danthecapriman

Wasn’t there also a company car tax thing going on at the time? Which favoured smaller engined cars. I’ve read somewhere that Volvo sold significantly more 2.0 700 series cars at that time because of this, the only marginally bigger 2.3 engines were in a higher bracket so were a bit less popular for fleet buyers. Cracking car btw, great to see it saved! For one of these the rust doesn’t look too bad at all, especially considering the outstanding mileage on it.

I was going to say, how the hell is that a 51 reg!

Looking superb. Can’t wait to see the blue going on!

I had a 340 with that same engine (mounted longitudinal - RWD) and it developed a similar issue. On mine it was a heavily corroded HT lead terminal on the dizzy cap. Worth checking the leads, cap and rotor arm.

Same here. It’d be fantastic to see it saved and repaired. Mind you, it’d have great if some twat hadn’t ruined it to begin with!

As I said, I’d love to be proven wrong. I just can’t see it happening. I’ve seen better condition yanks go to the oval before now… Racers will pay more than you think for an unusual or rare car to race. How much is this up for?

I don’t doubt it ‘could’ be fixed, most things can be, but it’s not just a rear quarter. You’ll need a new quarter panel, all the now missing or bent chrome/brightwork, possibly repairs to the trunk lid, any bent quarter frame/inner wing metal will need replacement or straightening, there’s almost certainly going to be rust repairs needed given the overall appearance of the rest of the car… it becomes a bigger list than the obvious. Plus, most if not all the bits will need to come from the US so that adds shipping and taxes. And if I’m honest here, given the place this car lives in I’m not sure the owner is likely to be very flush! Id love to see it get done, I’d give it a go myself if it were mine, but it’s unfortunately got the look of a car that was a bit rough anyway and now it’s suffered the collision damage and parts robbery I think it’s days are going to be numbered. It’ll probably sit for a year or three under the cat piss tarp slowly rusting even more, then who knows. Oval? Engine donor for something then scrap? I don’t fancy it’s chances sadly. Id love to be proven wrong though!

Sadly, I can see this turning up on the oval at some point soon. It really doesn’t look in a good way.

You’ll massively improve the cars gas mileage too if you keep grinding out all that plop! The thickness and sheer amount of filler must be adding an awful lot of weight! It’s similar to what I found on my Capri, someone had replaced the rear arches way back whenever but instead of cutting the old ones off and seam welding new ones in they just cut the old rotten edges back then put the new arches over the top and tack welded them in place (lap jointed!) then plastered the rear quarters in filler to hide the joint. The thickness of the filler in places was incredible. How it didn’t just fall off under its own weight I don’t know! Anyway, keep it up. It’ll be a great car once your done.

How did you find getting the board out of the car? It can be a shit bag on saloons! Be interesting to see how you get on with this.

The very first mk2 Fiesta’s were on A plates. Pretty scarce though now. I had a B reg 1.3 Ghia in Paris blue metallic, with a huge Black Death tide mark around its lower sections! It was pretty well equipped for a small car of that age too, I’m sure it had an economy light on the dash too! Mine had the 1300 cvh engine in it which absolutely flew in such a light car! Sadly it died of terminal rot like most of them did. Great spot though, it’s always good to see an old car looking like that running around still.

Great looking car! Always had a soft spot for a Cortina! Agree with Eddy on the tyres, 185/70 is the size to go for on a 5.5x13 rim (I assume these new rims are 5.5) Ive got a set on my Capri which has the 5.5x13 dartboard style wheels. They look well in that size imho.

And a chain steering wheel!

You absolutely must fit those!

I think it’ll be the same as ever here - current 95 unleaded (E5) pumps will simply be re-labelled as 95 unleaded (E10). Current super unleaded pumps will stay as they are - no Ethanol or E5. I had a look on the gov website earlier at mine and was surprised to find the Volvo, despite its age, can use E10 fine (almost all Volvo models since 1976 can) the others can’t. Not sure about the Mercury though as it’s not listed! Im going to use super unleaded whenever it’s available from now tbh, I’ll just stick some ethanol additives in for the times I can’t. I don’t think it’s going to be a particularly big deal really.