CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Without the Cortina GT’s rally development, the Escort Twin Cam and Lotus Cortina might never have evolved into formidable motorsport machines. We explain why.

As everyone knows, the Cortina eventually became a great race and rally car — but the miracle is that it became competent in motorsport at all. Nothing that Ford’s engineers built into the car made it remotely promising at first and it was only a combination of Boreham’s expertise, and Keith Duckworth’s engine genius, which made success in events like the Safari possible. The story really began in mid-1962, when Ford was running its motorsport programme out of the old Lincoln Cars building in Brentford, using Anglia 105Es (too small and underpowered) or Zephyrs (too big and heavy). Fortunately, a nucleus of forward-thinking mechanics and engineers — Bill Meade and Mick Jones among them — joined Ford Motorsport at this time, and along with team co-ordinator Bill Barnett and manager…

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Classic Ford (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2024

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