This is - or I should say was - my 1991 (post-facelift) Sierra Sapphire Ghia. Affectionately known within the Sierra owners club and associated forum communities as The Ghia of Fear.

It had been mildly modified - the list extended as far as Chassis Dynamic -30mm springs with "Avo" shocks and poly bushes all round, alloy wheels, smoked square side repeaters and Cosworth front grill, K&N 57i kit, Janspeed four-branch exhaust manifold and Black Diamond "sports" exhaust system, 2000E leather steering wheel, Ford 2028 CD player and - saving the best till last - a hybrid 8-valve 2.3 DOHC engine.

Running an amalgamation of a bottom end from a Ford Scorpio, and the cylinder head from a DOHC Sierra that had been ported, the basic engine was further treated to Piper "ultimate road" 285-degree camshafts, larger injectors and latterly a Megasquirt ECU and EDIS setup. The 8-valve 2.3 DOHC "hybrid" in this car is believed to be the first of its kind and it was rolling road tested as delivering more power and torque than the 2.9 V6 used in the performance Sierra XR4x4's! Being lighter than the boat-anchor 12-valve V6 it fair shifted too - and when not being pushed along it returned sensible 2.0-litre-like fuel consumption.

But that's as far as the modifications went. There were no super mega-thumping ICE, underfloor neons, massive spoilers or anything like that. Apart from the wheels, grill and exhaust the car looked completely standard - which is how I like it: understated.

For any late-model Ghia such as this one, the factory specification included power-assisted-steering, ABS, electrically operated windows / mirrors / sun-roof, heated windscreen, front fog lamps, headlamp wash / wipe and front and rear headrests amongst other things; in fact it's on a close par with many newer Fords today - all I'm missing is the leather interior, bluetooth and MP3 connectivity and air conditioning.

Hardly worthy of a raised eyebrown on a cruise - not that I have a burberry cap to wear backwards or would be interested in going to one if I did. Besides, I drive a Sierra, not a Corsa or a Punto... er, innit? ;-)

I owned the car from late 2001 until the day I stripped her and sent the sorry - and somewhat rusty - remains to the crusher in the summer of 2008. Before that I'd owned two previous Sierra's - a 1984 1600L while I was a student at University and a 1992 Sapphire 1600 LXi that I brought back in 1998 and still drove.

So, how did I finish up with a 1991 Ghia, and why on earth was it called The Ghia of Fear???

Well, I found the Ghia in the back of a local newspaper advertised as "good condition, spares or repair". Having seen it over several nights, my interest was piqued and I finally rang the owner for more information thinking I'd transfer some nicer Ghia bits to my LXi.

Turned out it was a two-owner car (with me being the third). The first owner was NFU Mutual - the insurance company - who kept it as a company car and put just over 80,000 miles on her in the first three years of her life. The second owner had brought her back in 1994 and kept her ever since. Needless to say, that was an arrangement that meant she was relatively unmolested - there was full service history, a stack of receipts half-a-mile high and every MOT certificate from new to verify every inch of the 138,000 recorded miles.

Rocking horse pooh then, you might say. Oh yes. Right down to the original (and working!) Ford 2007 RDS radio cassette.

The only minor niggle was that the cylinder head was in a box in the boot.

Having blown the gasket quite spectacularly on her way back home to Ratcliffe-on-Trent where she lived at the time, her owner had her towed to a garage who stripped the DOHC down and advised him that it was dead. Not worth the hassle.

So he sold her to me for £175.

Bonus! Er, no, not quite. Rather than strip the car for it's higher-specification parts, I had the cylinder head skimmed and bolted everything back together with a fresh set of gaskets, turned the key, and the harassed cylinder head split right up the middle.

Having briefly driven the car and seen it's potential, I decided to get rid of the LX, keep the Ghia and do what the original garage advised the previous owner to do - so I did some ringing round and sent it off for a new engine to a local company called L&S Recon Engines.

And it all went horribly downhill from there. L&S didn't so much recondition the engine as bodge it back together with a cylinder head off a scrap car. Even going as far as to re-use the old gaskets with a wodge of silicon bath sealant to try and keep the oil in. Oh dear. It was no surprise then, that the inlet manifold gasket blew three months later, no surprise that half the mounting bolts to the gearbox were insecure, no surprise that the exhaust nearly fell off because the idiot fitter at L&S couldn't be arsed to tighten the two bolts he couldn't get to...

No surprise that the head gasket blew again - only this time a lot more gently than before which saved the head from splitting - or that the engine leaked oil faster than the Exxon Valdez.

Nope. No surprise. Fortunately I had paid for the work on my credit card and the credit card people were more than happy to pay me compensation when L&S, having had a County Court Judgement against them in Peterborough County Court and feeling the heat from Derbyshire Trading Standards, did a runner and shut up shop.

Well, they weren't exactly thrilled if the truth was told, but given all the digital photographs I took and the two seperate independant engineer's reports on the quality of work L&S had carried out, they had no choice: It was either settle out of court or get dragged through the mud under the terms of the Consumer Credit Act, 1975.

The settlement allowed me to do all my modifications as well as sort out the oil leaks and return the car to a reasonable level of reliability. However, with all the problems I experienced with it at the time, it's no surprise it was christened The Ghia of Fear and the name just stuck!

Over the past years, the car has been the source of heartache and mirth in equal proportion. Few believe me when I say the car had a personality, and moods, and every now and then it would do something to remind me why I called it the "Ghia of Fear".

Despite the early problems, I stuck with it. I enjoyed driving GoF: rear-wheel-drive fun and individuality, a character that stands out in traffic far more than any barried Corsa could thanks to her age making her relatively rare in the rush-hour.

Surprisingly excellent fuel economy too. How many eighteen-year-old two (and a bit...) litre cars do you know that could return 30-something to the gallon around town, and up to 47mpg on a run? You can say what you like about Sierra's, but that's verging on diesel territory and is far, far better than my wife's Mondeo Ghia estate could ever do - even if we got out and pushed!

Progress? Naaah - give me old skool any day!