HOT HENRY
WHEN HENRY II’S BLUE OVAL POWERHOUSE COLLABORATED WITH COLIN CHAPMAN’S SPEED-TWEAKED GENIUS. THE RESULT REPRESENTED AN AUTOMOTIVE REVOLUTION.
The Lotus Cortina was one of the f irst cars to embody Ford’s 1960s internationa l marketing campaign of Tota l Performance. By the time the new 427ci Ford Gala x ie 500s clean-swept t he f irst f ive places in t he 1963 Daytona 500 on 24 Februar y 1963, the quick Cortina was in production.
Ford of Brita in’s public af fa irs boss Walter Hayes had the brainwave and went to Colin Chapman at Lotus whom he knew well. This was 1962, when the Elan was introduced with an in-house engine. Ford contributed t he cast iron Kent cylinder block which was topped with an a lloy t win overhead camshaft cross-f low head.
The engine was a beaut y. Harr y Mundy, who was a lso Autocar’s technica l editor, designed the head. The 1499cc (116E) Kent was bored out to 1558cc to maximise the Elan’s chances in t he sub-1.6 lit re class. To t he right (facing for ward) of t his unit sat a pair of horizonta l double-barrel Weber 40DCOE carburettors.
A rev limiter set at 6500rpm was intended to protect t he standard Ford interna ls from disaster.
Hayes’ proposal was that 1000 Cortinas using this new engine and other specia l modifications would be homologated for Group 2 (modified) competition. (The imminent Cortina GT could compete in the Group 1 categor y for standard cars.)
The Lotus Cortina is sometimes referred to as t he f irst fast four-cylinder Ford. It would soon have severa l distinguished siblings from across t he At la ntic and t he f irst of t hese, t he Falcon Sprint, competed with some success in the Monte Carlo ra lly in the ver y month the Lotus Cortina – ca lled ‘Ford Consul-Cortina Lotus’ by Ford and nobody else – made its debut; it even had a Consul emblem above the grille.
As early as November 1960, when then-Ford President Robert McNamara was chosen by newly-elected US President John F. Kennedy as his Secretar y of Defence, t he concept of Tota l Performance was in embr yonic form.
“WE AT FORD BEGAN THE 60S WITH A RATHER STODGY, NON-YOUTH IMAGE”
McNamara’s successor was Lee Iacocca who recognised the coming ‘Baby Boomer’ generation’s love of performance cars and racing. “We at Ford began the 60s with a rather stodg y, non-youth image,” he said later.
There was a hitch. In 1957 Detroit’s Automobile Manufacturers Association banned direct factor y involvement in any form of motorsport. Iacocca and Henr y Ford decided to go it a lone.
In June 1962 HF II issued a short statement withdrawing his company from the Detroit carmakers’ veto of of f icia l involvement in motorsport. No longer was there any need for back door deals and the handing over of large sums of money to so-ca lled ‘private teams’.
‘Tota l Performance’ was a nift y enough slogan but behind the words lay Henr y Ford II’s determination to transform his company’s image through success in assorted forms of motorsport, from drag racing to the Monte Carlo Rally and Le Mans – after being unsuccessf ul in his bid to buy Ferrari, Henr y vowed to build a Ford to outclass the premier team… and did. ‘It’s t he ultimate prov ing ground: t he competitive event.’ was one line used in a series of Tota l Performance telev ision ads in 1964.
While the term was said to embrace a ll aspects of performance, in many early cases – especia lly in t he US – t he key tactic was to drop in a bigger engine. So t he Falcon Sprint got a Fairlane V8 engine instead of t he si x and t he Gala x ies that stormed the 1963 Daytona 500 had 427 cubes rather than 406.
While t here is no doubt t hat t he (slight ly) bigger Elan engine used in the Lotus Cortina is at t he heart of t he car’s g utsy character, t here is much more to dif ferentiate it from t he standard-issue Ford. Backing t he 1558cc dual overhead camshaft four is t he Elan’s superbly slick-shif ting four-speed gearbox. The f irst edition – retrospectively dubbed ‘Mark I’ – cars were assembled by Lotus using t wo-door Ford shells and substituting a lloy doors, bonnet and bootlid. The batter y was moved to the boot where stiffening braces were added over the wheel arches. The spare came out of its well and onto t he boot f loor.
The sparse but comfortable interior was
designed with racing in mind, in stark contrast to t he t hen-conquering Jag uar Mark II 3.8. A lovely wood and a lloy wheel a head of bespoke instrumentation set t he tone.
One key aspect of design which made t he Lotus Cortina different a lso made it more fragile. Colin Chapman had at f irst wanted to transplant t he Elan’s independent rear suspension but had to sett le for a similar arrangement to t he (rea lly light) Lotus Seven; ev ident ly Ford of Britain executives believed t hat too much Elan in t heir new car would undermine its Ford branding. Trailing arms were attached to the front spring hangers and an A-frame went under the diff and joined t he body under t he rear seat. Alloy was used for the diff housing to minimise unsprung weight.
Conceived for t he track t his arrangement failed when used on rough roads, for example in ra lly ing. The sedan’s higher centre of grav it y (despite a lower ride height t han t he standard Cortina) stressed t he rear panels and the A-frame put strains on t he dif f t hat led to a x le fa i lures, dif f fa ilures and oil lea ks.
It was not until July 1965 (seven months after t he Cortina received its f ull-width grille facelift, as seen in Jay Bowden’s beautif ul example) t hat t he frail rear end was swapped for a stronger leaf-sprung rear conf ig uration as used on lesser Cortinas. In t his guise t he ‘Mark I’ was belatedly ready to attempt to match its racing results wit h similar success in ra lly ing events.
In its four years on t he market t he ‘Mark I’ under went steady evolution. This is nowhere more ev ident than in the transmission department.
The close-ratio Elan gearbox which
“WITH THE HIGH FIRST GEAR, SPEEDS IN THE INDIRECT GEARS WERE ABOUT 48MPH, 70 AND 90”
worked so ef fectively in t he lighter car – t he Elan weighing 680kg to the LC’s 810kg – featured an exceedingly ta ll f irst gear which made for dif f icult sta rts. Speeds in t he indirect gears were about 48mph, 70 and 90. The fact t hat t his box was used suggests t hat ra lly ing was high on the agenda but it’s remarkable that none of t he brilliant Lotus engineers foresaw t hat t he elaborate but delicate rear end would – on occasions litera lly – collapse under t he car.
There was more Lotus and less Cortina in t hat earliest car t han in any of t he successors which became simpler but stronger. In July 1964 the a lloy case and clutch housing were made optiona l, t he one-piece propeller shaft was replaced by a t wo-piece and the Elan gearbox was replaced by a modified Cortina GT unit (with higher second gear) – the Lotus hav ing preceded the GT to market. From October 1965 the Corsair 2000E gearbox was used and this unit a lso went into the GT and the Escort Twin Cam.
With t he October 1964 facelift t he Lotus seats were ditched for Cortina GT items. The new instrument panel had been designed to be easily upgraded to GT spec and no longer required a bespoke design from Lotus.
Almost 3000 of t he f irst-shape Lotus Cortinas were produced with perhaps 1300 hav ing the coil-sprung rear-end.
The 1966 Mark II was developed in-house by Ford at Boreham and built at Dagenham. But it st ill had a Lotus heart. It is interesting to compare the transition from ‘Mark I’ to Mark II with the change from the XR Falcon GT to the XT. No longer was it one colour only but a broad palette, as both hot Fords became more mainstream. Understandably, some 80 per cent of Mark II Lotus Cortina buyers opted for white wit h t he green f lash !