fifty years of Cortina

YouThere

heads up that John Murray planning on doing something to celebrate 50 years of Cortina on Radio1 Friday morning 29thNov 9am.

Henry Ford III

Lots of people would opt for the original Lotus Cortina, but I prefer the Mk2...

piston

1979 Mk IV 2.0L was the first car I ever drove (in a field age 14).

Chris_Heilong

Saw one today in clontarf

Joe 90

Henry Ford III wrote: »

Lots of people would opt for the original Lotus Cortina, but I prefer the Mk2...

Had one and loved it. Very quick in it's day and brilliant road behavior on HR70 Goodyears. Funny thing is though, the wife's Ka has near enough the same performance figures although it doesn't have the road behavior. Road holding may be as good but no comparison for handling.

The HR70 Goodyear was a tarmac rally tyre based on a German high speed carcass, F1 wet rubber and big drainage channels. Bloody brilliant in it's day.

b318isp

Ahh the memories. Our family had a Mk 2 1600E (go on ask me if I wish that we held onto it!). Then two Mk IVs which I learnt to drive.

Cut my teeth on the Pinto, did most of the work on it for my dad. Worked a little on the mark III too. Still have the Haynes manual, as well as the Mk II Lotus manual somewhere.

The latter Mk IV had a 2.0 dropped in, Firestones on Rostyles (I seem to remember them coming off a Hunter???) and black two-pac paint job with double red stripes along the fold in the door. Four Rally Giants relayed off two toggle switches screwed into the metal panel running under the dash. You could see my dad coming home a mile away!

I was given a Mk. IV 2.0S, which I scrapped. Silver with the back vinyl roof. Sigh.

spiggotpaddy

I always preferred the MKiii coke bottle, maybe because that's the one I had the most fun in. I mean driving okay.

corktina

b318isp wrote: »

Ahh the memories. Our family had a Mk 2 1600E (go on ask me if I wish that we held onto it!). Then two Mk IVs which I learnt to drive.

Cut my teeth on the Pinto, did most of the work on it for my dad. Worked a little on the mark III too. Still have the Haynes manual, as well as the Mk II Lotus manual somewhere.

The latter Mk IV had a 2.0 dropped in, Firestones on Rostyles (I seem to remember them coming off a Hunter???) and black two-pac paint job with double red stripes along the fold in the door. Four Rally Giants relayed off two toggle switches screwed into the metal panel running under the dash. You could see my dad coming home a mile away!

I was given a Mk. IV 2.0S, which I scrapped. Silver with the back vinyl roof. Sigh.

gonna break your heart now...the Mk4 S is probably the rarest mainstream model nowadays...less than 10 2.0S and only 2 2.3S are on the road in the UK....Now my S has gone back to the UK, there quite probably isn't an S on the road in the Republic anymore.

b318isp

corktina wrote: »

gonna break your heart now...the Mk4 S is probably the rarest mainstream model nowadays...less than 10 2.0S and only 2 2.3S are on the road in the UK....Now my S has gone back to the UK, there quite probably isn't an S on the road in the Republic anymore.

Wow, that's sad. I would never have thought that.

b318isp

Forgot abour 2 door Mk IV...very rare.

corktina

three door? typo?

b318isp

Maybe it had a sunroof! So used to say 3 door these days!

Gone Drinking

The guy in that photo is what I imagine Barry (From the Ann and Barry books) grew up to look like..

corktina

b318isp wrote: »

Maybe it had a sunroof! So used to say 3 door these days!

nice photo though, and yes the 2 doors are fairly rare now (and sought after) you will find 1300 cc examples, ex-Motability scheme in the UK