1988 Ford Orion Ghia review from UK and Ireland

Towards the end of me owning the car the rear arches began to blister quite badly. All four electric windows had to be repaired at some point and it had a recurring electrical problem on the rear light clusters where moisture was seeping into the boot.

I only bought the orion as a stop gap after selling a TurboTechnics Sierra XR4x4 that was proving a little expensive to run at the time. I only intended to keep it briefly until I found something better, but I was so impressed with it that it stayed for a number of years and was then passed on to my mum. When she sold it, it had covered over 135000 miles and apart from routine maintenance it never cost a penny. It went straight through every MOT whilst we owned it and only once needed any sort of work (welding to a sill that cost £60). It was fitted with a 90 spec RS turbo front bumper with clear indicators and RS 7 spoke alloys that had been machined and polished to a mirror finish. All the body rubbing strips had been removed and the car was resprayed in the later radiant red rather than the older, duller original rosso red. The engine had a polished and ported head with a piper 285 fast road cam. It had a four branch manifold and a Tornado exhaust, was lowered by 30mm all round with black diamond cross drilled and grooved discs up front. I also fitted after much trial and error a home made induction kit to the car which made a lovely noise. Overall the car was comfortable, a respectable if not rapid performer and the 1600 CVH was unburstable. It also lacked the ar**hole factor of the XR3i with all that cars performance on tap. To my knowledge the car is still going strong and must be sporting intergalactic mileage by now!!