LOST, SORT OF FOUND
I bought this Escort, OMR 235G for £1000 in 1997. Apart from the rollcage the car was fairly standard. It was originally a 1300GL auto, which is what I was looking for to get the bigger gearbox tunnel. I spent two years working on the car in a poly tunnel I built beside my house. There was actually no vehicle access to my home at the time so the local haulage company that had collected the car used a hiab crane to swing the car over a large hedge and drop the car into the garden!
During the two-year period I stripped the Pinto engine and had the crank and flywheel lightened and balanced, fitted a high lift cam, forged pistons and con rods and the twin 40s. I also had the block bored out to make a 2.1. The rest of the spec included firewalling, internal fuel and brake lines, rear brake discs for hydraulic handbrake, side glass replacement with Lexan, quick rack, lowering blocks on the rear, stainless steel fuel tank, further roll cage cross bracing, Sparco seats, emergency engine cut- off and full fire extinguisher system.
When the car was finally finished I knocked down the wall and a section of hedge at the front of our house to finally drive the car out onto the road to take for MoT.
During my drive back from the MoT, which it passed ( the testing station turned a blind eye to the hydraulic handbrake), all the incidents and occurrences I had experienced during the time spent building the car swirled around in my mind. It was like hearing the discord of sound when an orchestra are all tuning their instruments. Then, like a moment of total clarity, everything came together for a film script. I started writing in a blind panic initially as I was so scared I’d sleep and wake up having forgotten everything. Unfortunately, my partner wasn’t too impressed by my new obsession and suffice to say it marked the beginning of the end of our relationship. Following our break- up I was forced to sell my beloved Escort. I can still remember the day I watched with my eyes welling up as a car transporter drove away with all my love and effort strapped to the back.
I went on to finish the book titled, Full Throttle. The general gist of the story is about two guys, Eddie and Neville and it’s a very British northern comedy written in the same genre as The Full Monty, Brassed Off and Little Voice. I was interviewed on local radio at the time and the 1000 copies in paperback were sold out in the League Of Friends shops located in several hospitals in the South West with a percentage of the profit going to the charity.
I’ve often pondered over the years what ever happened to the rally car I built that inspired the book. It’s now available on Kindle and usually pays for Christmas Dinner from downloads but the car itself remained a mystery until recently when I discovered it was sold at auction in 2018. The auction advert described how the car had been built by Andrew Easton and a book had been written about the car and the experiences during the build but it also said this was unsubstantiated. Unsubstantiated!
I called the auction house but they were unable to tell me who had bought the car so I could set the record straight. I hope you can help bring the story of the car and the book back together so the future of the car is cemented in history with the book it inspired me to write.
By the way, I am now with my new partner, Emma, and the life we’re making for ourselves on the Isle Of Man is coincidentally the home of motorsport!
Andrew Easton UK
If you own the Mk1 and want to get in touch with Andrew, please let us know. Andrew’s book can be found on Amazon – search for ‘full throttle andrew easton’.