Having swapped my Beetle for this Beautiful?! Cortina, there was nothing more important than immediately putting it to use in the Northern Universities Motor Club Championship. The main motorsport event was 'Scatters' which were run very competitively (lots of student cars ended up in fields or drystone walls (or both - see Mark's Mk2) during scatters, but there were other disciplines as well that the car was also used to good effect in.
The first event we finished midfield, but then having figured out what was going on, the results improved and soon we were leading the championships. This car even won a couple of auto-tests (Feb 1993 Bradford Univ MC Gymkana in the pics). Go figure!
Alternator problems haunted the car (turned out to be a backwards wired side light), but nontheless it provided very good service for a number of years.
My first road rally was in this car - the Winter Rally by the 1-11 Motor Club near Sheffield in March 1992 (see pics).
I uprated the Ford VV carb to a Weber twin choke - it might even have had 90+bhp!, and in latter times fitted 14" Sierra wheels with low profile tyres (by mid-90's standards anyway). It also collected some uprated springs and Spax adjustable dampers along the way which made it a bit more useful.
A heavy knock after sliding into a kerb on the Buxton Springs Scatter of 1993 did for the front crossmember, and I bought a scrap Cortina for £40 (which I thought was a lot at the time) to get a replacement off. At the same time Eddie and I rebuilt the front suspension to a rather extragent level on my Uncle's farm.
I could go on for ever about this car as we did so many events and had so much fun in it - have a look at the event reports and results sections to see how we did!
After graduating and getting a job, I thought I could do with something more upmarket (mis-aligned priorities) and bought a 309 GTI. I sold the Cortina for just £160 in Essex complete with all it's go-faster bits.
Unfortunately it seems to have disappeared from DVLA records so I fear it's now crushed. A sad end to a great car.
Ford Cortina 1.6 Base - TND658X
