Dorman H380056 Front Brake Hose on 2040-parts.com

Ford Cortina: 50 years ago today…

Ford are celebrating 50 years since the first Ford Cortina was launched and changed the car landscape forever. The Ford Cortina went on to sell an impressive 4.3 million during its twenty year life, eventually turning in to the Ford Sierra and then in to the Ford family car of today – the 2013 Ford Mondeo (which, interestingly, can be had with the 1.0 litre EcoBoost engine – smaller even than the 1200cc of that first Cortina). That first Cortina was the start of Ford’s dominance of the UK car market, leading to an unbroken run of 35 years as the best selling car brand with most of the Cortinas, almost 3 million of them, built at Dagenham – in the days Ford actually built cars here.

Detroit auto show: Autoweek editors' picks

The press conferences are over (our feet are killing us), our staff has stopped wrestling, and the ballots are counted. The 2014 Detroit auto show had dozens of never-before-seen cars and trucks gleaming under the Cobo Center lights. Here are the four we, the Autoweek staff, think stood out the most.

Who the hell is Rory Carroll, and what is he doing to your autoweek.com?

My name is Rory Carroll, and as of this week, my full-time job is to be hopelessly obsessed with cars, and to share that obsession with you, the readers of autoweek.com. For whatever reason, I have more or less always believed that making a career writing about cars wasn't quite a realistic-enough option to pursue. It made a lot more sense to go to law school, (or in my case put law school off while getting wrapped up in the sometimes-exciting world of politics).