HERITAGE:

Corsair V4 auto The Ford prototype that went to college...

Wind back the clock to 1967. This was the year that the Ford Motor Company presented Loughborough Technical College with a two-year-old Corsair. The V4 automatic model, which was worth around £600 at the time, was not to be driven on public roads, but was to be used as a learning tool for practical instruction in the College’s automobile engineering course. It would spend its days being disassembled and then reassembled by the lucky students learning their trade.

This rather unusual set of circumstances lead to the Corsair surviving the next 20 years in almost factory fresh condition, the regular cycle of desecration and rebirth — with only a quick spin around the car park to ensure everything worked again as it should — meaning only a handful of miles were clocked up over the decades.

But all good things must come to an end and, with more modern alternatives available that better represented the state of the automotive industry at the time, the Corsair’s usefulness as a classroom companion was over and it was promptly disposed of at a local breakers’ yard.

Lost and found

Luckily for the Corsair, this sudden turn of events didn’t spell the end for the car, but rather a new beginning, as it was eventually scooped up by Mk1 Cortina enthusiast, Steve Dean, who had grand plans to restore it to its former glory. At the time, Steve was a fully-qualified professional engineer, but his attraction to the Corsair began a few years earlier when he worked on the car as part of