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Ford Cortina – The Car Of Our Childhood


DAN@ADRIAN FLUX
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Foreign markets had a V6 Essex engine in the MK 3 & 4 & 5

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Here's a pic of the 2000E I had MANY years ago! I got this pic and a couple of others from a previous owner recently.

Always liked those wheels. I still like them.

Nice car

1-1.jpg

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OVH 112P was my old man's Tina, I was gutted when he sold it!

Replaced with MGN 78V which he subsiquently wrote off early one morning on black ice.

Replaced that with a Sierra A57 NUG.

Weird how we can remember the reg numbers of our childhood cars!

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Had a mk2 1600e ( don't remember the reg) paid 50 quid for it back in about 84. My first car was a white mk1 escort AOO 380G which used to get through clutch cables like they were 2 penny, always carried a couple of spares and I got quite quick at roadside cable changes.

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I had the RS 2000 flat front with the recaro seats and 6 dial clocks,what a car in them days.

I was into my cars in a massive way and all fords and loads of them.

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My dad had a few cortina,dont know the mark of them as years ago like mk1 or mk2 etc.

Is there a sheet with the mk's on telling you.

I do know the last 2 he had was like square shape,a white one and a older red one.

One was the 2 litre and other a 1.6 but built like a brick,heavy and solid.

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I remember my dad having a blue mk 5 when I was little. Pretty sure he used it to tow the caravan to skeggy. He had a red one too with a vinyl roof mk 3 but that was before I can remember.

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When I first started working as a plasterers mate I remember getting an earful of the guys wife over the size 10 plaster footprints I left in the passenger footwell of a baby poo coloured mk 5 Tina..loved them days..

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Have to say...really strong memories of cortina days...absolutely loved them can even remember our local mini cabs..2020..getting a fleet of 1.6 L and some 2.0 GL mk4s..and every one commenting about how the new cortina taxis are a luxury compared to the old Austin wotnots...

And when the Sweeney put one through a plate glass window..so cool....

They portraid the car chase really well..usually short and very chaotic...nice handbrakes and a determined three litre Granada in the bad guys rear view mirror in hot pursuit..absolutely schoolboy hero's...

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Those were the good days,nice red leather looking seats.

I remember the problems with the,think its the diaphragm on the carburetor like a mesh that

kept flooding the thing,them days it was scrap yard and another carb for £10 lol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Cortina

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Only thing that peeved me off with the Cortina`s was you could do the void bushes on them and a fortnight later they would need done again. They seemed to just chew them up

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Good topic!

My dad mostly run Fords although he did have a Hillman avenger estate that rained in so he had his money back after two weeks.

He had 3 cortinas from memory. A mk 4 1.6 which he said was nowhere near as good as the mk 5 and which he had resprayed black as my mum didn't like the original colour... Trouble is, the spray shop mixed up cars and did it green and someone else's black... which got resolved in the end. I can't remember the reg but it might have been 's'

He then had a gold mk 5, 1.6L, which I think was on a v plate followed by the very memorable Crusader 1.6 estate (metallic blue and silver) which was great as I could sleep in the load area under some coats.

My dad basically bought these cars with about 80k on then run them for a few years until they had about 110k or so; we used to go all over the country following stock cars and the cars never let us down once.

No oil burners, oil changed every 4000 miles, bullet proof pintos.

Later on, I had a 1.6GL mk 5 in beige! which was a shed and which I should have avoided. Valve seals were knackered and I had to dip the fuel tank as the gauge was broken but it was reliable and never let me down. I sold it to a mate that wrote it off after 2 weeks of having it.

I think my overriding memory of these cars was sleeping in the back on the motorway and listening to the diff whine...

Great cars

Sent from my XT1039

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  • 3 weeks later...

Way back in 1977 my 2nd car at the age of 18 was a 1.6L Mk3 called Fred and I eventually had Fred for 11 years before it died. It went through a number of rebuilds the last one quite drastic for a 1.6L. It landed up with Mexico valves n springs, fully gas flowed head, road/race cam, Webber, lightened this and that engine internals, balanced crank, rods etc, electronic ignition then a 2000E diff and an early Sierra 5 speed box all on adjustable shocks and uprated suspension etc. Went like stink from a standstill, 140bhp at the wheels if I remember correctly and sounded pretty mean when you put your foot down.

Pic is from early on in the last incarnation.

post-68368-0-26287600-1445506236_thumb.j

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I was eleven back in 77 but was really into anything car especially customised..as they were called..the word modded soon caught up though..must of sounded nice by what you did to the motor...sounds well sorted...

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Great topic as another one said on here,its amazing how much things how come forward.

We were all fords and about 4 of the cortina,last 2 was the 2 litre pinto engine and then a white 1.6.

Makes me laugh when we get a top spec car now and what a top spec car was then.

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Electric front windows and a radio cassette would of had all the car owners in your road feeling quite envious of your "creature comforts"...oh the good old days of Saturday/Sunday morning tinkering..

Sparkplugs, points and valve clearances.... Jesus mary, so less stressful than today's mind boggling array of engine malladies.....

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Cold start and choke out full then the find out you have flooded the dam thing and a bad smell of petrol.

You was in heaven with a sunroof,our 1 cortina had a sunroof but was top spec......not bragging lol.......

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  • 1 month later...

I remember a cold November back in 81 and would put an old wool coat over the engine on my 69 mini to help stave of frost also would whip out the four plugs and pop them in the oven for 10 minutes before rushing back outside to fit them and start a reluctant A series engine(quite characterfull) heater was a token affair...my mate had a 61 mini that didn't have the heater, but it had little circular side vents to let leaves, twigs,bits of roadkill in and on your lap..:)

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. . . . & kitchen foil in front of the grille :)

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