Cortina Capers. What are yours?

[Warren t claim]

As my Mini Memories thread turned out to be a hit I thought I'd continue with the one car nostalgia thread topic with another ubiquitous car produced from 1962-82.

I must've had dozens of these as a throwaway car back in the late '80s and I'm pretty sure most of you had as well.

[mercrocker]

Only managed one Cortina on my CV. A battered, near-dead MkIV 1.6L from the Southampton car auctions. £30 paid. I bought it to tide me over whilst I scrimped to get a replacement engine for my Pontiac. I've related the tale on here where I tried to sneak under Police awareness during our local carnival as it was far from legal.....

Think I got most of the year out of it before flogging it to a serial shit-car-licker for what I paid for it. There was no more wrong with it when I sold it as when I got it.

Other Cortina experiences have been through the hands of others. A memorable one was being 6 up in a LHD bench-seated Mk1 belonging to a Geography teacher at school. Believe it or not he was taking 5 of us up the pub (good old Seventies...) on a Friday afternoon, an endeavour which would have gone largely un-noticed had he not crossed a gear-linkage on the column change in the pub car park. One of us knew what he was doing and unjammed it but not before missing the bell....

Not a fan of the MkIIIs, they all seemed to drive like they were broken. I first noticed this when I borrowed a GF's brother's Tawny metallic 4 door. It was only about 5 years old, he had got himself in hock for it and was extremely proud of it. To me, it felt like it had a buggered steering rack but other ones I have driven since felt largely the same. Mk IVs were better.

[panhard65]

A bit like Mini's for me complete crap so never bothered owning one other than sending half a dozen of the heaps over the bridge. European cars were so much better so no point spending money on a crappy old Cortina. A mate of mine had a 2.3 mk4 or 5. It was so slow I overtook him across a cricket pitch in my Renault 18ts back in the day.

[SiC]

What's a Cortina?

[SiC]

Oh I think I remember them...

[Hooli]

Mr grandad had a few. Don't think I ever went in them as he was always crashing.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Oh you bastard !

Cortinas were an integral part of my life for the first 30 odd years. There’s going to be a lot of bollocks spouted by me in this thread.

One of my first memories is hitting my head on the metal dashboard of my Grandad’s 1963 1200 Deluxe 2 door in Dark Cherry maroon. I was 3 and sitting on my Dad’s lap when Grandad ran into the back of a Bedford CA near Bewdley . It came to light years later that I’d fractured my skull in this accident, but obviously at the time I was just given an ice cream as cure.
Apparently Grandad saw the Cortina in the showroom of a garage when he was filling his Prefect up one day. It was a year old when he bought it and he kept it until 1969. When he traded it in for a brand new Herald 12/50.

Not long after, maybe 1970 my Dad traded his D reg HA Van in for a 1967 Mk2 1500 deluxe estate in the same maroon colour, I remember being excited by the 4 extra gauges in a pod under the the dash.

690D497C-FDD8-444C-AB8C-9F4F2BDA5837.png (2.69 MiB) Viewed 382 times

Me and my younger brother in 1973 outside my Grandparents house, the Herald would have been in the garage.

Much more to follow.

[AMCrebel]

I had a white 1968 1600E. It was fairly wank and drove worse than my Escort and Maxi.
My Dad’s X suffix mk5 1600 snapped a cam belt but sustained no engine damage.
Both that and the 2 litre W suffix he had drove well enough and were quiet and had reasonable performance and economy for the time.

[LynehamHerc]

A mate of mine had a Daytona Yellow 2.0GXL.

A few of us spent a fun Saturday getting covered in 'glass, gel and wob 'fixing' the front wings.
It went well enough for the time but no better than my 1.6S Ascona in a straight line and was far worse on bends. Everything else about the Opel was immeasurably superior.

Soon after we'd made it look even more of a shitheap he bought a traded in BMW2500. That chauffeured us all around, he didn't drink, and managed 2 camping holidays to the Lakes. It had a big boot as we proved when we went for fish and chips and shut him in it to stop him babbling on.

[bub2006]

There's a cortina story I have but If I share it the thread will turn very dark and I don't think that's what anyone wants to see. For that reason I would never own a ford cortina mk5