The holy grey grille

It's all about that Base...

It's amazing how certain car registration marks become memorable considering they're just semi-random combinations of letters and numbers. Take GVG 510Y for example. This may not be particularly famous and probably means nothing to most of you, having never been owned by a celebrity or featured on television, but the car spotting community on Flickr will recognise it immediately as a legend among them, and those lucky enough to have encountered it speak of it in hushed tones of reverence.

Why are those guys looking so happy to see a crusty old Sierra?

So what is the vehicle this ordinary-seeming numberplate belongs to? A priceless supercar? Maybe a unique prototype? A car involved in an historic event? Nope, to the casual observer it's nothing more than a grotty old Ford Sierra that looks fit for scrap and isn't remotely exciting, so what's so special about it? Well, it's the only known surviving example of the rare early base model with the unpainted grey plastic front grille, long thought to be an extinct or mythical beast that existed only in the brochure and was never actually built, so the discovery of this specimen in the wild a few years ago caused a sensation among those who appreciate the underdogs of the motoring world.

Back in the 1980s, the bottom of the range models really were basic and didn't even get endowed with a trim level, so this one is simply a 'Sierra 1.6' without even an 'L' to its name. Head restraints, a radio/cassette, a rear wiper, rear seat belts and a five-speed gearbox are all things this car doesn't have, and such features as power steering and air conditioning that we take for granted nowadays were unheard of luxuries. The dashboard is a sea of blanking plates with only the bare minimum of gauges and controls and nothing that could be considered non-essential - it hasn't even got a clock! It isn't quite the absolute lowest of the low though as the base model was also available with the puny 1.3 Pinto engine and GVG at least has the benefit of 1.6-litre power, officially 74 horsepower but I suspect many of those horses are now dead.

Not even a trim level, just a plain old Sierra 1.6. Note also melted bumper.

What makes this particular Sierra so special is the grey grille. This was only fitted to the base model and only for the first nine months of production, so most of the small number of cars so equipped will have had Y-suffix registrations. In those early days the Sierra's 'jellymould' shape was still very controversial so sales were low and the base model must have accounted for a very small proportion. By 1984 Ford had decided to upgrade the base with more standard equipment and bring it into line with the rest of the range by adding side rubbing strips and painting the grille in body colour, so these grey-grilled cars were short-lived and never a common sight even when new. The tiny-looking 13-inch wheels are of the style usually found on the Mark 2 Fiesta Popular and would originally have had small centre caps instead of full wheeltrims, three of which have survived but only one is still fitted.   

The base model seems to have existed principally as a price leader to allow Ford to advertise the range as starting from a low price, and also made a useful tool to upsell against as once potential buyers had seen the utter misery of the base it became easy for the salesman to persuade them to spend a bit more on a better spec. I'm not sure who would have bought such a car new but maybe the first owner of this one was a low-grade company car user so this was the only Sierra his allowance would stretch to, and for some reason he chose a poverty-spec Sierra instead of a better-equipped Escort. GVG is a Norwich registration so it is unlikely to have started its life in London.

The money shot. A grille of much greyness.

This car's early history so far remains largely unknown, except that the first owner only kept it for a year but the second had it for twenty. It was then bought by an elderly gentleman from Hackney called Leroy, and even when he purchased it in 2004 it must have been a rarity. It was in his ownership that it first came to enthusiasts' attention, but to Leroy it was just a tool and, not having internet access, when one of the Flickr community encountered him he was most bemused by the attention his car had been getting. That meeting may have saved GVG though as it made him aware he owned something unusual that when the time came he should sell instead of scrapping.

Not just a grey grille but also the rare dangly door mirrors.

That time finally came in early 2016 after twelve years of ownership, when out of the blue the car suddenly appeared on eBay. It turned out Leroy had given up driving and sold GVG to a local dealer, who could easily have sent it straight to the crusher but to his credit decided to sell it on. Anything could have happened next and its future was in serious jeopardy: scrapping, cannibalisation for spares or butchering with non-original parts all seemed possible. Salvation came in the form of five members of Autoshite.com who felt the car epitomised the site's ethos and formed a consortium to buy and preserve it, a move that brought rapturous adulation from its fans.

Interesting details. An expired Hackney Council disabled permit and a Green Flag sticker covering the crack.

The guiding principle of the new owners has always been "What would Leroy do?" so a full restoration or even polishing the badly-faded paint has been ruled out as it would destroy so much of the car's essential character. GVG was to be the star attraction at this year's Shitefest but sadly its MoT fell due a few weeks before the event and it failed quite badly. After an epic welding session by current custodian Richard that went right down to the wire, it was presented for a retest on the morning of Shitefest and with the issue of a fresh certificate the Sierra was on its way, news that delighted the people of Autoshite. Things were so tight that he didn't even have time to rub down and paint the filler on the repaired rear wheelarch, so GVG was looking even more unkempt than usual, but crucially it was there to take a proud place in the field of dreams.

The heart of the beast, the mighty 1.6 Pinto.

Leroy clearly maintained this car on a shoestring budget and some amazing bodges are evident - it's a work of art and the more you look at it the more interesting details you spot. These include a nearside indicator repeater from a Maestro glued on at a crazy angle, a sticker covering a crack in the windscreen, an expansion tank cap sealed with electrical tape and a wiper blade tied on with a piece of wire, but the back bumper is the most spectacular. Not only is it not the right type for this car, it is held on by a few wood screws at the sides and nothing in the middle, and has simply been resting on the exhaust pipe so it has melted with the heat.

This is its better side. The Sierra shape looks a bit odd with no rubbing strips.

The colour is officially Cardinal Red but is now so faded it's more of a matt pink, and many repairs have been done over the years using rattle cans of the wrong shade ("it's red so it'll do") so the paintwork has an interesting appearance and feels as rough as sandpaper. Despite being distinctly cosmetically challenged, all who have driven it have remarked how well it drives and the engine is in good health after replacing the shrivelled-up rocker cover gasket that was causing a massive oil leak. The bodywork is battered but amazingly solid for a 33-year-old Ford and the welding done by Richard for this MoT appears to be the first it has had in recent years. Recorded mileage is 49,000, but Fords of this age only had five-digit mileometers so it's more likely to be 149,000 and it is unknown if the current engine is original.

A miserable place to sit. Blanking plates everywhere to remind you of your penny-pinching.

One of the previous owners had fitted an aftermarket stereo, but an astonishing discovery was that the original blanking plate had been carried around in the boot ever since, and this has now been reinstalled in its rightful place just as Ford intended. The car sits on mismatched wheels, two of the original 13-inch steels (another of which survives as the spare), one from a later Fiesta and one from an Escort, which just adds to its character. Also recently found in the boot was a piece of cardboard with 'broken down' written on it, and we suspect Leroy would simply park wherever he liked and put this in the window, GVG's battered appearance meaning it was easily believable. It really does look like a relic of the 1990s when Sierras were firmly in banger territory and many were in this sort of condition, just one MoT failure away from the scrapyard. Much better cars have bitten the dust long ago, so for something like this to have hung on and still exist in 2016 is truly remarkable.

Not even a Ford part. No wonder it doesn't fit.

In spite of (or maybe because of) its hideous appearance, it's hard not to love this car and after spending a whole weekend around it I really fell for its charms. Every imperfection tells a story of survival against all odds, and you can practically sense its character and the personality of its previous owner who kept it running long after it should have been consigned to the scrapyard. To him it was nothing more than a banger to be kept going as cheaply as possible and it's covered in dents and scrapes that reflect a hard life in the cut and thrust of London traffic. It now leads a very different life but wears its past with pride, and the very fact it exists at all is nothing short of miraculous - it's the absolute antithesis of the desirable Cosworths and XR4s that get all the attention but important proof that workaday Sierras also existed and they weren't all high-performance cars. One wonders what Leroy would make of his old workhorse receiving so much love and attention - long may the fabled grey grille Sierra of Hackney continue!

Faded paint, dents, filler and mismatched wheels. This car has it all.