The town and surrounding county of Orange, Virginia, home of James Madison’s Montpelier estate, is a bit off the beaten path—a ways north of Charlottesville, and considerably further southwest of Washington, DC—but should you ever find yourself there, I promise you’ll be surrounded by some of the loveliest American pastoral scenery there is. In case you need a reason to make this trip, I present to you this neat little project, a Ford Cortina Mk. I Estate, spotted by readers Ian C. and Levi Andrus, and available here on craigslist for just $1,500.
The Virginia countryside is an appealing setting for this little wagon, but there’s no denying it is a project. The body seems quite straight and the seller avers that “All the trim is present”—a good thing with a rare car like this—but there’s likely some rust repair even more serious than what we can see here to be done. The car’s structural condition is a bit of a mystery. Less so is its mechanical state: it has no engine. This makes it a bit of a blank canvas; find a replacement for its original 60-HP, 1,498-cc inline four if you can (and if you don’t mind keeping to the right lane), find a twin-cam, 1,557-cc version as breathed upon by Lotus for 105 HP if you’re even more resourceful and build a one-of-none Cortina Lotus wagon, or see if a modern powerplant, such as one of Ford’s EcoBoost turbo fours, will fit.
Imported from Ford’s English arm from 1963 to 1970, the Cortina was more an import fighter than a junior Falcon, so even in wagon form it offers front bucket seats and a simple but driver-focused instrument layout, augmented here by some kind of auxiliary gauge that unfortunately seems to have been hacked into the center of the dashboard. Despite its diminutive size—this wagon is fully thirty inches shorter than the smallest American-built ’67 Ford Falcon wagon—there’s a reasonable amount of interior space and a folding rear seat for extra wagon utility. I know a happy owner of multiple Cortinas who is quite tall and broad-shouldered and has no problem comfortably driving his cars.
If this unusual little wagon seems like the project for you—or if it seems like a convenient excuse for a trip to hit some beautiful Virginia backroads—the time to jump on it may be now. The seller plans to continue to work on the car, increasing the price as improvements are made, so if you have an idea of how you’d put your stamp on it, act fast—and share your plans in the comments!
“The seller plans to continue to work on the car, increasing the price as improvements are made”
If the seller genuinely was going to fix the car, would it be sitting in their driveway covered in dirt?
Didn’t even know they made cortina sw
Ford Ranger running gear would make a good transplant.
Take a look at the rear end pic. Is that an Avanti I see?
Yip an avanti in the background well spotted
The rear end treatment looks like a cross between a VW squareback and a Austin Mini Clubman. This is located in my old stomping ground. Wouldn’t be surprised if the tin worm continues to eat at the underside if it sits too close to the ground.
Good spot on the Avanti. It’s good to know others like to spot what’s in the background as much as I do. New site, What’s kept in the nice garage finds
This would make a cool Lotus wagon.
It is already white (I think it is white), it is just missing the green stripe, Oh yeah, and the engine.
Looks to be sitting down at the back at bit. Check the spring hangers…
That’s only about two hours North of here.
I’m tempted to go have a look.
You must be pretty close to me then, I am in Amherst.
Anyway, as soon as I saw it, I automatically thought Eco-boost and get it presentable enough to daily drive it. I just don’t see it being financially responsible to restore it.
For $1500, I’m surprised the listing is not down already.
Might be a challenging project, depending on the condition of the underside, but unique and cool, whether stock or modded.
It’s a ’66 – ’67’s were MK II’s.
The MKII wagon I used to own.
Looks like my ’69 Cortina sedan I had. Think it was $1,800 brand new. Good like cars!
And a MGB GT in the background, accompanied by lots of other old Pommie tinware ….. love it!
You know, my research more or less supports that, but I also have a book that states that the Mk. II went on sale in the U.S. around February of 1967, making it possible that this was a late ’66 sold and titled in early ’67 or something like that. Sometimes I feel like I spend too much time arguing or finding fault with the ads I write up, so I decided to try and balance my karma this time by letting the possible inaccuracy slide!
Your research is correct,Happened a lot back then with left over cars being sold as one year newer.
same here – I have a 64 titled as a 66. Supposedly that’s when it came state-side
Reflecting back on childhood in Toledo in the 60s and 70s, I wonder why we didn’t seem to have any Cortinas or Anglias around. Even living right there by Detroit, we had an ample supply of Renaults, Simcas, Sunbeams, Austin Americas, MGs, Triumphs, Austin Healys, Opels, Toyotas, Datsuns, Honda 600s and the like to supplement the old VWs that made up the majority of our small imports of that era.
It would be a great car to put a big motor in! I wished that a person could see under that hood tho #
A Ford 289 will go in there. Forget Lotus twink unless you want to add $15000 to the purchase price. You can easily get more bhp from a modern 4 cylinder anyway, in EU a Zetec and 5 speed would probably be the way to go.
They did these with fake wood as well, ultra rare these days.
The Ford ” Cologne” 2.8 V6 would be a nice touch – unfortunately, the later and larger variants of that engine are hard to upgrade, due to a lack of aftermarket parts like intake manifolds. A 2.3 Turbo as used in the SVO Mustang and Thunderbird might be a lot of fun, coupled to a decent 5 speed. It would sure shock a lot of unsuspecting folks. I wonder if these have the same tendency to lift the inside front wheel as the Lotus Cortina ? First time I ever saw Jackie Stewart drive was in a Lotus Cortina at Laguna Seca – less than a foot from the hay bales exiting the turn 9 hairpin, inside front wheel about a foot off the ground every single lap.
Neat oh………
Tim did a write up on one of these “lotus-ised” I believe last year in Classic Motorsports. Quite nice
Had one of these in mid 80’s back in New Zealand. Had a different dash and cluster. I think it was called a Cortina “Consul.” Blew the motor up in it eventually. It was a crap car. Paid NZ$600 for it which was a little steep in 1985. Was cop bait too. Young New Zealanders of questionable ethics and morals liked these as hoon-mobiles.