RE: PH Heroes: Lotus Cortina
Discussion
wow - I always thought the guy who owned all of those car's would never part with the cars in the photos; given how historically important they are - I seem to remember he used to have 27 LC's in various states at one point and nearly brought the first one I sold - simply a wonderfull collection of cars
dinkel said:
James, was this yours?
Not sure on that angle - but sold to a NZ chap who now races it in the HSCCBizzarini - seem to remember your name from britishcars.co.uk from a few years ago - you used to have some wonderfull stories from the 60/70's re GT40's and other exotic cars - a great read and an inspiration, at least for me, to recreate that in the 00's
Bizzarini said:
A Boreham made Roger Clark Rally Escort. Pretty sure this was BDA powered.
£80,000
XPU 216L.... £80,000
Yes, BDA powered. Built for RAC to drive on the '73 Safari.
80k.....wants a 10k profit then
Bizzarini said:
Sears is a friend....here at his country estate in Norfolk loving my Aston
;)Interesting, someone I know on one the Saab forums is family friend of Jack too.
the reg no was DNY95B aeropilot said:
tlracing said:
Wonderful car, wonderful pics! My father worked on the rally Mk1's at Boreham in the 1960's.
Must have known the legendary Mick Jones then....?
There was a tremendous pic in a 1960's issue of Autosport - which I had but sadly seem to have lost - of him testing one of the works cars. From my recall, it was Roger Clark's Scottish or RAC car.
Many stories of cars he'd turn up at home with, on the way somewhere or simply 'putting some miles on it':
- Prototype Capri, using a lengthened MkII Cortina shell;
- Experimental gearbox that had as many reverse gears as forward.
Being just two.
When I bought the MK2 the cars previous owner was going to use it for rallying.
Someone had stripped the box and rebuilt it swapping 4th and 3rd...
It was hard to get into changing 1st,2nd,4th,3rd plus iirc reverse was to the right and back, made for some interesting tunes before swapping for another 'box.
Someone had stripped the box and rebuilt it swapping 4th and 3rd...
It was hard to get into changing 1st,2nd,4th,3rd plus iirc reverse was to the right and back, made for some interesting tunes before swapping for another 'box.
Bizzarini said:
A Boreham made Roger Clark Rally Escort. Pretty sure this was BDA powered.
£80,000
Who suggested the blue car was a Cobra !
The green Aston DBD4GT made a tad over a million.
This Ford publicity shot...Whitmore in his distictive 'sit up' style chased by Sears in the sister Team Lotus car.
Sears is a friend....here at his country estate in Norfolk loving my Aston
Not sure I can cope with this ..... at least four of my favourite cars of all time .... together in one place.£80,000
Who suggested the blue car was a Cobra !
The green Aston DBD4GT made a tad over a million.
This Ford publicity shot...Whitmore in his distictive 'sit up' style chased by Sears in the sister Team Lotus car.
Sears is a friend....here at his country estate in Norfolk loving my Aston
Please don't post any more pictures like this ..... or I will have to go and lie down in a darkened room.
Boreham had a parts counter in the good old days.
I purchased all the parts there that I needed to build this car including the seam welded blister arch Escort shell. This was about 1970.
Power by a 160bhp ( a lot then) John Lievesley built Twin Cam.
Any problems I had I just used to wander into the workshop for advice. That was an Aladdin's cave with all the works rally cars being built.
Because it was built with 80% new parts you could take it along to Essex County Council for inspection, pay a tenner, and get a current registration mark and a log book with the car designated Ford Escort Twin Cam.
Photo: a CUAC sprint at Duxford.
The next Boreham built car I had was this....a famous works Group N Sierra Cosworth.A whole story on it's own
It was so very fast I could not believe Gp N was resticted to 300bhp...I paid £16,000 for it in about 1989.Thinking about it it makes my current S2 Elise seem very slow.
I ran it on the road for four years and it was totally reliable...and what a head turner !
I purchased all the parts there that I needed to build this car including the seam welded blister arch Escort shell. This was about 1970.
Power by a 160bhp ( a lot then) John Lievesley built Twin Cam.
Any problems I had I just used to wander into the workshop for advice. That was an Aladdin's cave with all the works rally cars being built.
Because it was built with 80% new parts you could take it along to Essex County Council for inspection, pay a tenner, and get a current registration mark and a log book with the car designated Ford Escort Twin Cam.
Photo: a CUAC sprint at Duxford.
The next Boreham built car I had was this....a famous works Group N Sierra Cosworth.A whole story on it's own
It was so very fast I could not believe Gp N was resticted to 300bhp...I paid £16,000 for it in about 1989.Thinking about it it makes my current S2 Elise seem very slow.
I ran it on the road for four years and it was totally reliable...and what a head turner !
Edited by Bizzarini on Sunday 11th January 15:13
Boreham again, so sort of on topic...
A good day this circa 1991...collecting my new Escort RS.
Mine was red. The two Rally stars you may recognise (? ) took us around the Airfield in the blue car.. There was three of us in the car with the bird driving( me in the back) and as she was getting up a good head of steam the tw*t in the front started to throw up..so that ended that bit of fun.
A wonderful car that I had on loan from Fords as I leased so much of their product. I had to give it back ,reluctantly, after six months.
A good day this circa 1991...collecting my new Escort RS.
Mine was red. The two Rally stars you may recognise (? ) took us around the Airfield in the blue car.. There was three of us in the car with the bird driving( me in the back) and as she was getting up a good head of steam the tw*t in the front started to throw up..so that ended that bit of fun.
A wonderful car that I had on loan from Fords as I leased so much of their product. I had to give it back ,reluctantly, after six months.
I had a Mk1 Cortina back in the 70s I gave my girlfried at the time a shot of driving it she drove it straight into a wall. The the front struts went straright through the inner wings and tore off the plates that I had pop rivited onto the rotting inner wings.
A fiend of mine had a Mk1 Lotus that I loved. I had scraped enough money to purchase a seconhand stereo for my bedroom then my friend gave me the chance to buy his Lotus for £150 but by that time all my money had gone on this stereo.
A fiend of mine had a Mk1 Lotus that I loved. I had scraped enough money to purchase a seconhand stereo for my bedroom then my friend gave me the chance to buy his Lotus for £150 but by that time all my money had gone on this stereo.
Edited by JPKerr on Monday 12th January 17:14
aeropilot said:
graeme36s said:
Ford registered quite a few MK1 escorts as twin cams to obtain the homolagation numbers needed but they where fitted with the 1600 crossflow engines. A mate up until recently owned such a beast.
Ford pulled a number of 'interesting' homologation tricks in their time, but they didn't do that....Ford were interesting in cutting time, not wasting time swapping engines around in cars, when they could just build the real thing. Ford didn't fit any Escort with a 1600 X-Flow until the production Mexico, or before that of course, the World Cup Rally cars.
Homologation of the Twink was actually achieved after the first 25 cars had been hand built built at Boreham by the rally team mechanics, with full production of the road cars starting at Halewood in the spring of '68.
Cedric Selzer, what a quite and unassuming man. I had been to roger edwards motors a few times and often wondered what lay under the covers. A good mate enlightened me. Roger was quite a character. The last time I saw them both was when a 107 500SL I was selling, the prospective buyer wanted them to inspect the car. I was telling Roger that I had just bought Ron Cushways 300sel6.3 but had considered buying the 600swb that was also for sale. Rogers words "son those cars where built for millionaires and today you still need to be a fu**ing millionaire to own one".
graeme36s said:
aeropilot said:
graeme36s said:
Ford registered quite a few MK1 escorts as twin cams to obtain the homolagation numbers needed but they where fitted with the 1600 crossflow engines. A mate up until recently owned such a beast.
Ford pulled a number of 'interesting' homologation tricks in their time, but they didn't do that....Ford were interesting in cutting time, not wasting time swapping engines around in cars, when they could just build the real thing. Ford didn't fit any Escort with a 1600 X-Flow until the production Mexico, or before that of course, the World Cup Rally cars.
Homologation of the Twink was actually achieved after the first 25 cars had been hand built built at Boreham by the rally team mechanics, with full production of the road cars starting at Halewood in the spring of '68.
Many Twinks were re-engined with X-Flows by owners when the Lotus engine blew, especially as many were bought and rallied from new.
It's also a possibility it wasn't actually a Twin Cam, it may have been an early RS1600. The first few months production of RS1600's in 1970 were actually Twin Cams built at Halewood but with a BDA fitted as the intended AVO production facilty for the RS1600, and later the Mexico was going to be opened until Nov 1970.
Because the BDA was based on the X-Flow block, unlike the pre-X-Flow blocked Twin Cam, again many were re-ngined as owners couldn't afford BDA engine rebuilds.
As proved in a post above, being reistered as a Twin Cam doesn't mean it was a factory built production car....only the chassis number will prove that (should start with BB49...), if it's it's original identity of course. And the BDA and 1600 X-Flow engines were both listed as 1599cc as well, which may lead someone to believe they are looking at a Twin Cam that had been fitted with a X-Flow.
Bizzarini said:
But, if someone had said 25 years ago, any Cortina would be in that sort of price bracket in 2008/9 you would have said they were certifiable.....
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff