LOTUS CORTINA

‘Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.’ The fundamental principle that underpins manufacturers’ works entries into motorsport – the point of going racing is to shift units off the forecourt. And few cars were as successful in this endeavour as the Lotus Cortina. The production Cortinas were originally offered with an 1198cc engine, later adding a 1498cc for the Cortina Super and GT, but hovering on the sidelines was Lotus’s Colin Chapman, who’d had an idea. He was keen to build his own twin-cam engine, and saw a tie-in with Ford as a useful symbiotic relationship; he commissioned Harry Mundy (designer of the Coventry Climax engine) to develop a twin-cam version of the Kent crossflow, and the result was something that Ford’s Walter Hayes was very keen to homologate for Group 2 saloon car racing with the Cortina.

And so the Lotus Cortina was born. In January 1963 the finished product was showcased to the press, resplendent in Ermine White and Sherwood Green; Ford supplied the bodyshells to Lotus who then built the cars themselves, fitting the 115bhp twin-cam along with a close-ratio gearbox borrowed from the Elan. The model was an instant success, and there are few more iconic motorsport images than that of Jim Clark cornering a ’Tina at maximum attack with one front wheel clear off the ground.

When the Mk2 Lotus Cortina arrived, production moved in-house at Ford, and for many enthusiasts it’s the hand-built nature of the Mk1 that makes it a true legend – that, and the fact that it was totally unstoppable on track. There’s a reason why so many Mk1 Cortinas have been painted up to look like Lotuses. Quite simply, this Ford/Lotus mash-up is one of the coolest cars ever created.