"I went to the Monterey Historics a couple of years ago and saw a beautiful red and green (like Christmas!) Lotus-Cortina. I had never seen one before and it just captured me. I thought, "Now here's a vintage car I could actually afford!" This said in the midst of '57 Ferrari Testarossas and '91 Formula One cars. Luckily I was working at the coffee bar at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at the time. Each week I would read through ALL the vintage car magazines looking for Cortinas. About 2 months later I saw an ad for a Cortina Mk.I GT made by Tillack and Co. It listed all kinds of features, so I called and decided to go down to Redondo Beach, CA (from the Bay Area) to have a look.

"I met the propreitor, Steve Tillack and we looked and played around a bit with the car. We also saw the usual fare at Tillack, 250 Ferraris, 908 Can-Am Porsches... the Cortina was out of it's league. I played aloof, but I was in love with it as soon as I saw the upside down Mercedes taillights set in a yellow stripe across a British green car. I made a deposit right there and took off for home. Lucky thing, another interested party came back one hour after I left ready to buy the car!

"Tillack had put $14,000 into restoring the car but none of that went to the engine. When I flew down to LA to pick it up and drive it home, I didn't know I had a 13 hour drive ahead of me. About 1 hour out of LA the fuel filter in the tank fell off and the rust in the tank started getting into the carb. The Cortina stopped in the middle of the freeway. The car stalled every 20 minutes from there until home. I would get out, unhook the glass bowl fuel pump and clean. I got home at 3 in the morning.

"There followed a lot of garage time and finally an extensive, all
summer effort by the entire male side of my family on the motor. The car was like magic when the engine was finally finished. I'm finishing the suspension and putting better brakes in. The car is 'it' in San Jose. People drive up alongside every morning and beep, thumbs up when I drive to work. People stop and talk to me about it all the time. I just love the litle car. It's all the things I wanted in a '60s car. Now I'm just looking for more power."

Here's the restoration specs:
Car: 1966 2 door Ford Cortina GT
Front suspension: Koni rear shocks, lowered 1 inch
Rear suspension: Spax adjustable front shocks with 1" sway bar
Interior: Recaro seats with simpson 4 point harnesses, Smiths gauges, roll cage
Engine: Totally restored, all parts disassembled and reground, new oil and fuel pumps, balanced and bored 40 over, running Morgan pistons (81mm), Iskenderian E-4 torquer cam, dual Weber 40 DCOE sidedrafts with Warnerford intake
Restoration time: 2 years with help from my entire family!

To ask Glenn the way to San Jose, Email him at: gschiavo@earthlink.net