. . . . & washer fluid reservoirs that NEVER defrosted / thawed :(

I want to buy a cortina but I am not sure if i'll be able to get parts in Canada, or if it is able to have parts from another car swapped in? Any information would help

A blast from the past, my dad had loads of the cortina's from the 1600e upwards, the good old Pinto and cross flow engine and i always remember the standard ford

carb with the terrible Auto choke which stuck on, wasnt that keen on the square ones the newer ones which we also had a few of i like the older ones,.

Them days were the best.

Didn't spot this thread before.

My second car was a 1966 Mk1 1500 deluxe which had done 60,000 miles when I got it. It seemed like a rocketship compared to the 850 Mini I had before! It suffered the usual tin worm - strut tops, rear spring hangers, but a bit of pre-mot welding kept it at bay. 

I made a few mods - Lotus quarter bumpers and 5 1/2J wheels with what seemed enormous 165 tyres, Spax suspension, and a diy Stromberg carb conversion.

Surprisingly it went very well, I put about another 40,000 miles on it and sold it to a mate with well over 100k on the clock. Sadly he wrapped it round a tree shortly afterwards!😀

My abiding memory though is spending most of an evening searching the passenger footwell for my date's contact lens which she had dropped down there. I had other plans for that evening!

 

 

 

Had a Blue with Black Vinyl roof MKIII 2 Litre GXL Cortina.

Was the only good ford I owned from that era. Had the usual rust problems and the handling was appalling by today's standards but it always started first turn of the key. Was also quite quick for it's day.

Even with an almost dead battery and in freezing conditions, if you could just get the engine to turn once it would fire up.

Was the envy of our neighbourhood back in the early 1980's when I owned it. On a cold or damp morning you would lay in bed listening to all the early risers going out to scrape their cars windscreen and trying to start their engines. You'd hear the whir of starter motors gradually getting slower and slower, then a slam of the door and a few choice words as they totally failed to start .

Then you'd get a pause while they went back in to warm up with a cuppa and give the battery 10 mins to recover before trying again.  I learnt a lot of swear words on those cold winter mornings.

About an hour later I would smugly go out, jump in the drivers seat and press the accelerator to the floor to prime the twin-choke Weber Carb and fire it up first go 🙂

I remember one winter 1982 or 83 I think, it was extremely cold and we had a lot of snow. Temps were down to around minus 15 to minus 18 C.

Fortunately just before the cold snap I'd had a new radiator fitted as the old one was leaking. Had full strength anti-freeze in. Think I was the only one on our estate that didn't have a burst radiator as they'd not got enough anti freeze for those temperatures. There were so many people with burst hoses and radiators that they couldn't get the parts or the mechanics to fix them, my uncle had to wait about 3 months to get his Austin Maxi fixed. 

I turned up at work after the coldest weekend on record in this area and I was the only one who made it in. Went home about an hour later as nobody was going to turn up. The trains were out of service (nothing new there) and the buses weren't running as their diesel was frozen to a wax.

Had a leak that I could never find. Filled up the drivers footwell to about 6 inches deep. On cold mornings I had to chuck out a lump of footwell shaped Ice before I drove off. By the end of the week I had a pile of giant ice cubes next to my car. In the summer the same leak would cause mushrooms to grow in the footwell so had a pile of them in place of the Ice 🙂

Have fond memories of that car, was a bit of a bird puller as well. My boss wasn't happy, I had a better car than his company car 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

We had one like this

 

 

 

Only a stone's throw away from me is a concours condition Cortina Ghia X two door in a chocolate brown colour with a coffee coloured vinyl roof!! It spends its life in a garage mostly only coming out the odd day in the summer, it's a one owner rare & beautiful looking machine and has twin spot lamps in the grille - lower rubber chin spoiler - rubber boot spoiler - bumper over-riders - factory electric sunroof - creamy coloured velour interior with wood sections, once asked if I can take pictures of it and he said no!

Never heard of a 2 door ghia x tina..
I know they did ghia mk4 and mk5 tina's. Granada's came in ghia and ghia x...
Ps wonder why the guy would'nt let you take a pic of it...unless it's fake and does not want to look a fool...
Positive they did not make ghia x tina's..

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