Restomod Ford Cortina with Zetec engine for sale

So maybe it wasn’t the best launch for the new Ford Capri. Not only does the name and heritage sit rather oddly with an electric SUV coupe – the suggestion of Explorer Sport as a name seems particularly wise now – the obsession with it meant that attention was diverted from Ford’s biggest draw in its Festival line-up. Speed. . This is the Mustang GTD, of course, which really promises to be something truly spectacular. Not that many people seem to have noticed.

Time to retreat, then, into the warm embrace of nostalgia, to the old Ford we know and love. Chances are we’re all feeling a bit delicate this Monday in particular, regardless of how the football has gone, so we’ll ease you into the week with a Blue Oval classic that brings only welcome surprises. It has to be a Capri, of course, and there are a glorious pair of Turbo Technics V6s available in PH – perhaps they can wait for another day, at £25k and £30k respectively. Because the more you look at this Cortina, for half the money of the latter, the better it looks.

A late Mk5 – 1982 was the last year of production – the Cortina might not have made the obvious choice for the restomod treatment, or whatever the better phrase is now to inject some modernity into an old car. The sporty ones had happened earlier in ‘tina’s life, with the smaller, lighter Escort and Fiesta perhaps making the most obvious choices for a retro hot rod. Not even thinking about the Sierra that followed the Cortina a year after the car’s production. That’s the joy of modding though – you do exactly what you want to any car you like. And so we have a Mk5 Cortina Ghia, a very nicely presented one indeed, powered by a 2.0-litre Zetec. Which means a drop of over 150bhp, complete with a grunt from the individual throttle bodies, a good chunk more power than any standard Cortina engine in days gone by. As well as more usable in a modern context, for sure. It is mated to a five-speed Ford MT75 gearbox.

However, this is much more than just a good engine swap. Upgrading the hub to a five-pin setup means Granada wheels can now fit (and look great), with bigger brakes and ABS behind them. There’s power steering and a very smartly reworked interior, with an RS four-spoke wheel and a pair of nice Recaros. No suspension work is mentioned in the ad, although given the modifications done elsewhere and the way it sits on those Granny wheels, it would be a surprise to find it still on stock springs and shocks.

Add all this to a properly painted exterior, blacked-out bumpers and Ghia badges still in place, and it’s easy to see why this might be of interest. It’s hard enough to find a late Cortina of any kind these days, given how many have been subjected to rust, wrecking or, uh, noise racing, let alone one with a well-thought-out upgrade package. So this is very intriguing indeed.

Said to have been restored the better part of 20 years ago, back when modern restomod wasn’t really a thing and classics could be modified because they were plentiful and cheap, Cortina magazine appeared as early as 2009. This isn’t ‘ Some newly completed construction that will have trouble listing and any new owner will worry about use. This Zetec conversion has been loved and loved, for sure, or it wouldn’t look so good on a 42-year-old car. Thanks to the effort invested by the previous porters, it looks fit for many more happy kilometers yet, offering that dream combination of retro style with modern performance that no one can get enough of now. All for £15k too. Enough to forget all about that new Capri, for sure.