The LAST Ford Cortina GT Wagon Known to Exist & Other Rare Cars _ Barn Find Hunter

I found this one in a barn in Pennsylvania .

As my eyes adjusted , I realised that the gauge pack is completely different than my 66 the chassis plate confirms that it was so far the one and only left hand drive G T wagon .

Wow , If you want to be a serious barn hunter , you've got to wear it on your chest every day .

Walk to walk , talk to talk .

If you go to dinner with somebody , talk about old cars .

What I do is go to car shows and cars and coffee .

And so I happened to meet Andy the other day at a place called Past Diners , which is on Woodward Avenue in Bloomfield Hills , Michigan .

Now we've never found in eight years of barn fight hunting this programme .

We've never seen a Rover sedan .

Can you tell us about the car ?

Well , I'm surprised you haven't come across one because most of the most of the remaining ones are in barns or fields somewhere .

But , uh , they they are fairly rare .

Significant quantity of them , or a reasonable quantity of them were imported during the sixties while they got rave reviews .

When they first came out , particularly from motor train and road and track .

The after sale service wasn't really up to par , and so the people that loved them and bought them didn't love them for very long .

So here is this car .

This is a 71 .

This is the last year that the P six was sold in North America .

It's actually a Series two car .

The the series ones had a horizontal chrome grill and a much plainer hood and the V eights , and the four cylinders had different hoods .

This is the combined hood from a Series two with the more aggressive front end .

No .

So this is a four cylinder .

It's overhead cam .

It's a four cylinder overhead cam .

Yes , two litres .

125 Horse .

Now the V eight would have been The V eight was 3.5 litre .

It's the X B 8 , 215 and that was rated in this application , I think , at 149 hours .

So how long have you had this one ?

I've had this since 2016 .

It was repainted just before I got it .

A French car dealer had acquired it down south , but prior to that it spent the vast majority of its life in the French Mari teams .

It was ordered new in Germany by a Canadian serviceman brought back with him , kicked around the Ottawa Toronto area for a good many years before moving out to New Brunswick and Newfoundland .

And I know you've got the the the The Herald , too , right ?

I do .

That's right .

And one or two others you would you like to see ?

I would .

Before we take a look at this dusty barn find , I want to mention if you enjoy our YouTube videos and have been wondering how you could help support their creation .

Consider joining the Haggerty Drivers Club , which includes a subscription to Haggerty magazine , unlimited access to our Valuation tool , exclusive offers and rewards with reputable brands in the automotive industry .

24 7 Roadside Assistance with flatbed towing , early access and VIP perks to select Haggerty member events and unlimited classified listings with no additional fees .

We also offer a free 60 day trial .

You can find the link in the description below .

Oh man , Oh , wow .

I've died and gone to heaven .

So the when I met Andy today .

This is the car he had at the car as a coffee .

Can we show people how this absolutely .

If you can swing the latch there and voila !

A beautiful seat perfectly placed for you to look at the engine .

Oh , I love it .

Sit right on the wheel and do a valve adjustment .

The Triumph , Spitfire and the Herald and the had this flip up and accessibility was easy .

And for race cars , you could just unpin it , put the hood over there somewhere and really have access to it , right ?

So is that a triumph ?

Sports car engine ?

Absolutely .

The Herald was the platform that provided the running gear and modified frame for the Spitfire .

So it's the same engine transmission rear end as the Spitfire .

The carpets are being replaced , and the white paint , I think , is being redone .

But it is exactly the factory paint scheme , and the rest of the car is completely original .

So you're saying the black is black ?

Is 1963 paint ?

Yes , at the top .

That's original .

That's original , and so are the seats .

39,000 707 miles .

Yeah , I've been using it a lot lately , I've never owned a Cortina .

But I I am a Cortina enthusiast .

And , you know , Jimmy Clark raced them and tell us why what this is and then explain a lotus Cortina .

OK , this is a Ford Cortina deluxe station wagon .

Absolutely .

You might get spiked by a piece of spring wear , but otherwise Yeah , So this has got a four cylinder .

This is a four cylinder .

It's the pre cross flow being a mark one Cortina , the 62 to 66 variant .

It has the , um , the variant with the intake and exhaust on the same side of the head , 1600 Kent engines had a cross flow system with the intake and exhaust on opposite sides for better breathing .

And then the variant with a Cortina , uh , Lotus Cortina .

What was that ?

That was a , uh it was actually released before the G T , which was the higher performance version of this , but it didn't come out till afterwards because of production issues .

But it was a Ford provided body shell with Colin Chapman's twin overhead cam conversion on the 1500 cc .

Pre cross flow block .

Very successful , rather fragile , expensive to repair this is an unrestored car .

This looks like original finish , Isn't it ?

Completely Yes , it's a South Carolina car .

And I got it from a young lady in northern Michigan who found it , uh , at a restoration shop that had been using as a shop hack in South Carolina .

He he had driven .

He drove this up and down 75 a number of times between his home in Carolina and his home in Michigan .

So was this Is this a driver of yours ?

Yes .

I have occasionally slept in this at various race events .

So the bed is just long enough .

I've got mosquito screens , custom made to go in the side , windows and everything .

This is cool .

This is absolutely my wife's favourite car .

I could get rid of everything else in here , but I couldn't touch this .

Yep .

This is the stuff that gets my attention .

This is what barn front Hunter is all about .

We have three cortinas in a row here .

Wagon and two sedans .

Correct .

Are these restoration projects ?

They will be ?

Yes .

This one actually runs or did run .

Last time I had it out .

Very , very local car .

The the original owner is still alive , I believe at 100 and two .

Oh , it's just a matter of time and space and everything else .

This is just a bare body shell , but it's pretty straight other than a lot of of minor dings .

And was that a race car ?

No , I think somebody was just turning it into a Jim Clark look alike .

OK , OK , yeah , but the the green wagon in the corner is is rather special because you were talking outside about a lotus Cortina wagon that's actually a G T wagon .

And Ford never officially made G T Mark one wagons .

The Ford factory records have long since been lost for Cortinas .

However , the Owners Club collected oral testimony in the eighties from people who worked on the line , which confirmed that one , possibly two batches of 25 right hand drive G T wagons were built for the police force in Kenya .

Wow , this obviously is left hand drive , so that throws a further curveball .

The thought is that they actually made an unknown quantity , maybe as few as five for the Mounties to test in Canada .

I found this one in a barn in Pennsylvania , and I didn't I was just after the screen because I cracked the screen in that one .

I happened to be going to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving , so I stopped off on the way to look at this .

It was completely dark , but I felt my way around the screen , cut the screen out .

As my eyes adjusted , I realised that the gauge pack is completely different than my 66 .

So I snapped a flash picture in the dark and sent it off to the owners club and didn't think much more of it .

And they come back with congratulations .

We heard this car existed , but no one's ever seen it .

And then when I went back to collect the rest of the car because , of course , by that point I decided I wanted it .

I was able to clear the front off enough to lift the hood , and the chassis plate confirms that it was so far the one and only left hand drive GT wagon .

The G T .

Was a intermediary model between the Cortina Santa Cortina and a lotus Cortina , which had the twin cam motor .

So this had was it a 1600 cc push rod motor ?

This is a 1500 cc .

Pre cross flow push rod .

Yeah .

OK , I got it .

So you've got an e type over here ?

I do .

So we haven't seen an e type since this morning ?

No .

Well , I'm sure his is nicer than mine .

But this is the one that everyone gravitates to in here .

They also .

Well , why don't you put all the others away and concentrate on this one ?

The other is a Series one .

It's a series 13.8 with the rather unusual option .

I can't call it an option .

I guess it's off the market , but it's got triple webbs instead of triple S U .

So this seems complete and solid .

It is very solid .

Yes .

Will you restore this ?

I probably will , just because it's too expensive otherwise .

But it's getting to be that point where if you're paying somebody $100 an hour , you could be upside down in no time .

No time at all .

Yeah , it looks a lot worse than it is , actually .

Oh , that's a new car .

Yeah .

So where does this fall in your lineup of projects ?

Oh , everybody asked me that , and I I have no idea .

Half of these I never actually went out to look for .

I just came across them and thought , Well , I like that .

Well , this is like a little gem hidden in an industrial park .

Uh , no signs out front .

And in fact , if you didn't have your rover park there , I could have driven right by it .

Thanks .

Thanks so much for inviting us over .

We're really happy .

I met you at cars and coffee .