Escort madness!

[GeeRam]

so I always had something new to run about in till I got an old Mk 1 Cortina 1500 GT.

Total death trap looking back on it but once again, TONS of fun in and with it

A mate of mine back in the mid 80's had a dark green Mk.1 GT......was pretty ropey condition by then, but as you say great fun.
The wife of another good mate, she had a Mk.1 Lotus-Cortina around the same time, when you could still pick up rough ones for 1500 quid or so.

Another mate from those days who I've stayed in touch with over nearly 40 years, only recently just sold a mint show condition Mk.1 2 door GT that he bought a couple of years ago, again in the rare dark green colour........sold it for £27k back in Feb.

[Chuck]

Those were the days when all you needed was a couple of spanners and a hammer to do any repair job on your humble bolide.

One of my clients had an Angia with a souped up Lotis Twin Cam in it: bubble arches, stripped out interior, straight through exhaust, c/r box and final drive to suit. It was the dogs bits...and it was a flier...revved to just under 9000 RPM apparently.

WIth the rally Avengers, one could find in any field an early 1200 which had a close ratio gear box and lower rear axle whuich helped transform the Avenger 1500 GT's...

When I think of the cars I passed up, scrapped or sold instead of storing I could cry!

[GeeRam]

When I think of the cars I passed up, scrapped or sold instead of storing I could cry!

I certainly wish I hadn't had to scrap my factory black RS2000 some 35 years ago, and wished I hadn't then had to sell my Escort Twin Cam 30-something years ago.......and then sell my Sunbeam-Lotus 15 odd years ago.....but, they were decisions that had to be made at the time.

They were good times though.

[shoppe]

if ONLY we all had kept our cars from years ago!
heres a few of mine
Mk1 escort 1300 sport.M reg bought as road car but converted to rally spec ( i did the scottish rally championship in it round about 1980)

MK2 escort 1300cc , built to do road rallies

Peugeot 309xsi, It was quite rare 2 door at the time. I think there is only about 5 left on the road now.

Ford cortina 2000 ghia.

Sunbeam lotus Mk2 W reg. Did a few hill climbs and heaps of road rallies. I am pretty sure it was the first mk2 in the north of Scotland. I traveled down to Exeter to buy it, was it from Fenwicks?

106 Rallye series 1, Bought new and traded in for the GTI

106 GTI Bought new miami blue colour

W reg Subaru impreza bought as road car when only it was months old , sold about a year later , drunk too much super leaded petrol !

Still got my tarmac spec106 rally car for class up to 1400cc, its got 152 hp , it goes very well and is currently up for sale
We won the Scottish tarmac championship in 2005 with it

IF ONLY !!!!

[GeeRam]

Sunbeam lotus Mk2 W reg. Did a few hill climbs and heaps of road rallies. I am pretty sure it was the first mk2 in the north of Scotland. I traveled down to Exeter to buy it, was it from Fenwicks?

Close......it was Renwicks of Exeter.

It's nice there's so many ex-motorsport people on here

I always get a little nostalgic at this time of year, as we're into the traditional RAC Rally week at this time of year....before rallying got ruined of course

[Chuck]

GeeRam / Shoppe

I neve rhad the luxury of fast rally cars, they were 100% reliable but always lacked the power.

In saying that, when that old cine was taken at Knockhill we were taking time off a TR7V8 - much to the annoyance of its occupants

The manta was sponsored for a while by my employer: I wanted an Ascona 400 (affordable) they wanted a "new" car - hence the Manta Coupe.

We finished EVERY event, whether road or stage, in any weather. Funny that on my last event we retired with a diff issue - diagnosed by our service crew.

Halfway back to Glasgow the noise was unbearable and we couldn't go over 40 mph.. A quick dive under the car and a good battering with a hammer saw the diff mounts neatly back in place...and it ran like train for months after that as a road car...and no noise.

Cue one unemployed service member!

What we lacked in power we made up for with reliability and car prep, good driving - and keeping the right foot down - sometimes when it was a really bad idea.

Ah the good old days - before you needed a mortgage to buy a half decent car! Just very glad I did it.

[shoppe]

Aye, your right .it was Renwicks.

I almost smashed it when leaving the garage forecourt after picking it up.

I gave it a good bit of wellie and of course it just took off, i changed into second and just spotted the traffic lights were at red!!!
I swore and stood on the brake pedal as hard as I could

The brakes certainly worked as I locked up the wheels , smoke pouring from the tyres BUT just stopped inches from the car in front.

Fu -- i thought to myself that was close!!

When we did the tarmac rallies in the 106, we were known for keeping the speed up when cornering and also in the wet
Shoppe

[shoppe]

Chuck, we did a good few rallies at Knockhill but we did not like it too much.
It just did not seem to flow very well for us ( the wife was the navigator)

The best tarmac rallies we entered were the Jim Clark and any rally at the Otterburn ranges.

We really loved the Otterburn ranges as the average speeds were very high.The speeds on the Jim clark were also high

On most of the Otterburn rallies , the last stage was called " A the way roon" ( to be said in a geordie accent )

It as just over 22 miles long and went all the way round the ranges.
Some times we did this stage twice, just magic
Shoppe

[Chuck]

Shoppe, when did you do Knockhill? What were you driving at the time?

We always had a great time there: we usually stayed the night before in the Gartwhinzean with the girlfriend and co-driver - and really way too much beer - with the other crews

My co-driver had a nasty habit of just getting me into the first corner (in any rally) then sat back and enjoyed the ride - just the occasional comment when he got nervous..

We did a good few at Knockhill but also down the Borders and into Cumbria - the Cumbrian events were usually more fun for some reason..

Here's some video again:

https://vimeo.com/266184859

The opening clip is the second event we did in the Manta in 1986 at Knockhill - we'd only had it a couple of weeks. Other events were the Festival Stages, can't remember the rest but we were at Duns, Great Orton, Little Orton (1st clip I think - SOLWAY STAGES)) My very first stage rally was at Hadrians camp - we did that in the original Avenger


It was mainly single venue events we did (we always drove there and back in the rally car ) but we did a couple of multi venues too - those were fun. Did a cracker of a road rally in the snow that kicked of in Eaglesham - LOADS of snow!

The video kicks of in 1986 so depending when you were competing you may be in somewhere - maybe you'll recognise the Manta?

We never got to Otterburn but heard loads of stories about it

Sometimes all did not go as planned: I drove this home from Inverkip after we "retired with a stone in the radiator"! Well that's what i told the missus, she went mental when she saw the car

This was an "ABSOLUTE LONG FAST RIGHT..............(dum de dum into 4th).........................MAYBE! CAUTION - TIGHTENS TO SQUARE RIGHT, SLIPPERY! >>>> BANG!!!!!!!! Thank God for dry stane dykes or I'd have ended up in the field

We'd stripped it right back to the bare shell, welded it up and rebuilt it - the two spot lamps were borrowed..oh well, should have called the bend correctly then shouldn't you !

Yeah, good fun back then for sure

Chuck

[GeeRam]

Otterburn, heard many a tale of there, a few of the more financially flush guys in my motor club ventured up there from darn south, but the equivalent to Otterburn down here were the similar military ranges of Epynt in South Wales.

I only ever nav'd for a couple of multi venue events, not many suitable locations down here that didn't involve a major trek somewhere, but one area was actually now near where I now live, and in and around Yately and Bagshot forest areas, and the other was down near Ringwood in Hants.
Generally as Chuck, it was single venue's when I preformed my role as 'left hand seat ballast'.

I did a couple of road rallies as driver in my Mini 1000 back when I was in my teens, but quickly realised the risk was too great, with only the road outside my parents house to do all work and repairs, and needing the car for getting to work.
That's why left hand seat ballast and handling the spanners for others as service crew became my rally fix, although I did use one of my RS2's to drive the Chief Marshall to open the CP's on one of our motor club road rallies in the mid 80's before they died out down here. Wasn't car zero, but I did have to press on quite a bit to keep ahead of car zero running behind..which was interesting in a non-prepared car I'm sure what we did was called something, but I can't remember.

Anyway, here's me providing left hand seat ballast on a SV for a good mate in his Mk.2 at Enstone airfield in 1988...