Better late than never..

Cortina V8 wagon

MK1 Nationals Stratford

Well there wasn't any time for an end of the week drawing as I was working hard finishing jobs on the house so I could get the weekend off to visit the Mk1 Cortina nationals over the weekend.

It's around a 2 hour drive from my place and entry was £10 which included camping, a goody bag and free food (BBQ) on the Saturday evening! Good eh! 

Naturally loads of Mk1s turned up and a good number of Mk2s.  MTOC did our bit for the Mk3s, a fair number of us had made the trip it was good to meet up with the usual characters and get introduced to a few more. Cortina folk are some of the best kind of people. I digested loads of technical advice which was offered by folk who know far more than me and my brain was bursting with ideas by the end of the weekend.

Lots of beer was consumed, some of it was part of our prize in the quiz, where my general knowledge was at best vague and my input beer addled. 

This was only my second overnighter at a car show, thankfully my mate lent me a tent so I wasn't sleeping in a cold car all night this time! I really should buy a tent. In terms of venues I think the site and the management is perhaps one of nicest shows I've been to in a long time and well worth putting in your Cortina calender. 

It's Friday!!

Another black Cortina, satin black is becoming the new Bermuda Blue for me these days.. I saw a really cool photo somewhere on the net (I think it was a chevy) anyway it triggered this version off.  I really like the idea of satin black with all the chrome-work in a satin Aluminum finish with the odd gloss black touch here and there, like the spoilers. It's a '72 Cortina, hence the racing sticker. Speed Shack and Burton Power are a couple of decent places to get old Ford spares.  They even do performance Cortina bits.    

End of the week post.

This week I decided to paint the Cortina as a 1:64 scale matchbox toy replica, for some reason Matchbox didn't produce a Cortina Mk3, heaven knows why because it was one of the most popular cars on the road at one point.  I see these little toy cars have started getting better in detail over the years as my wife Kat kindly bought me a nice little Mustang for my Birthday. 

I remember as a child my Granddad and I would walk to the local corner shop just a short distance from where my grandparents lived, where he purchased his pipe tobacco and newspaper, occasionally he would buy me a matchbox toy and on the way home I'd turn a two minute walk into a half an hour miniature lemans by driving it over any available surface, like low walls or railings.  
I guess most blokes remember their toys, be that train sets or meccano so I'm sure I am not alone hankering after those memories and replacing them with a 'grown-up' equivalent for me that is cars and I suppose to most enthusiasts they are really just grown up toys. 

Anyway, inspired by that here are the drawings:

Cool Bermuda blue!

I recently saw some pictures of the Hot Wheels "Vintage Racing" range based on, mostly, muscle cars from the 70's.  I thought the Mk3 Cortina would fit great in this range so I produced the only Mk3 racer I know of; Noel Edmonds, is a well known DJ and now TV presenter in the UK, he is probably not known so well for racing a Cortina but back in the 70's that was one of his ventures. He competed in the Cortina BEA Trident Trophy.  Other well knows racers competing were Roger Clark, Graham Hill & John Surtees.   

Noel's '74 Cortina GT

Until next time!  

Iiiiiiits FRRRRRiiiiiday!!!

Cortina Mk3 Savage 3.0 v6 

The only way is Essex... no, not that daft program on the TV, I mean the good old Essex 3.0 V6.  My mate has one of these Savage Mk3' (it's his car I've modeled this drawing on) I don't know how many of these cars survive, perhaps less than 5, they were pretty exclusive when new. But why didn't Ford give us more choices on engine from the factory eh? I'd sooner be rumbling around in a six banger. 

I was intending on going to Gaydon Classic Ford Day at the Heritage Motor Center this Sunday but I'm going to be working, in fact as I type this I'm taking a break from working at my desk (yep.. I started at 8am... yesterday) so very little in the way of Ford stuff to report.  If you're reading this and get the chance to go I can recommend it as it was great last year, pop over and see the guys on the MTOC stand and say hello, that way you also get a better look at the cars.

Anyway more 'end of the week artwork' next week (although my folder of creations is running dry now so I need to paint some more) stay tuned!

End of the week is here (and the sun is out again)

End of the week bollocks.  This time some sort of Fast and the Furious inspired Cortina.  Sorry!  

The girl on the side is one of my artworks also - from a kids book "How to Draw Manga" I was commissioned to do last year:

I took the Corty out for a drive today to pick up some bits and bobs from a reclamation yard (for jobs on the house not the car) she went like a good 'un even in heavy traffic during this unprecedented hot weather we are currently experiencing. I had a few good conversations with previous owners when parked up, I reckon almost everyone in the UK has either owned a Cortina or knew someone in the family that has once owned one it seems and it turns out my dad even owned one but he cant remember if it was a Mk1 or Mk2, I doubt he'd forget if it was a Mk3.

Visiting my folks the other week I turned over my 2.0 pinto by hand and it seemed to have good compression and it was freely moving. I've tried to keep it all out of harms way as I've had thoughts about fitting it when I've sorted some more of the house projects out (which all seem to be eating up all my spare time while the to-do list never actually gets any shorter).  Yhea Yhea I said I'd go V6 but when you have a pinto sat there and you stub your toe on it every time you walk past you start thinking about putting it to some practical use.

Nothing much else to report really, I was planning on getting to a show in the next couple of weeks but I have some tight work deadlines, I hope to make a few shows before the end of August though and will upload any pictures when I do.

I'm going to settle down with a couple of beers now but, for anyone reading, take it easy and have a good weekend.  Maybe post up some suggestions for weekly creations, the more radical the better.  

I might just chuck up a link every now and then of "stuff what's gone and inspired me" this week it's this:

oldschool.co.nz  

I love how they get modified Cortinas looking so right south of the equator. 

Another late end of the week post.

I watched 'Wreck it Ralf' the other day, a great film with loads of little cameos from old game characters I remember. So I produced this, good old E Honda in the old Street Fighter II bonus stage giving the Cortina a 100 hand slap, I think it was a Lexus that got battered in the original game.