Lotus Cortina - Rallying

Rallying

Whilst the Lotus-Cortina is somewhat overshadowed by the success of the Ford Escort in rallying, it performed admirably in the mid-1960s, which might be surprising, given its reputation for unreliability. The first Lotus-Cortina to be rallied was a Lotus-Cortina, a GT with the Lotus engine, in the 1963 Spa-Sofia-Liege rally in September, just to try out the engine, and driven by Henry Taylor to 4th place. The first outing in a rally by a Lotus-Cortina proper was in the 1963 RAC Rally, campaigned again by Taylor, with co-driver Brian Melia. It finished 6th somehow, in spite of its A-bracket rear end needing constant attention. The A-bracket was persevered with by Vic Elford and David Seigle-Morris for the 1964 Tour de France Automobile, a 10 day, 4,000-mile (6,400 km) event, as it was run completely on sealed roads, unlike the rough RAC Rally. Their car came 4th outright in the Touring Car category, and first in the Handicap category, in a mix of one-hour sprints, hillclimbs, and mountain road rallying.

Still, the general dodginess of the A-bracket suspension meant that Ford decided to replace it with the more conventional GT rear suspension. This became available in June 1965, and while the car still seemed to be afflicted with bad luck, a few victories were racked up. Four of the newly updated cars competed in the Alpine rally of July 1965, and Vic Elford's car led outright, all the way. Well, until less than an hour from finishing, when a piece of the distributor fell out and delayed the car 26 minutes. All four cars retired from that year's RAC rally, which was severely snow-affected. The first works victory came in December 1965, when Roger Clark and Graham Robson won the Welsh International.

In 1966, Ford managed to homologate the car for Group 1, which requires 5000 cars to be built. In the Monte Carlo Rally, Roger Clark finished 4th, only to be disqualified, and then Elford finished 1st in the Rallye Sanremo (Rally of the Flowers), only to be disqualified as well. Elford came 2nd in the Tulip Rally. Bengt Söderström was named victor of the Acropolis Rally, after the 1st-placed Mini Cooper S was disqualified. New cars were used for the Coupe des Alpes (Alpine Rally), where Elford's engine blew up after leading, while Roger Clark finished second. Clark was always competitive, but suffered with unreliable cars, coming 3rd in the Canadian Shell 4000, 2nd in Greece, and 4th in Poland. The Lotus-Cortina finally proved itself with an outright win in the RAC rally. F1 World Champion Jim Clark crashed his (twice), but Söderström saw his through to a 13 minute victory, with Gunnar Palm. Other victories in 1966 were in the Geneva rally by Staepelaere, and by Canadian Paul MacLellan in the Shell 4000. A final win before the advent of the Mk. II was also pulled off by Soderstrom in the snowy Swedish Rally of February 1967.