To Cortina In A Cortina

Glyn and Christine Dawson from down the road have lived quite an interesting life. Glyn’s skydived… 50-odd times and so has Christine with a skydive gifted for her 40th birthday. Glyn and his sons won Robot Wars with their robot Big Nipper… and caused £20,000 damage to the studio’s roof as his robot flung another through the air.

They’ve even been mentioned in Northern Life, or rather their Ford Cortina did, when it starred in the Russell T Davies show ‘It’s a Sin.’ Now, though, instead of spending time in 1980s London, the Cortina has been on an epic journey through Europe.

If you were a child in the 1970s, your parents may well have owned a Ford Cortina. You’ll likely have summer holiday memories of the spacious interiors and appreciating the comfy leather seats as your parents argued over an unfolded map. You probably listened to the same tape over and over in the car’s tape deck all the way to your seaside destination and rolled down your window
to smell the sea air.

“The small alpine town in the North of Italy welcomed 19 Cortinas from the UK and even more from across Europe.”

The best-selling car of the decade, this popular family car was first launched 60 years ago in 1962. To mark the anniversary, the Mk 2 Cortina Club organised an epic trip across Europe. Taking the Ford Cortina’s of Britain to their namesake – Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. The small alpine town in the North of Italy welcomed 19 Cortinas from the UK and even more from across Europe. The winding roads took the Cortinas through the valleys and over mountains, with breaks in the pine trees to see glimpses of the alps.

“The whole town is surrounded by mountains, it’s not even in a valley – it’s like it is in a basin! No matter where you look, there’s mountains all around you,” Glyn smiles. Glyn from Colne joined the trip along with his wife Christine and his beloved Ford Cortina.

Glyn, Christine and the Cortina set off on the 1st of September and arrived in Cortina on the 19th, travelling through six countries and over 1,000 miles. “I’ve had that Cortina for five years, I’ve always had Cortinas, and I’ve always had a classic car since the 80s. We had a Zephyr, but it got too expensive to run. But now it’s just that one Cortina. At one time I had three together, three Cortinas!” Glyn laughs.

How did Glyn and his Cortina enjoy Cortina? “Cortina was very nice but very expensive. Very, very, very expensive. But beautiful.” Cortina D’Ampezzo is one of Italy’s most desirable ski resorts and wealthy Italians flock to the town in the winter months to enjoy the town’s ski slopes, bars and artisan shops. The town is soon to host the Winter Olympics in 2026.

“We did a run through Cortina and we met up with other Cortinas from different countries, about nine came from the Czech Republic. All Cortinas, Mk 1, Mk 2, Mk 3s, I think one was a Mk 4… it was amazing. One of the people from the Czech Republic had the earliest known Cortina. In England Cortina’s came out in 1962, and he had a January ’63 car, which was when they were first released in Czechoslovakia.”

As well as meeting other Cortina owners, Glyn and Christine got the chance to explore the mountains around the town. “We went up the mountain path to the top of Tofana di Mezzo,” Christine shows me a picture of herself on what looks to be a cliff edge. “It’s only scary if you’re scared of heights, which I’m not, but if you slipped, you’d fall off the mountain. You just have one little rope to hold onto, and we didn’t have any guide or anything, we just went up ourselves. The cable car stops about 200ft from the top but then you have to walk the rest. It was 3,244m high!”

The whole trip was meticulously planned by the Mk 2 Cortina Club and took 18 months of planning. Members were told all the hotels and ferries they needed to book back in March. “The bloke that organised it all, Graham, even organised different museums for us to go to along the way. We went to the Louwman Car Museum in Holland where we saw a breakdown wagon from Colne! It was the best museum I’ve been to! Then there was the V8 Museum at Cologne, which was a bit strange as there was a breakdown of a V8 engine on the bedroom ceiling. And the sink in the toilets was a tyre! Very car-geared!

“There was a breakdown of a V8 engine on the bedroom ceiling.”

And we visited the home of Stradivarius’ workshop in Mittenwald, with a statue of a huge violin! It was a really beautiful place.” The journey through Europe was more troublesome for some of the Cortina owners. “One of our party got done for speeding!” Christine exclaims. “We weren’t with them at the time, but they were pulled up in Italy. The police only had a photo! So, you had a long line of Cortina owners checking the photo didn’t match their car as that was the one identified for speeding! The owners were eventually found and they were fined €89!”

Well prepared, Glyn and Christine took lots of spares for their Cortina in the event of engine trouble, and luckily their car made it over 2,000 miles there and back without needing them, but plenty of others did!

“I took loads of spares for my own car and loads of people used them. I didn’t use any on my own car! Between us we had the knowledge and the spares to sort
people out if they needed them.”

The next trip will be in 2032, plenty of time to buy that Cortina, ready to take it to Cortina!

NorthernLife Nov/Dec 22