Classic Ford – September 2019

September 2019 59

ome owners put their cars on trailers, to

best preserve them for concours

competition. Some owners don’t. Jim

Scott is definitely in category two. Alpina Green

with a spotless, matching interior, his 1966

Cortina 1200 Deluxe takes dozens of trophies

every year, yet it’s driven to every show it

attends. “I don’t believe in trailers,” he laughs,

“Ford put wheels on my Cortina. It’s meant to

be used.” It’s an ethos that’s carried the car past

204,000 miles — and Jim doesn’t plan to stop

any time soon.

Short of an odometer reading, there’s no way

to tell that this Cortina has been twice around

its space-age clocks. The Ford hasn’t always

been so clean. When Jim first saw the car, back

in 1990, the Cortina exhibited wear from its

first quarter century and 60,000 miles. “This

one came up through our local car club,” he

remembers. “It was a one owner example and it

looked OK at first.” Back in Jim’s garage, reality

looked very different. Corrosion had claimed

the jacking points, the chassis leg drops, the rear

of the valence and much of the floor, prompting

a full restoration.

The process would take two years. Jim began

by stripping the Cortina back to a bare shell and

shotblasting the basic structure, before

commencing the search for replacement panels.

Crossmembers and jacking panels were easily

sourced but, in a market with far fewer

specialists than today, Jim and his brother were

compelled to remake many components from

scratch. Starting with paper templates, which

were then transposed into steel and welded into

place, the pair spent spare weekends and

evenings re-establishing the Deluxe’s structure.

Foundational work complete, the car then

received the first of two resprays. The latter

— completed by a Ford dealership in Penrith

— is still on the car today. Over 25 years after it

was first applied, the solid hue remains pristine

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