Mk2 Cortinas

lads, why is it, with the plethora (right word??) of mk1 Cortinas (Lotus, GT, whatever) currently racing, have I never seen a MARK 2 Cortina in historic racing??

......I've half a mind to get meeself one and put it out on the track... ..

David Austin raced a Mk 2 Lotus Cortina in the CSCC Post Historics around 8 years ago. I believe he retired but his car is around somewhere.

I'll pm Ken Clarkes phone number. He might be able to help.

Heavier and more brick-shaped (and in rallying more likely to bend in the middle). Much the same applied to the Escort 1 and 2 of course...
One contributory reason also must be the very limited (one and a bit seasons) "works" use of Mk2 Cortinas before the Escort took over.

peter st barbe has been racing a red and gold mk2 all year on post historics!!!alastair southall raced a white mk2 in phtc in the early 90s and sold it on to dave austin. :)

Peter's car is up for sale on the CTCRC site here http://www.csccgb.co.uk/pages/sales/salesframeset.asp

I always thought the Mk2 Escort was equally or more competitive than the Mk1. Is the shell not lighter on the Mk2? Another advantage of the Mk2 Cortina I would have thought was that you could use the later 1600cc crossflow engine whereas the Mk 1 like Zef's is stuck with the 1500cc pre-crossflow. unless of course you are talking twin-cams then there would be no advantage and definitely a weight disadvantage.

Apart from the reasons already stated, I think also that the Mk1 has wider classic car appeal. The Mk 2 has its followers (particularly the 1600E) but I don't think it (yet) captures the imagination like the earlier car; nor did it have such an illustrious competition career. Sounds like some of you guys might want to change that perception with action!

I always thought the Mk2 Escort was equally or more competitive than the Mk1. Is the shell not lighter on the Mk2?

It was made so with better engine, suspension etc. The weight increase was not that significant - almost certainly down to the extra glass area being heavier than tin. With the exception of the "droop snoot" Mk2 RS2000, the Cd was definitely worse - I think there are figures in the Jeremy Walton book.

Yes the Mk 1 definitely looks more slippery especially with the bubble arches compared to the slabs sides on the Mk 2's works arches.

Peter, thanks indeed for the PM

MK1 Cortina is lighter, and has a narrower track

theres not a huge amount in it though.

the lotus variants where homologated as mk2's with all thre goodies and make good period rally cars, I don't think the MK2 GT was ever homologated for racing per se but I recon I could get one competitive for say groovy baby, something I have considered, and still am !

a MK2 LC is potentially very competitive, although to FiA spec it would get let for deads by the later homologation specials ( escort BMW Alfa etc) much like the MK1 GT (1963) does by the MK1 Lotus ( 1966 going on 1969 !)

Some of the reason might be down to eligibility as its post 65 which restricts the series you can run one in. The pre 65 class is more popular isn't it because there's the FIA series and various UK Top Hat/HSCC stuff, therefore people would rather go for a mk1.

Wasn't there a works Mk2 with FVA and f2 running gear which was raced by Graham Hill?

There were two works mk11 cortinas,one ended up as the Stanley mann car and is now used with a cosworth Yb (i think).The other CTC 14E is nearing the end of restoration still with its original FVA 1600cc (236bhp).

certainly Team Lotus ran two works cars for Graham Hill & Jackie Oliver in 68

The 3 Team Lotus cars for 67 (not 68) were CTC12E,13E,14E. Alan Mann in 68 with CTC24E whilst waiting for Escort Twincam.

there are a few real and not so real ones about, the ran as twinks with fuel injection, possibly BDA's ? or straight to FVA F2 engines ( same/similar block)

there are several series for post 66, and an FiA series, I think one of the reasons no one runs a MK2 for example is it'll get whipped by a well prepared escort, and no one can afford to run it as an FVA !

S'funny that my first ever thread on this forum relates to Mk 2 Cortinas having been hillclimbing a Mk 2 Lotus for the last 10 years. By necessity have become a bit obsessed with them...

Have never heard of CTC 13E as a race car

Team Lotus raced CTC 14E and 24E - these were raced by some very famous names - Jackie Ickx being another to add to the list

These cars were then sold by Team Lotus on the basis that they were obsolete given the imminent homologation of the Escort

When homologation of the Escort was delayed Ford (I think) purchased CTC 24E from whoever it was who bought it from Team Lotus and paid Alan Mann to race it in the first half of the 68 season pending the Escort's arrival. It goes without saying that the Escort set the world alight and the Alan Mann Twin Cams are very famous but the 68 title won by Frank Gardner was won in a Cortina and an Escort

When the Escort arrived Alan Mann sold CTC 24E to a chap in the South West who entered a few local sprints before selling it on.

I know that chap reasonably well and amazingly he repurchased the car several years ago which enabled me to have a very good crawl over it. The Group 5 modifications are amazing and some of them I doubt were legal but you'd only know if you are very familiar with the bodyshells.

The FVA was long gone and wasn't with the car when he bought it from Alan Mann - infact he says that his understanding was always that title to all FVA's was retained by Ford at all times - which explains why so few are around. You can now buy new ones at vast expense.

My mate has now sold CTC 24E....to Alan Mann...

The Mk 2 is not as charismatic as the Mk1 but is supposed to be more forgiving to drive. That's what they say. I have never driven a Mk 1 Lotus but in all honesty I think here 'forgiving' means slower.

You can do an amazing amout to them though and you never feel that you're jeopardiizing value as they're not worth that much. Groovy Baby on 45's might be worth a look.

I'll go back to sleep now

I'm tempted by groovy baby, looking at lap times I reckon you'd be in the thick of it with a good 1600 GT

I think the MK1 LC was killed as a race car by the Escort in the same way the MK1 GT was superceded by the LC

hey jonners its a worthy obsession! remember racing against alastair southall in his mk2 at snett about 15 years ago and accidentally gave him a tap at the esses. i was mortified that id dinged his car but alastair is a true gent and didnt thump me!
iv just got a vanguards alan mann mk2 on the shelf. not a real good replica but looks good alongside the mk1 and escort.

I remember Martin Sledmore racing a pristine ex Alan Mann, I think, Mk2 in Northern Spec Saloons in the late 70s. Not all that fast, and certainly well behind the Skoda etc clones, but a real looker !!

nice pic of martins car on the racing 70s website

Alongside CTC 24E, Alan Mann also had UVX 565E for Frank Gardner to drive during the first part of the 1968 season, pending the Escort Twin Cam homologation.
UVX 565E was sold to dutch driver Frans Lubin in mid-1968.

Good thread, guys.

Welcome to Jonners and Carlos.

I feel the need for a "The Works Cortinas" book - although the existing "Works Minis" and "Works Escorts" books don't adequately cover the degree of re-shelling that occurred.
Not sure whether any of the race cars were re-shelled? CTC24E is associted with Alan Mann colours but Graham Robson's book "Ford in Saloon Car Racing" has, I think, a picture of a CTC24E in Team Lotus colours driven by Paul Hawkins at Silverstone in 67. CTC12,13 and 14E may have been allocated as "identities" to Team Lotus for 67 but may not all have been used?

The works rally cars immdiately get "muddy" with the blue/gold UVW924E, that was on the 67 Acropolis Rally and won the 67 Gulf London Rally with Ove Anderson, becoming a pristine white apparently new car for Bengt Soderstrom on the (cancelled at the last minute because of the foot and mouth outbreak) 67 RAC Rally.

certainly Team Lotus ran two works cars for Graham Hill & Jackie Oliver in 68
Gary, you probably want to mean 1967, since there were no Team Lotus entries in the 1968 BSCC.
In 1967, Jack Oliver drove the DR Ford Mustang in the BSCC.
CTC 14E and CTC 24E were 1967 Team Lotus entries, and were driven by Graham Hill, Jacky Ickx, Paul Hawkins and John Miles, on different occasions.
At the British GP meeting, Lucien Bianchi drove UVX 565E. All three cars used FVA engines on most, or probably all the races.
I too have no record of CTC 13E beeing a racing car.
On the other hand, CTC 17E was a road car and the subject of a Motor's road test in their July 15, 1967 issue.

Good pictures of both CTC14E and CTC24E in Motor Sport august 2004 page39.

1966 RAC Rally winners Bengt Soderstrom and Gunnar Palm defrost their Group 2 car on the morning they should have started the 1967 RAC but for its last minute cancellation due to the spreading foot and mouth epidemic. The same registration had been carried by a blue (with gold flash) car used by Ove Andersson earlier in the year. That earlier shell was later in private hands in its original colour? Roger Clark and Graham Hill had Group 5 injected cars (T/Cs, not FVAs like the racers) for this RAC.
http://img435.imageshack.us/img435/6799/soderstrompalm67rac26mo.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The 'CTC' sequence of cars, supposedly were all the earliest Mk 2 Lotus Cortinas and were either racers or press cars

CTC is supposed to stand for Cortina Twin Cam

CTC 24E, i believe was never reshelled. It was raced by Team Lotus in 67 and by Alan Mann in the early part of the 68 season. Of course it ran in Lotus colours for Team Lotus and then Alan Mann team colours.

One confusing point that has arisen over the years is that many people have assumed that the different colour schemes means different bodyshell and this theory has been backed up by the fact that the winscreen wipers are in different positions for the Team Lotus days and in Alan Mann colours.

This is easily explained - my mate who bought the cat twice told me that Alan Mann fitted a wiper motor from a Jumbo Jet and had to perform surgery behind the dash to fit it properly. When he bought it the second time that's the first thing he checked and it was all just as he remembered - which is graifying as in the intervening years the bulkhead had been cut away to fit a V6.

As mentioned above, the Group 5 mods on that bodyshell have to be seen to be believed and I just don't think anybody, ever, would have attempted to replicate them.

As for the UVX car this was never a Team Lotus car as far as I know. It was built at Boreham and used a very trick rear axle set up not used by Team Lotus. I say very trick because they were for the time although they became commonplace in later years with the Escorts.

This mate of mine who owned CTC 24E saw quite a few ex works cars go through his hands over the years and knew a lot about them - he also said that the UVX car went to Holland but he also commented that it was a horrible car having been been built from a prototype shell.

The interesting thing is that the UVX car is also to be seen in Alan Mann colours so there's obviously a story there somewhere.

That's enough for now - need my next dose of medicine

What's the racing 70's website???

Would like to have a look

anyone know who Martin Sledmore is???

racing seventies. its a brilliant record of drivers and their cars that raced [mostly] at croft autodrome in the seventies.some great pics and good memories if you were around at that time. loads more to come by all accounts as well.
www.racing70s.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

As mentioned above, the Group 5 mods on that bodyshell have to be seen to be believed and I just don't think anybody, ever, would have attempted to replicate them.

wanna bet :-)


I've seen a late MK1 with coil over fron struts, turreted at an angle, a seriously modified shell . . . . I might one day when I find a rot box, a roll of welding wire and a spare month :rofl:

Hmmm - I'm not a betting man but the surgery required to replicate ctc 24e would be extensive - i took loads of photos before the car went back to alan mann - they're not digital though, which is a shame, but they are very very interesting to a true lotus cortina believer

one mod to the back axle has got me thinking about our MK 2 hillclimber - nice way of lowering the roll centre on a live axle rear end...but might increase roll couple...but they must have known what they were doing....

many years ago i owned a genuine Mk1 shell that was believed never to have been road registered - trouble was that it had huge arches, 8" mag minilites and zillions of rosejoints at the rear. That was quite a radical one but we never did anything with it.

Sold it to a chap called Peter Wray with a load of panels and he raced it in the HSCC championship which he won outright one year I think. Infact the car has been for sale on the HSCC website for years...for a lot more than I got for it (which is quite right now that it looks respectable)

Had a look at that Croft website and that must be CTC 24e with a V6 - all of which fits together

A chap called Andy Middlehurst - sometime racer/car dealer/racing archivist for the Lotus Cortina Register had the car for sale donkeys years ago and it said in the advert that he'd replaced the bulkhead after the V6 installation

I need to get out more so i'm going out now

Graham Robson's Boreham book (seen today) says UVX565E was provided to Alan Mann for 1968 but only used for one race as Frank Gardner didn't like it and used CTC24E from then on until the Escort arrived.
It also confirms what I'd heard at the time - that UVX566E (a new car for Roger Clark for the 1967 Scottish Rally) was so badly creased at the finish the shell was immediately scrapped!
I see Croft is mentioned above. Didn't Brian Robinson use an ex-works Mk2 in northern club races?

Brian Robinson bought both CTC 14E & 24E from Team Lotus but sold 24E to Alan Mann in the circumstances previously described

I think Robinson was a Yorkshire chap but I think he raced 14E nationally.

14E sat in a small museum for years - absolutely unmolested, was then auctioned and purchased by - I believe - Michael Schryver who has had it restored by Simon Hadfield

Would dearly love to see it - anyone know???

Johnners: Andy Middlehurst has what is apparently a Works MK1 LC with seriously modded front struts, probably as run in 67, no idea about the rest

I know the car Peter Wray has. your statement sums up the HRSR series perfectly :rofl: probably the reason the cars not worth as much as the others is its got no where else to play

link failed

Middlehurst Group5 Mk1.
I give up on posting image.

There were some great underside photos of the Middlehurst group 5 car in Classic Ford some years ago - not that i read that magazine, you understand....

Clearly, the groundwork had already been done by the time CTC 14/24E were built.

Middlehurst also owned another radical MK 1 - he owned the Jim Clark road car with the +2 rear suspension - he sold it to Tom Walkinshaw along with the '64 championship winning ex works Clark car...ahem....