I've had a MKII Cortina (my first ever car in fact, my mother had a
MKI - the last one of the Dagenham production line and when in Paris
my parents bought the 1600E show car from the Paris motor show, trivia)
which was a 1600 Super fitted with the 1600E engine and a 1600GT dash
board. The MKII was fitted with the famous crossflow engine as used in
Formula Ford 1600 and came in 4 different sizes, 1200, 1500, 1300 and
1600. The 1200 and 1500 engines were very interchangeable as were the 1300
and 1600, and also extremely easy to rebuild (really just a step up from
the old Ford side-valve). The car is a pretty robust one but as Gerry said
they do rust (but only a bit). If you can get a 1600E, this can be seen by
having 4 guages on the dash, 2 up 2 down, or the 1600GT which has 4 guages
across the top of the dash. Much better though is to get a Lotus Cortina
of which the MKI is the better (or even rarer is the Lotus Escort) and even
better is the Savage Cortina originally fitted with the Ford V4 and later
with the V6 (early V6 3.0l are more powerful than later ones, 6bhp is the
norm plus they're tougher). Go for it!
Seb
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