Up until the late 1960s the American Ford company had two quite separate European divisions - Ford of Germany and Ford of Britain. In much the same way as General Motors had with Vauxhall and Opel, they both had different, competing ranges of models with no shared parts.
In 1967 Ford USA merged the two to create Ford of Europe. The first product of co-operation was actually launched two years earlier in the shape of the Transit - replacing the UK Ford Thames and the European Taunus Transit. The Mk1 Escort followed, and then the Capri.
The next co-developed product saw a differentiation between the UK and European variants, with the Ford Cortina Mk3 and the Taunus TC ("Taunus/Cortina"). Both had the same underpinnings and basic body structures but whereas the UK Cortina had very American "coke bottle" curves to the body lines the European Taunus TC was much more square-edged and restrained. Despite looking quite similar at a quick glance they are very different when studied in detail.
The Europeans got a lovely Coupe variant which was never translated into a Cortina, a great shame in my opinion.
The styling differences didn't make it through to the facelifted replacements as the Taunus TC2 / Cortina Mk4 looked identical.
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