Amongst all the many four-cylinder cars built by British manufacturers, the new Ford Zephyr stands out as almost the only true six-seater. Bigger than any other car which can be bought for its "starting price" of 846 pound 12 shillings and 9 pence and very well sprung, it is an attractive proposition in its simplest form. For those who can afford to spend about one hundred and ten pound more than this but do not wish to spend upwards of one thousand and seventy pounds on a Ford Zodiac, two interesting propositions at comparable prices are a Zephyr 6-cylinder with synchromesh gears, or the Zephyr 4-cylinder with fully automatic two pedal transmission which is the subject of this report.

It is no coincidence that some of the first Fords of this series were sent to East Africa, where they won their class in the Safari Rally. Long-travel suspension with very little friction in it lets this Zephyr 4 stride over really rough roads with exceptional ease, not "bottoming" audibly even when carrying its full compliment of six passengers although, conversely, one example could reach the rebound limit of its rear suspension rather noisily if hustled over potholed going when unladen. Careful thought has been given to the elimination of vulnerable projections beneath the body, and whilst (as usual!) our measurements showed less than the claimed amount of ground clearance, this is a car which should not suffer damage in negotiating rutted tracks.

On ordinary British roads which do not require a long range of spring movement the Zephyr 4 provides good average standards of riding comfort, with a fair amount of rise and fall on the suspension but no pitching. Road noise is extremely inconspicuous, despite the fact that this model carries a much smaller weight of sound-absorbing material than does the Zodiac, and the back seat ride is not noticeably inferior to that enjoyed by the driver.

With its 4-cylinder engine in a car designed to cope with a 6-cylinder unit this Zephyr 4 has an advantage in respect of steering which remains conveniently light even during parking manoeuvres. Whilst it has not quite the dart-like stability of the faster and heavier Zodiac needing slightly more conscious "driving" on roads with varying camber, the Zephyr 4 responds to the helm promptly and with average touring car precision: it comes as a surprise to find that more than four turns of the wheel are needed from lock to lock.

Exploration of the narrow lanes through Cornish fishing villages showed the steering lock available to be good for what is, by British standards, a bulky car. Some sorts of rough going could induce shake of the steering column, but there was no "kick" of the wheel to make the wearing of gloves desirable.

Vacuum-assisted braking with discs at the front and drums at the rear is another feature which the Zephyr 4 inherits from more powerful Fords. We tried to produce brake fade by making a long series of stops from speeds in the 60-70 m.p.h. range at the shortest possible intervals and failed utterly to produce any appreciable loss of braking performance. Wet roads caused no loss of power and even a watersplash about 12" deep had very little effect. There are cars which produce more instant "bite" in an emergency stop from 20 m.p.h., usually at the cost of locking the wheels too easily in bad weather or being subject to "fade" after hard usage, but for all-round merit the Zephyr 4's brakes would be hard to beat. Emerging through the facia panel at a convenient angle the twist-to-release handbrake could just hold the car on a 1-in-4 test hill if applied really forcefully, but worked easily in more normal circumstances.

Furnishing inside the Zephyr 4 is simple compared with the Zodiac, but neat and practical when judged in its own right. Quadrant speedometers seldom please us much, but at least this one faces the driver squarely, has clear figures and has good variable-brightness lighting. Other instruments are merely a contents gauge for the 12 gallon petrol tank (big enough to give quite a long cruising range), a radiator thermometer and a total distance recorder indicating in 1/10th mile units. A capacious shelf below the passenger's half of the facia panel is supplemented by a small but welcome lockable glove box.

Seating is on a simple bench at the front, low enough for the not-very-tall to find the steering wheel rim near to their sight line, and with just enough adjustment range to let a 6-ft man be reasonably well at ease. One car which we drove had leathercloth upholstery, the other was furnished in a woven plastics fabric which we found more pleasing, and although the seat is not shaped to give lateral support one does not slide about on this fabric. A further option (but at extra cost) is hide upholstery. Quite long drives showed the backrest shaping to give comfortable support for the spine. Whilst rear seat knee-room is not really adequate unless the driving seat is one notch short of its full-back setting (even then, a rather sharp lower rear corner to the front seat invokes a little criticism) the less-bulky seat cushions make this model a useful fraction roomier internally than is the Zodiac. In either model, three-abreast seating is truly comfortable save for restricted footroom in the centre-front seat due to a big transmission hump; a high-set mirror in conjunction with the tall rear window lets the driver retain a rearward view over the heads of passengers during six-up motoring. All-round vision is reasonably good, but slimmer pillars at the flanks of the broad windscreen would make it much better still.

Windscreen wipers with two wiping edges per blade do a good job of removing dirty water from curved glass, audible clonking from the drive mechanism of relatively new cars hinting at the considerable effort needed to move them. After dark, two sealed-beam headlamps gave plenty of light though without such a broad spread as would four lamps: a headlamp mounting about 20% lower than on Consuls increases very slightly the tendency for pools of darkness to be left beyond humps in an undulating road. Less-brilliant lighting of the automatic transmission quadrant, and non-reflective trim on top of the padded facia, would diminish windscreen reflections.

The optional extra interior heater was fitted to each of our test cars, Powerful as a heater-up of incoming fresh air, it can pass a not-very-large volume of either cold or hot air onto the windscreen interior, regardless of whether cold or hot air is being blown down onto the front floor: temperature control by the excellent system of admitting variable proportions of cold and hot air would be much more satisfactory if the two air-streams were mixed instead of emerging separately from below two sides of the facia panel. The hinged ventilation panels on the front doors, being pivoted almost at their front edges, can be opened some way to let air out of the body without letting rain into the car on wet days, but both they and the four wind-down windows of curved glass were sometimes very stiff to move,

When a higher-powered version of the same car is offered, this inevitable question is not asked in expectation of a sensational answer, but for reassurance that the lower-powered of two cars is not in any sense under-engine. We drove two different samples of the Zephyr 4 whilst preparing this test report, and were able to time the synchromesh-geared version at a mean speed of just over 85 m.p.h., a pace some 5 m.p.h., above anything we were ever able to record with Ford Consuls. For cars fitter with the optional automatic transmission a rear-axle ratio too high to let the engine reach the peak of its power curve has been chosen (presumably in the interests of fuel economy and of quiet running) but even so our two-pedal car was timed at a mean speed of almost exactly 79 m.p.h. Whilst this somehow felt a leisurely car, its gentle surge away from rest is not broken by pauses to change gear and it astonished us by recording a better average time for the standing start quarter mile than did Consuls with their 3-speed synchromesh gearbox.

Selection of a high axle ratio for use with the automatic transmission means that the indirect gears also are high. Accelerated at full throttle, our test car would remain in bottom gear until about 40 m.p.h., and only changed from middle to top gear at just over 60 m.p.h. Top-gear acceleration in the upper ranges of speed is leisurely, so that whereas on M1 a cruising gait in the seventies is natural and reasonably quiet, on ordinary roads one seldom seems to exceed 65 m.p.h. Kick-down pressure on the accelerator will produce a downward change from top to middle gear at any speed below 5 m.p.h., so that on most occasions the car has reasonably good overtaking performance. If the moderate but quite perceptible "second pressure" on the accelerator pedal is not used: this two-pedal car will pull away from as low a speed as 20 m.p.h. in top gear, the hydraulic torque converter letting the engine get up into the middle of its speed range where it is smooth but not unduly fussy. At small throttle openings, upward changes of gear occurred at low speeds,. and so smoothly that they could hardly be detected. Our testing included some of the steepest hills of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall, an ability to restart a moderate passenger load on a 1-in-4 hill sufficing for all normal purposes although for caravan-towing it might prove inadequate. Reverse gear is higher than first, and we found hills on which a stop-and-reverse (such as might be necessary on meeting other traffic when descending a narrow land) was impracticable.

Automatic transmission control was by the usual lever moving over a very simple and entirely positive quadrant. A driver who wanted to help the automatic "brain" could hold or select middle gear instantly - this ratio could be engaged at any speed up to about 60 m.p.h. for braking purposes, the fact that first gear braking was only available at very low speeds being no bother with this car"s powerful and well-cooled servo disc brakes.

Our tests were run on premium grade petrol of around 97 R.M. Octane rating, but both the cars which we drove proved willing to tolerate "mixture grade" fuel (90 octane approx) without much pinking. Oil consumption lay in the 500-1,000 miles per pint region, according to driving speed. Cold starting and warm up performance did not come up to the best modern standards, but once warm the two-pedal car's engine was smooth enough to pass as a "six" at any but idling r.p.m.

As has been indicated already, sampling a car with the synchromesh gearbox and the slightly lower rear axle ratio, we recorded a substantially higher maximum speed. Overall petrol consumption checks also favoured the non-automatic car by about 3 1/2%, but running conditions were not by any means identical and we would hesitate to make very precise comparisons on this account.

With synchromesh gearing we found the Zephyr 4-cylinder engine markedly less smooth than the Zodiac six - neither engine was especially fond of being asked to pull at low r.p.m., but below 30 m.p.h. the "four" boomed considerably during top gear acceleration. Torque converter transmission let the engine run faster and more smoothly whenever it was under load, without making it unduly fussy.

For a keen driver, four gears (all with synchromesh) are much preferable to the three of the superseded Consul, although the gear-shy would notice that 7% higher effective gearing makes this less of a top gear model than was its predecessor. Reasonably quiet but by no means as silent as the epicyclic gearing of two-pedal cars, this new gearbox has well chosen ratios, but its steering column lever moves rather a long way to the first and third gear positions and an over-centre helper spring which reduces clutch disengagement effort tends to result in the pedal coming back with a thud after changes of gear.