1968 Ford Lotus Cortina - Lotus Cortina Mk2 Ex-Ove Andersson

The private Cortina belonging to Ford’s works rally driver

A comprehensive and fully documented history

One of only 4,093 Lotus Cortina Mk 2s ever built

Well known car among Lotus enthusiats

When Ford joined forces with Colin Chapman in 1963 to turn the rather humdrum Cortina into a sporting saloon, the recipe was as simple as it was effective: take a light, compact family car, transplant a Lotus-developed twin-cam engine and remove anything that merely got in the way of going quickly. The Lotus Cortina was ready. On the circuit, the formula worked so well that Jim Clark and his colleagues regularly went round corners on three wheels.

The second generation appeared in 1967. The new Cortina had become larger, squarer and more grown-up. The Lotus version, too, was now rather less ascetic. Instead of aluminium doors and elaborate special solutions, Ford relied more heavily on mass-production components. Nor was it built by Lotus any longer, but alongside the other Cortinas at Dagenham. That may have made it less exotic, but certainly not dull.

Under the bonnet, the most important ingredient remained: the 1.6-litre Twin Cam with two overhead camshafts and a pair of twin-choke carburettors. Around 110 bhp had little more than a tonne of car to contend with. There was also a close-ratio four-speed gearbox, front disc brakes and appropriately sporting suspension. A family saloon, certainly. Just one that was usually in rather a hurry.

Outwardly, the Lotus Cortina Mk2 was comparatively discreet. A few badges, sporting wheels and, initially, the characteristic green flash along its flanks had to suffice. Those not in the know could easily mistake it for a slightly dressed-up Cortina.

That impression changed rather quickly on racing circuits and rally stages. The Mk2 was more civilised than its predecessor and closer to the ordinary Ford. That was precisely its talent: from Monday to Friday it could carry the family wherever they needed to go. At the weekend, it could demonstrate why there was a Lotus badge on the boot lid.

A small note on an otherwise unremarkable sheet of paper reveals what makes this particular Cortina Mk2 special, quite apart from the fact that it is one of the quick Lotus Cortinas. In the top left-hand corner, beneath ‘Charge and ship to’, it reads: OVE ANDERSON, P.O BOX NO 2201, DANNEMORA SWEDEN. That whoever wrote the invoice at Dagenham was unfamiliar with the Swedish fondness for a double S in surnames – even when dealing with one of Ford’s own works drivers – can be forgiven. That Ove Andersson, while in Ford’s employ, still had to pay £500 for his own Cortina is perhaps a little more surprising. At least his employer picked up the insurance bill for XOO 260F, a registration typical of the works Cortinas, for one year.

Ove Andersson was, after all, one of the finest rally drivers of his era. Yet he showed considerable ability on the circuit as well as in his usual discipline. His greatest victories still lay ahead when he bought this Cortina in March. In 1971 he would win the Monte Carlo Rally in an Alpine-Renault, followed in 1975 by victory in Kenya’s Safari Rally with a Peugeot.

Before the twelve-month insurance policy had even expired, Andersson, who would remain with Ford’s works team until the end of 1970, sold the Lotus Cortina to a fellow Swede in his home town of Uppsala. Karl-Erik Svensson paid exactly the same for the used Cortina as Andersson had paid Ford. Except that he also had to pay the Swedish import duty. Another 2,945 kronor later, XOO 260F became C 70741.

Svensson kept the Lotus Cortina for a full three decades before another Swede, Nils Ebbe Ludvig Hansson, became its third owner on 2 February 2000. In 2010, the Cortina returned to the country of its birth, where it was reunited with its original registration, XOO 260F. It has been in Austria since 2014, although it has been treated in a rather inappropriate manner for a Lotus Cortina. Which in this case means that it has spent most of its time safely tucked away somewhere warm and dry. Hardly the natural habitat of a compact racer such as this.

A service before returning it to the road is therefore advisable. Ove Andersson’s connection with the car survives not only on paper, but also in its remarkably original specification. Most notably, there is the sports seat that the future rally master had fitted to his Cortina – a tangible reminder of this quite exceptional provenance.