1989 85

1990 77

1991 70

1992 75

1993 59

1994 50

1995 39

1996 40

1997 42

1998 36

1999 1

Total 896

Source: CarTalk International