Ford Cortina Mk2

Launched 18 October 1966 with softer suspension and a smaller turning circle, and Britain’s most popular new car in 1967. It started on the 1298cc with the 1.5-litre carried over briefly, and a 1098cc existed for tax-sensitive export markets. Then September 1967, and the Kent crossflow in 1298cc and 1599cc. This is the divide on the car. The crossflow moved the combustion chamber out of the cylinder head and into the top of the piston — a Heron chamber — and put inlet and exhaust on opposite sides. Heads, manifolds and pistons do not interchange with the pre-crossflow engine. If you are ordering a gasket set or pistons, the build date matters more than the badge.

In October 1967 came the 1600E, which took the lowered suspension of the Lotus Cortina and put it under the high-tune GT 1600 crossflow, with a burr walnut dash, factory-welded radius rod brackets and Lotus-type strengthening plates in the shell — so a 1600E shell is not a standard shell. The Lotus Cortina Mk2, 1967–70 and 4,093 built, runs the 1,557/1,558cc twin-cam at 109bhp with 2000E gearbox ratios, the Mk2 GT remote change and a 3.77:1 final drive against the Mk1’s 3.9:1. Two things separate it from the Mk1 car: it has the GT leaf-sprung rear from the start — there is no A-bracket Mk2 — and it is all steel with no alloy panels. It was also built in-house by Ford at Dagenham, not by Lotus.