:: Good Points : Comfier than an NSU. And faster. And more reliable. And, well, everything ::
:: Bad Points : Rampant rust, which eventually spread to claim its life. ::
I bought this just after the NSU, for £100. And what a bargain it was. After the NSU, it was a novel concept to be able to jump in a car with a reasonable expectation that it would get you to where you wanted to go. It's only downside was that it was so rusty that you didn't actually want to be seen taking it anywhere.
But that didn't stop me. I loved its tasteless two-tone blue sticky vinyl seats. Its 3 foot long gear lever that disappeared into the darkness under the dashboard. Its Fireball XL5 strip speedometer, where the needle moved along sideways. Its turn of speed which could frighten many a Cortina 1500 GT. I think it had had the engine rebored at some time in its life because it was a lot faster than it should have been.
But this was a Ford. A Ford from the 1960s. The era when ford discovered a process that allowed them to collect the silver paper from Kit Kats, and split it into 2 separate layers, and then stick these nearly-transparent layers of metal together to form the structural chassis of cars like the Zodiac, the Zephyr, the Anglia and, of course, the Cortina. An era where the thought of painting the inside (and therefore invisble bits) of the chassis simply hadn't yet occured to them. As a result, the paint almost had time to dry before the metal behind it had rusted away. Almost.
So I wasn't that surprised when it failed its MOT with a list of faults that appeared to be longer than the list of parts that I thought you needed to build a car. Most of it was easily fixable though - brakes, steering joints etc, that were bolt off / bolt on replacements.
The most difficult failure point was the fact that the front wing, around one of the front suspension struts, was badly rusted, ie to the point of total disintegration, so it needed to be welded. I took it back to the garage who sold me it and they welded it for £30.
It passed!
I drove about in it for a while, tarting it up in that way you do when you are 20 or something, by polishing the bumpers, painting the wheels, etc. The only real mods I remember were fitting Cortina Estate front struts, because they had disk brakes on the front. I obtained these struts by buying a complete car from a neighbour, swapping the struts and then taking it to the scrapyard and getting as much for it as I had paid.
I also obtained (can't remember how, I think I found it in a scrap yard) a 4-into-1 exhaust manifold - THE tuning mod for the 1500 engine. This involved a lot of exhaust butchery and welding up again so that it fitted, but it fitted!
It was, by this time, really most pleasant. I was considering my next modification (along the lines of a GT carburettor) when it was struck down unexpectedly in the most tragic of circumstances.
I was driving into my street, and as I turned the corner at the end of the road there was a loud bang and the rear of the bonnet jumped about half way up the windscreen. I could see the top of the spring clearly in front of my eyes. In fact, I could see the bottom of the spring as well. My attempts at diagnosis of this unusual spectacle were curtailed by the more urgent need to prevent the car turning sharp right into my neighbours garden, as the inner wing crashed down onto the top of the wheel and acted as a single-wheel brake.
I drove the car straight into the "drive" (actually just a grassy bit at the side of the garden) and inspection then showed that the repaired suspension mounting was still intact, but the one on the other side had rusted right out of the wing. It was probably repairable but I couldn't be arsed.
Instead, I bought another car which used the same engine, but with a blown up gearbox. But that's a different story...
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