This year marks 60 years since the first fast Ford powered by a Lotus Twin Cam. Surely some mistake, you'll say, because the Lotus Cortina didn't arrive until 1963. But the first Ford test car with the engine was actually a left-hand-drive Anglia, completed in January 1962. It was given to Jim Clark, who did more than 100mph in it driving home from Goodwood one day, and Ford soon knew it had something special on its hands.
This isn't that Anglia, sadly. Instead, it's a tribute to the car that birthed a legend. We've all heard plenty about Lotus Cortinas and seen the pictures or watched them hare around at Revival. It seems the Anglia has become best known in recent times for starring in Harry Potter. Here's the car that brings both those icons together.
Moreover, this Anglia isn't some hastily cobbled together engine swap. You can read the full story here, but suffice it to say the previous owner didn't skimp on the restoration once it had been rescued - already with the engine installed - from its sorry, abandoned state in a pub car park. The aim was to create an Anglia that would have resembled those early prototypes, meaning it looks like a really good version of a 1960s' car rather than an upgraded restomod.
However, the benefit of restoring a car that was never actually sold means there's no standard spec that must be adhered to for the sake of originality. The best possible Lotus Anglia could therefore be made, rather than a Lotus Anglia that had to be rebuilt a particular way to preserve its value. So it's actually running a 1700cc block (but with period-correct DCOE 40 carbs), a Lotus Cortina gearbox, and lots of other goodies hidden away: a bitsa brake set-up from the Capri V6 and Sierra Cosworth, Gaz suspension, Milton Race strut brace, limited-slip diff and so on. It's clearly been a labour of love for a previous Ford fanatic, going so far as to move the battery and the screen wash bottle to the boot to create an engine bay fantastically free of clutter.
It's a similar story inside, looking for all the world like a well-preserved Anglia but with a few choice tweaks. The speedo now goes to 105, for example, and those lovely seats are actually newly upholstered Cobra SRs that look right at home. Even the homemade dash bulge for the Lotus-specific dials appears like it has always been there.
Quite some build, then, and quite some Ford at the end of it. There won't be another at the local classic car show! Having spent the past five years with the owner who lavished so much time on it, the Anglia is now for sale at Era Classics in Bude. However, don't expect a cheap way into a Lotus-powered Ford, even for a tribute model. This is for sale for £59,995, or the same as this actual Mk1 Lotus Cortina. No doubt the Anglia will have rarity, curio appeal and the previous owner's meticulous attention to detail on its side, but there really is only one Lotus Cortina. A tricky decision for someone to make - at least there'll be no debate that the colour scheme looks just as good on an Anglia...
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