GT drives half way to the price of a proper Lotus

Took me right back it did. When I was a nipper it seemed like every town in Essex had at least one Ford Cortina MKI done up to look like the Lotus version, with varying degrees of success – not to mention doors. The important things were the flash down the side, lowered suspension, and at the very least a cheap chrome pancake filter under the bonnet. Plus, of course, the essential front quarter-bumpers, all too often simply just the ends hacksawed off the original and inevitably crusty full-width fitment.

The best ones were always those based on a two-door GT, so you did at least have the right number of apertures and enough under the bonnet to justify the looks and make a bit of a growl. So it brought a smile to my face to see just such a car appear at Historics’ last Brooklands auction, correct down to the colour scheme, wide steels with hubcaps, a set of Weber 40s and even a Burton alloy rocker cover – Burton’s was only a few miles down the road from me too, in Ilford, and regularly visited.

The big surprise was how much the car fetched in the sale. Yes, it was very nice, and I know good Cortina MKI GTS have shot up in value in recent times, but the £27,440 paid for this 1965 1500 – resplendent in its original Ermine white with the Lotus green flash having been added later – was right at the top of the estimate range, and that’s about half way to the price of a proper Lotus Cortina these days.

So it seems I’m not the only old codger who grew up in 1970s’ Essex (or similar) with the scent of leaded petrol in his nostrils and a lasting nostalgia for it all.

‘The Cortina MKI was nice, but what it fetched was a surprise’