1966 Lotus Cortina - Jay Leno's Garage

because I think about these in black and white I don't think it's all the fingers will black and white and black and white oh it has a more gritty purposeful feel welcome to the episode of Jay Leno's Garage well it's finally finished this is the 1966 lotus cortina now if your follow of this program you've seen in the restoration blog this is a car our chief fabricator Jim Hall has been working on for quite a while he bought it is pretty much a basket case he restarted in his spare time here at the shop and Jim is a perfectionist so he's done a wonderful job a few things still need the windshield wipers and the bumpers put on but other than that it's pretty much well I think it's better than whenever it left the factory let's bring Jim in Jim congratulations looks good Thank You Jay yeah yeah it's really terrific you know Jim is a real lotus man from way back he did our 26r he engineered that one that's a fantastic car heavily modified but this one you put back to totally stock right yes I fuel things are not stocky to ask you you want to do a resto mod on it and it's like no try to put it just the way it left the factory yeah and I had to go to you into buying this I remember you were sort of say on the fence I actually I remember when you brought a magazine in and you showed me this car was on the cover of the magazine and you said you have to buy that car now that's right yeah but now let's get the story of the car because the car sat for 30 30 years in Manhattan Beach in a garage okay down by the sea which yeah good and it had been they stripped it apart to turn it into a race car right and then lost interest and it just went around different garages I'm sure it was outside left out in the rain and it is a real Lotus Cortina let's explain what that is because the Cortina was the low budget Ford in England primarily it yeah this is a homologation special drive I mean that Ford in England wanted to go racing in order to do that they had to build a thousand cars to a specification that would allow him to win races right but they took the American equivalent might be the Ford Falcon let's yeah so they took their grocery-getter car and made it a hot rod made it a race car they went well went to Lotus right Colin Chapman made lots of changes to the suspension course the engine the gearbox the rear-end all that was changed and the cars came out of Dagenham as a shell right they then went to Lotus and they finished building the cars and let's explain there was another car called the Cortina GT which Ford sold as sort of a replica version of it but it really wasn't that was not a Lotus either that was a Cortina that was just a model you know had an extra 20 horsepower right a few things but this one was the real deal the real Lotus engine I remember how hard you work trying to get this color correct because that's another one of these deals as always rural where the green came from some sell Lotus had leftover paint from the Air Force and he used that I mean I've heard all these rumors but I think you match it about as good as anybody could I of mine had a quart of paint left over from the 60s and he loaned it to me I still could spray it out and that's how he matched it I like he loaned it to you so how do you pay it back after you use the thing here's an empty can let me get it empty can back but so so that's as I said Jim's a perfectionist and he wanted to get it exactly as it was back in the day and I remember seeing of course the legendary Jim Clark driving these and this seems so exotic when I was a teenager I mean everything has twin cams now on a force be they're even five or six feet but back in the day this just seems so cool and exotic well I did see one in the day my dad I talked him into taking me to a car race in Marlboro Maryland and the car on the pole was one of these yeah and it was being driven by Jackie Stewart who of course later became world champion and one of the most famous race drivers ever sure and I guess that imprinted you know it's like oh that's probably what what's this car here today he was where that started and how did you come about go about finding this car in Manhattan Beach headed to come well a friend of mine had it and every now and then it's like oh I got this car you should buy it and then every time when I talk to him it's like oh well a guy in you know some other state wanted to buy it somebody else was gonna buy and it just kept going on and I mentioned it to you and it's like Jim you gotta buy that car kind of right right now we have to go there right now and get that yeah yeah was there some initial because you know there those different stages of restoration the elation of getting the car the realization what I have to do this huge depression it sets in when you realize how much is wrong with it because it took a lot to get this back today well and and when I got it all the picture because I didn't see it personally right it's just all these pictures when you look at the pictures and then it's like oh this is pretty good and it's like yeah you know I about 400 hours of work I can have this thing back on the road it's been four thousand yeah it was funny that I was just doing this paint trying to get this color correct cuz I don't know how many greens we went through and then you take it out in the light and now that's wrong you know and even the white is this Wimbledon white is that sort of similar to that yeah okay I mean they used it here it's called Wimbledon and white I don't remember if like on Mustangs if they had Wimbledon white or something Hill Shelby did yeah yeah that was probably the easiest thing because it's a known color right and they were able to match it can we open the hood let's start at the front of the car okay you know old cars you don't have pull cables or any of that sort of stuff as you can see Jim has done a wonderful job this engine bay is about a stock with the exception of you have the dual master cylinders now this came with a single I had a friend when the power booster failed he instantly had no brakes at all Ryan it was like you know what a dual system is good if something fails on one brake line you still have brakes but it's beautifully done I mean it's great to see it as as it was this seems so exotic I mean the carburetors are almost bigger than the engine which is kind of interesting and to see the original airbox and all of that is kind of cool because most people put the little air cleaners on which look cool in the day but it's been a long time since I seen the original one like that and it's just nice to see all these fittings of proper I mean just beautifully blue beautifully done and what's the horsepower on this originally it was like a hundred and twenty okay we've got 144 out of this one cuz we dynode it okay and we're looking at what 2300 pounds 22 maybe this is probably mm Oh mm okay the cars as they originally left the factory we're about 1850 Wow they had an alloy hood and alloy doors had alloy rear decklid oh and some other alloy pieces where by the time they got to the 66 model it's like they used up all that stuff yeah they'd fulfilled their thousand cars that had to have all of that right and I'll total of these they built about 3,000 these left-hand drive cars there were only a 220 oh that's all huh and it's hard to know how many are left right because lots rusted out and went to scrap yards right and when you got this there was nothing in this engine bay correct it was you you just got the shell yeah when we rolled it out of the trailer and my wife Rachel was there you said you should have seen the look on Rachel's face yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah this it oh look what I bought honey yeah yeah it didn't look like my butt but it looks great now that's that's all it counts it's like a relationship you have to work yeah but it looks just beautiful just great well stock headers and they almost look like headers aren't they they are they are they are headers I mean that's their Factory their factory headers right right there's mild steel headers just like they originally were now is that a starter button at the end of the solenoid it is yeah in this case I'm actually using this as a junction box right so I have a pre-engagement starter it has its own solenoid but I just left the original one there no that looks great okay let's close up the hood and we'll move around the vehicle a little bit to make Jim feel good as working on whenever I saw a load of cell for a high price at auction I would take a picture and I would send it to him and then he would show it to his wife look how much they're worth now yeah so that I think that helps a little and the mirror was white not Chrome yeah yeah that's interesting and you know the most beautiful steering wheel to me just classic steering well that's not stock correct that's not stock I mean somebody sold the steering wheel I'm sure out of this car right they're really expensive to get in the original one okay so this is a moto leader right and it it's the same style it's the same three spoke and openings in the wheel and of course these windows are fixed yeah on this is the air flow model right which they in their advertisements it's almost as good as air conditioning so there are little eyeball vents on the dash so the fresh air comes in and then is ducted through and comes out of these vents at the back so on a cold day it's almost like having air conditioning yeah and of course I like the painted wheels with kind of the wells are quite dog dish hubcaps are pretty close yeah and then that's what they came with lots of people put mag wheels on them you know hey mag wheels are really cool are the mini lights - yeah and of course the badge the lotus cortina badge right here which is just in England that's like seeing that Hemi badge in America it just gave you a you know well it that's also one of the ways where you may be able to tell if it was a counterfeit car yeah because the only Cortinas that had those two holes drilled in that spot were Lotus Cortinas oh okay didn't know that and other things that's some of the other models had chrome trim down the side of the car and so sometimes people if they're trying to counterfeit one of these like they would other valuable cars right you can look behind the panel and you can see welded up holes and things let's solve in the trunk looks like it's a pretty good size that's one of the great things about this car it's a really large drug it's you know it's a family person's car right right you could you know you can go camping in this car and it's got a full-size spare which is interesting which is you know what see anymore but it's nice I mean if you are a family guy and you wanted a sporty car this is what you got yeah this is as fast as anything else it was out there was certainly faster than MGS or triumphs or any of those things when you say yeah and of course those iconic taillights those are great I remember the when Jim Clark was driving this is the only thing you'll see you know and a lot of other people use these taillights didn't make a lot of race cars use them because if they wanted to race it LeMond or something they had to have working taillights right so it's like oh this is a Ford part they built millions of Cortinas and this thing was not rust proof and you've got it I mean it looks beautiful now battering the trunk as you can see but there is period battery too unless it looks like this wasn't as bad a rust bucket as I've seen on the Internet yeah it was close it was close and we didn't know that yeah I mean when you saw the car when it first came it's like Oh paint looked pretty good there was a little rust in the corner here by where the battery lid right yeah and it's like oh you know we can fix that we can cut that middle out stitch a little in spot spray it right good it's like good no yeah it took a lot of work you know so it went to media blasting and when it came back it was like yeah that was a kind of a low point yeah with Swiss Jesus I remember yeah yeah because these just rust two years you had rust yeah yeah I mean they weren't galvanized steel they didn't Ziebart it or any that stuff back in it and I don't know the history on this car we think it came out of Oregon yeah you know and so it's like okay it probably was used hard and Oregon driven on snowy roads and things like that and this was three or four hundred dollar car in the 70s wasn't it actually people didn't think of it as the iconic Lotus I mean some did but to most people is just a little well and a lot of them if people would buy the engines out of them to be the race car right so they have a Lotus 23 or something it's like oh they need an engine they'd buy the engine out of this and then you just have a shell which at one point you couldn't giveaway right because in this stage you had to be a real aficionado to keep the fourth cylinder I knew guys who dropped to 89 Ford's in these yeah it's real hot rods out I mean they were really I don't like well that it's better than the floor I mean that just that sort of American thing but let's close up the trunk it's something I want to point out to show you what a perfectionist Jim isn't and the front you have these creases well let's go up to the front and talk show people what we're talking about the creases here around explain well the fenders are made up of a couple of different pieces of steel different pressings and their spot welded together Ford never filled those creases so when we did the bodywork all that was smooth off and we had to go back in and file and hand put the crease back in so there's one here there's one down the front one at the back of the put in the imperfections yeah yeah as if this car didn't have enough imperfections to take care of that and the wheels are only 13 inches I'm surprised you get a disc brake under a 13 inch wheel well the disc brakes are only nine inches and what are they that Girling yeah they're girling discs well they're probably four discs right Gerling calipers but made specifically for this car well they shared with the GT model okay I gotcha so basically the brakes are the same as the GT right but I mean there's there's no other car you can go to I think that has 13 inch wheels with disc brakes I mean I don't think a Brembo or any of those guys make anything that small do they probably not I mean you know that's one of those restomod things well should we do some special brakes for it right right I kind of wanted that I've never driven one of these and yeah you know I'd seen them I'd never driven one of them right I'd like to see what it was like to drive a 1966 car and you worked on the race teams as well correct yeah so you know the cars from the inside but not the outside so working on them and all of that but never ever actually driven one until you finish this one yeah I remember seeing it on the dyno running and that was exciting just funny you worked your whole life on these cars and on the racing actually drove one what was it like - for the first time you drove this was exhilarating was it I'm a little disappointed where were you well of course I had no idea what to expect and by the time I'd shifted into third gear it's like well this is a really nice car right the gearbox works well which I know from your Lotus Elan right it's like the gearbox is good the engines responsive it's very light yeah the steering is light so it's like oh hey I it's one of those cars it's like oh I think I am going to enjoy this thing but that part of that depression leading up to getting the car done is like what if I hate it yeah yeah when I was a kid 'yes have those dreams what if I can't drive a stick shift I would wake up cold sweats what if I'm well those people just can't do you know that's what happens but it's very cool it just looks great and the interior this is not leather this is well this well this is leather this is leather oh god there's a company in England called Aldridge trimming yeah and Aldridge makes all the patterns does all the stuff I was able to pay extra and get the leather right the earliest cars you could get leather as an option right in 66 it wasn't an option but say the very earliest ones 63 64 you could get leather well 66 is my favorite automotive year that in 1932 those are my two favorites because 66 is the last year you could make bring in and sell a car in America with virtually no government interference you know later you had to have the headrest he had to have the big you know pillow for lack of a better word in the steering wheel you had all these different headlights had to be a certain indicators all this kinda stuff I mean it made cars safer but this era was just free design the lamborghini miura the most useless car in traffic no bumpers no nothing but it's it's pure design that's what that's what's kind of cool and this is the last year of that with which is what I like because the seats got uglier when they made I always hated those Chrysler banana seats with the headlight om it was a head in doing all of that this I just like very simple easy to understand dashboard lots of gauges problem it was a special Lotus thing yeah later on Ford did a more elaborate - in their mark - car but this is unique to Lotus yeah yeah and the wood gearshift lever that's you know always seems so businesslike and purposeful you know and of course Jim Clark who really made this car - when they showed him racing and he was always out in front you know and it's very exciting to see can we take her for a ride you bet let's do [Music] sounds good with this kind of cara's wonder and fetch the guys in our race how much is nostalgia and how much is actually impressively talk I mean like it is I see the the Lotus badges and all that kind of stuff we catch it in the frame of mine yeah joy it's like whenever I see a db5 on the screen hold on okay but I always get a little excited I was here the boss music b-before and basically they carved the db5 black and white black and white and black and white oh it has a fog gritty purposeful feel you know when you saw well X is a gym clock you know with that determined look on his face is black and white it's like we did make World War 2 in color it looks so weird there's a special on Netflix I think world war ii would color all the color footage and it doesn't jive with your men what does it guys it at the beach it look like they're having fun no way people shooting at it you don't it's not that gritty realism most of the freight ads were black and white right was basically the same engine I built for you the blue laws yeah 700 pounds no it's probably more like 400 because that one is 1600 I say I think this is about tooth out you have the classic buzzing of the Cortina gearshift right they always did the happen I like that [Music] I mean at my yeah it really is try to think what you quipment would be today if your twenty-one years old what what of the car would be like there well what there's some of it like [Applause] VXR or whatever I'm not sure what their current model is like that but I mean the fact that this is a family car it's right you know you can put two kids in the back and I think the biggest drawback was they were expensive right that this car was just about twice as expensive as the cheapest Cortina you could buy right and also you said it was one of 150 dollars less than the Shelby monthly yeah it's so it was a hard sell and the car sat around and they don't really know exactly how many that built and most of them were this white-and-green right but there was a handful of red ones there are a couple of them that why they get bel different come on love it's part of the mark one there were a few but there's no actual records of that stuff now this is the mark 1 this is a mark 1 right so in 67 they went to the mark 2 which is that that a little more square a little more box again had the ugly kaolinite yeah yeah I didn't camp for that and actually early when I came to work for you and I had that guy working for me that hand a Cortina you said oh you should get it but it was the mark - oh I don't really want now this is got an orange in there well originally it had a generator I put an alternator on at night so I switched the ammeter to a full feeder right so that's the only gauge that is it sort of original with the car and of course I had all this stuff restored I love the very simple AM radio and you sweep down you press the button to get you station yeah well of course it has the ashtray right ashtrays front and rear and feels very light and the steering's light yeah I mean it's funny because Monika's the whole idea of lightness is so totally different not really like they can trick you into thinking think it's lighting with power steering and power brakes when you come to a corner that's what the physics well it yeah ball cards from 3,500 pounds now right great and I I like the view you know little rounded fenders and all that sort of stuff I guess you know you've got a nice hood where I had this thing nice hybrid she that's the only thing I like about something new the sill is up here and the windows almost like a sloth well what's the big 8 pillars you know I'd see you around you don't want to roll over and then and I'm pretty sure it's sometime in its life it came really trying to that and this is a guy you would roll well of course the classic photo racing in this cornering on three wheels for the front wheel in the year right right yeah I'm probably gets reasonably good gas mileage on you know they advertised which wouldn't have been the twin-cam but something like 30 miles per gallon with a pushrod so this might be 25 Ryan Ryan all the people that helped me out on this project I'm gonna be happy to be able to say hey go do this link you can see the car it's actually done right exactly driving down the road I love that it's tractable yeah it's really nice it makes power up to 6500 yeah they only vote 220 left-hand-drive yeah and that I think 60 of those were supposed to have gone to Canada so maybe a hundred and sixty came to the States they're still trying to figure out how many are out there here left was this thought to be a lost car was it always in the registry that's the guy that was in it oh they never heard of it Oh they had absolutely no records until I signed up well that must be filled with man it makes it kind of cool I bought a reproduction data plate and then they decided knowing it when the old Brodie was back on the car [Applause] like well you did so on it that's it no problem [Music] now that longest badge on the front that that's not correct - no yeah that absolutely that wasn't one of the identifying marks on it wasn't that bloated fed and I had somebody tell me don't put it on square don't they just stuck them on there if it's crooked that's the way they were and how many hours did you run this on the dyno it probably was the equivalent and four or five hundred miles I mean it is broken in I'll probably you know probably don't want to hammer it what does this have piles of leaf springs in the back this is a leaf spring car so the earlier ones they referred to as the a-frame cars right and they had coil springs and one of the rally drivers always used the leaf springs because it was more reliable and then they took Jim Clark and the rally driver to like good wood and they were able to laugh every bit as fast with the leaf spring car as they did with the a-frame car and they convinced Colin Chapman we got to get rid of it yeah the a-frame and so that happened in 65 I've never seen one of these at the Ford dealership that I worked at for seem self like so exotic I've got the only thing that would have been similar would have been like an alpha or something yeah man there's nothing else out there with twin camps there was a twin cap mg/day which I remember being told was a dreadful car I guess they're quite good except they did leak oil and once it's one of those things where the today's technology to make them really good but I think when they left the factory they were it is so funny that means some of the hard things are like glass right so I gotta ask the question was it worth it are you glad you bought it now you might give me another 6 months on that yeah yeah so I'm really pleased with the car I wasn't expecting just how hard it was gonna be most things that I've done I mean I started restoring cars when I was still a teenager right and this one bought me harder than anything that I could've and yeah yeah what was the first guy you a story about a 1949 flat girl forged oh yeah thermo siphon engine yeah yeah silliest car ever and you go around a corner and everything twisted oh my next car died restored with like a Jag xk120 [Music] did a lot of work I had a next day one 50s that required a lot of work I oughta tell people false are people in 59 about a 150 s and then the XK even the next car yeah and kicking yourself 150s was nice what a Sun up big it's like an American version no wider bad you know it actually has a driver's car with a great little wonderful driving car because usually yeah no I mean it of the early cars the 120 yeah although I do remember and I'm statute of limitations is No I had a trip out the desert where I was just cruising well over a hundred it was great I can see why people jump these on three wheels you feel like you want to just get it up yeah yeah I don't want by the run yeah it feels like it you know swerve although you can feel the cars are gonna handle when you're on and the idea that it wasn't a family car analysis I was thinking they there's no Gary Cooper for people they're on the way to church I pulled up and people so they have that's kind of what you want to do with this thing they don't know what an insane and then you know that people bought these and they've rallied up with them with the value went down because they depreciated it pretty fast I'm sure that the cars went that you know like teenage kids that could afford it drove the wheels off of just you know so they these cars got thrashed right you never even saw this car until after you paid for them right right always a good way to buy I followed your lead and I mean now the price is crazy on them yeah I mean these things will flow to salons and these they flat for years right and you know and he could pick one up pretty cheap and then oh they're all gone or say the whole thing where they counterfeit them yeah and the magic word is free shell right yeah so somebody finds a completely rotten one right and then they find oh a GT body that isn't bad right and you know they swapped it we arrived attempted to put a modern Tremec or something not really it it's a nice little gearbox yeah I mean he has it'd be nice to have the taller were actual ratio and and like a five-speed with an overdrive by I mean it really is just gonna be a toy yeah by the time I got it done I wasn't yeah the whole thing of oh let's take it on a road trip let's you know let's go see Scott and Albuquerque it's like we have me [Music] clock is really the guy that made Lotus I mean obviously yeah he's not meant but Jimmy Clark they had Colin Chapman at a rapport with it and he could get more out of the car than any other driver around yeah and he could drive around problems that most people couldn't drive around yeah it's a real skill you know everybody could drive a car so they they go how much farther to be a racing contract yeah but it's the I mean it's nice in these guys cornering on the three wheels they would put that wheel that was in the air over the grass right because they made the track wider Jimi and Jackie Stewart there are so many names that were involved in racing these because back in that day the racers didn't just race Formula one right you raced everything yeah you are a teen driver as you've raised every single way and for those who've been living under a rock opera free college Chapman was the genius behind Lotus he died a relatively young man yeah and I think he might have been arrested if he hadn't died yeah there's a lot of stories about that I mean as far as we all know they're just stories yeah but the genius of him was I mean he always liked using one part to do two or three jobs right and it's that phrase just and lightness and I mean so as cars were known for falling apart right you know and drivers is crashing but when they stayed together they won right and I say this this car was it won Rally championships and run during car championships the saloon car would yes we would call sedans or yeah galaxies and Impala's in this country yeah yeah and there probably as many books out about Lotus as there are well maybe not as much as Rory could that sort of top of the line well but there's somebody books on Lotus college Chapman in these cars and how legendary they were even know less authority than Gordon Murray the designer of the f1 loves on to him that's the perfect car and I have to admit I when I was a kid I didn't think a whole lot of laws a lot it's a four-cylinder about 25 horsepower it's the same as a Corvette 300 horsepower so glad would make it because you know when you're a kid you discipline course yeah you don't think finesse and it was until I actually drove the Lotus a lot oh my god well again when I got to drive yours like shocking it just how nicely balanced of everything it is and I mean I think that this with the light field right Betty undoubtedly captures a little bit of that Lotus feel I just figure back in the day the family guy fooling the wife this is a family car for the kids at all then it going out and racing it on weekend when I had to get ours identified with Jimmy Clark as my mother was in Scotland when he got it so that gave me some sort of a you know I know what it gave me but I thought you know yeah I always root for him my mother well he also have eating was that sort of quiet dies and right when he's got it he's a chicken farmer and they always you saving chicken farm for the regulator's something chickens all day and hops in a car you know but he wasn't really a chicken Colin Chapman this was just a regular Ford block he added the twin-cam head yes Harry Mundy was the engineer that did it and then cosworth actually got in a little bit on some of the development and and of course when they started all the big firms would come up you know it's like PRM had a version of it right I think who knows fraud speed or some English tutors would take the engine and then they would make their own version in this car which you can pay extra money to have it brought up to the high state of to drive this is quite a good road test for the car jaegun we've had up all the mileage Julian only had 14 miles on it now we've got thirty now the one thing I've happened on every car not every car I would say an attempt cars people bring me the horn has never hooked up I'm gonna check to see the morning before yeah we're gonna get to the necessaries Hey Wow there you go see Jim the perfectionist the horn works well Jim it's a beautiful job you should be very proud of your pride how you glad you get it now I'm glad I did it this this drive it proves that it's worth I didn't mean to go D into it but I knew you always wanted one of these and you're the guy that should have had one could you work out everybody else you did a great job on mine thank you very much congratulations I'm very happy for you this is pretty cool you see Jim on the highway we shut away you guys next week [Music]

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 904,280

Rating: 4.9180183 out of 5

Keywords: Lotus, Cortina, Colin Chapman, Jim Clark, race winning, Jim Hall, restoration, straight four, twin overhead cam, race car, Jay Lenos Garage, Jay Leno, Jay Garage, Leno Garage, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, episode, motorcycle, ford, corvette, tour, dodge, lexus

Id: NLpdBvxWj8g

Length: 39min 1sec (2341 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 22 2018