Unique Cars Magazine caught up with Paul Guiren at the Cortina Nationals in 2025 to talk about his 1965 Ford Mk I Lotus Cortina.
It’s something I wanted since I was a kid – a Lotus Cortina. I got introduced to them through my stepdad and first saw one when I was about 12. It was back in the 1970s and it was on a rotisserie being restored.
He had bought it as an ex-race car and was putting it back on the road. It had been stripped right down – it was an A-frame car – and he was repairing the damage they get from racing. I saw that car again this year!
As for my car, there was one for sale in 2015 – you rarely see them on the market. I flew to Sydney to have a look at it, with the help of a fella called Jeff Bayliss. It wasn’t a very good example and Jeff put me in touch with the owner of this car. We had a chat and it wasn’t for sale at the time, however, he rang me a few months later to say he was going to sell. That was about 2016.
Steve, the owner, had it for about 10 years and had only driven it a few times. So it needed a few minor things done. There were leaking wheel cylinders. It’s a Ford and a Lotus, so there were oil leaks, it’s a wonder they ever rusted!
I towed it down from Alice Springs and had a mate join me for the trip. That worked out well, because we could stop and unload the car and drive it on some of the good roads along the way, such as up through the Flinders Ranges. We cruised around Broken Hill for a couple of days – it was good fun.
It drives beautifully. It’s got a pretty good engine and it turned out to be a bit of a surprise of a car. There were USA registration papers in it, so I did a bit of homework and found the fella who owned the car over there and did the restoration.
We had a yarn on the phone. He is Ken Duclos and had his own performance engineering company, building race-car engines. It had a 165hp twin-cam Lotus engine, which he had built. I have the original engine with the car as well – that’s been rebuilt as well.
The engine in it is very torquey. Ken was involved with a fella called John McCoy and, if you move in twin-cam circles, you will have heard of a McCoy cylinder head. I think my car is one of only two in Australia running that set-up.
It’s a really interesting car and I love driving it. I didn’t want it as a show pony.