Ford Cortina - The Legend

It's the 1960s and cars are beginning to take a form of their own, power is all the craze and car manufacturers start focusing more on developing machines that not only get you from A - Z but do it fast. Aesthetics are important too and designers are employed to design modern looking cars to fit both needs of speed and looks.

One of those cars developed is the Ford Cortina and remains one of the UKs best selling cars of the 1970s. A cultural icon. I did a quick google and google tells me that from over 4.1 million cortinas made only 3800 are left. That includes my gym mates Cortina MK II.

And yes, you can check us out on Facebook we are mates and these are real images I haven't lifted them other than the screenshot to provide evidence that this Ford Cortina is in my friends possession and that we are infact friends.

His had a bit of trouble with this and like my previous post I've been called upon to help tighten a few bolts and change the oil. Except I don't get paid in beer for this one, we'll often go for a summer cruise along the beach and listen to the Pur of the V8 engine.

Source

Now these cars get a little tricky as there are two varieties the UK and the US versions. I don't want to get too much into it as I wasn't aware until I had a quick google for information about this post and learned that, well the UK versions..... don't like as good as the American versions which appear to also have been made here in Australia.

From what I've read tonight these bad boys were created to compete with the mini craze of the time which is why they are smaller cars but their engines packed alot more power. They also dumped most of everything else in a car and went for simplicity. Just what you needed in the car for the time and well, power.

When it was put to sale the Cortina smashed all sales records in the UK alone close to 1 million cars were sold in the first 4 years.

In America the battle against the VW Beatle was one and the Ford Falcon wasn't doing to well. And it wasn't until Jimmy Clarks win at the Indy 500 that put the Ford Cortina on the map in America.

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After the win sales jumped to over 7000 cars.

The Ford Cortina GTs which first came out in the V8 Twin cam version was a power horse of its time producing a whopping 58kW 1500cc engine. There are a number of cortinas that have been worked and upgraded to produce 440kW

Like the above image which you can read about
Here

It wasn't long before this beauty got an upgrade and in 1967 it replaced BMS as Britain's best selling car. In Australia they to were wonderful cars. I have a soft sport for this car as my mum used to have one and in V8 too. My first memories are of sitting in the back seat in a baby chair as the car rumbled and idled side to side.

I think this is why I have always preferred loud noisy V8s to smaller engines.

I'm interested in knowing abit more about the car and if any of you also had one or know of anyone that had one. I always find it insightful to read old articles talking about the low kW as being powerful V8 engines and then comparing it to my V6 190kW engine. We've come along way since back in the day, I wonder what the next 10 - 20 years will bring us.