elcome to my new column, 'Cort Behind', in which I will share with you my thoughts, opinions and recollections relating to all things Cortina.

Lately, it seems, we are living upon a time in which there are many Cortina 'experts'. These experts seem to think that because they put a set of Webers on a 1500 they are high and bloody mighty, but let me tell you, if you want to know what's what when it comes to Cortinas, Cyril Saunders is your man.

My odyssey began in 1960 in Basingstoke, England, where as a young lad I worked as an apprentice motor mechanic for the local Ford dealership. I often rode down to Silverstone on my bicycle to watch the heroes of the day tear around the track, and I would dream of the day I would join them. On my 18th birthday came the best gift any aspiring racing driver could have hoped for, a new car. An Anglia Deluxe to be precise. Quite a rocket ship in saloon car circles in its day, let me assure you.

After obtaining a racing licence, I was off to prove myself. That first race, though, was a shemozzle. Even though I was a natural talent behind the wheel, the dear old Anglia was not up to speed. I decided that if I was going to take this racing caper seriously, we'd need to tun this Anglia into a 'Fanglia'. My father Harry wasn't keen at first, but I persuaded him to bankroll the upgrade. Lowered springs, dual swaybars on the front and homemade 5" rims made her stick like the proverbials to a blanket. Four modified Triumph bike carbs on a custom manifold were integrated onto the first known 'downdraught' cylinder head. Combined with a balanced reciprocating assembly and a hand-ground camshaft, a derivative of which would be later used on the GT Cortina, this engine produced 90 horsepower at 7800rpm on the dyno. Not bad for 1961 at 997cc!

The results were instant. First time out at the 'Hatch I scored pole, won both heats and smashed the class record. The same happened at Silverstone, which, by this time, people were beginning to take notice. By the end of 1961, after winning our class championship, the factory had decided they wanted to assist me with my race programme. Being quite a confident fellow at this time, I demanded that I be privy to all the activities going on around the factory. They agreed, and soon after I stumbled upon a project called 'Archbishop' at the time, which if you do not know was the codename for the first Cortina. I noticed that it owed quite a bit of its origins to the humble Anglia. These Cortinas were to be powered by a 1197cc version of the Anglia 105E donk, so I managed to 'borrow' one and give it the treatment. The head was modified in the same way the old 997cc unit was but on went twin 40mm Webers. It helps when the factory is paying, let me tell you. Horsepower was up to 114 at 8000rpm, but we started to break conrods. I convinced Ford to cast up a batch of conrods to my design. This design was the basis for the rod used in the Lotus twin cam of 1963.

By the time the Cortina Mk.I was released in September 1962, the Fanglia was deemed 'unbeatable'. I'd wrapped up another championship. There was one more race to contest, a 300 miler at Oulton Park. My co-driver was a young chap from Lotus called Jim Clark. Due to nature of the race, I decided to put prototype GT Cortina brakes on the car which made it unbeatable, winning by four laps. It was decided that it would be good to start developing the Cortina as a race car, so the Fanglia was retired from active duty.

Stay tuned next installment to find out all about how the GT Cortina came to be.