your projects: scottish old skool
Family affair: Paul’s son, Craig (left)
is seriously into his old Fords, too.Paul’s Mk1 Fiesta
Which came first, the Fiesta or the Escort? “The
Fiesta. I wanted an Escort at the time — 2017
— but couldn’t afford one,” Paul admits, “then this
came up as a part-finished project, and it looked
like almost everything was there to finish it.”
It’s not a genuine Supersport, of course, but a
pretty good tribute that the previous owner was
well on the way to completing. “It was drivable,
just, but there was no interior. The engine’s a 2-litre
with an IB5 five-speed, and was on the standard
EFi, but I changed over to bike throttle bodies
pretty quickly. It’s running an old Mtech ECU which
is quite hard to get the software for, but luckily
Garry’s neighbour, who’s into racing BMWs, had it,
so he was able to map it for me.”
With the interior being one of the standout parts
of the Supersport, and therefore much in demand,
presumably that’s not been easy to sort?
“Yes, it’s taken a while. I tracked down some
Supersport seats that needed recovering, and
have since bought two rolls of Carla check cloth
material from a guy called Carla Craig on Facebook.
It’s sat in my house at the moment, waiting for the
right time to do it.”
“Even though the car’s a rolling project, it’s been
brilliant. It’ll sit happily on the motorway all day at
70 and more than looks the part.”Paul managed to track down the correct Carla
check seats and is about to get them retrimmed.September 2019 11Paul bought this Supersport tribute part-finished
and is slowly bringing it up to show standard.