The RS Owners Club of Victoria’s Small Ford Sunday has just been run for – would you believe – the 30th time. That’s a span of more than 30 years, since the show missed a year or two along the way, mainly due to COVID.
Originally staged by the Capri Owners Club for the first couple of years, the show was then handed to the RS Owners Club as it grew from the original 12 cars in 1994, to a much, much bigger show.
Have you subscribed to Unique Cars yet? Click here to see our offers
How big? How about the biggest gathering of small Fords anywhere in the word outside the UK!
So what’s the definition of a small Ford anyway? According to Gareth Walker, the RS Owners Club’s vice pres (and former president and life member) it’s more of a cultural thing than an actual physical size thing.
“It’s (the show) pretty much open to British and European Fords. I mean, you wouldn’t call a Zephyr a small car, but this is the show for them. Even a Transit would be welcome.”
The oldest car on site this year was probably a 1940s Prefect and the newest, a late-model Focus RS or Fiesta RS. But the real beauty of the show is it inclusiveness.
There’s plenty of better-than-factory restorations, 100-point concours cars and some lovingly maintained survivors, just as you’d expect. But the fabulous motor-sport history established by these little cars is also showcased with some full-on competition cars and plenty of road-going hotties with their share of racetrack mods.
The other thing the small Ford blokes refuse to turn their noses up at is heavily modified rides that, at any other show, would have the purists looking for a bucket. So you’ll see lots of early model Escorts and Cortinas with late-model Ecoboost engines, and even stuff like a Mk1 Escort with a Nissan SR20 mill. Oddball of the show award?
Probably the ’40s Prefect hot-rod with a V8 shoehorned in. Oh, and not the Windsor small-block you’d imagine but a 350 Chevy. Weird. But totally cool and totally acceptable to this crowd.
Of course, while the ‘British Ford’ definition applies here, it also embraces the Aussie versions thereof. That includes locally assembled versions of Cortinas, Escorts and more, including those curious Antipodean mutations like Mk2 Escorts RS2000s with four doors and Mk 3 Cortinas with 4.1-litre six-cylinder engines in a car originally designed for a two-litre four-cylinder back in Blighty.
But the other great thing about this show is that it brings anything up to 300 small-Ford enthusiasts out of the woodwork. Even despite the 42-degree heat on the day and a dry, dusty Bundoora Park paddock to deal with, around 250 cars idled, burped and rumbled their way on to the grass area.
And the great thing about that is that all those cars you remember from your youth but never see any more, were all there in their dozens in every colour and with every factory option (and then some) on show. Bloody wonderful.
THE WHAT IF?
In any case, this car represents what would have been very close to the finished project if Ford and Lotus had done a road-going Twin-Cam Anglebox.
It’s the year-long project of Tim Mattison who’s owned probably more Pommy Fords than is good for anybody, but reflects his knowledge on the subject. It’s also stunning. The black paint is flawless, the panels are laser-straight and the Lotus engine installation is precisely how Ford would have done it.
Speaking of the engine, it’s not exactly a stock Lotus 1600, either. In fact it’s a 1600 Kent block with a steel Datsun crank and a Lotus head putting the seal on 1760cc. Camshafts and valves are custom and the carbs are twin 45mm Webers.
Surprisingly, the four-speed ’box and rear axle are standard, but the brakes are BMW four-potters up front and there’s now a rack-and-pinion front end with coil-overs and adjustable strut tops.
The car itself was a super-low (65,000) mileage shell and was purchased by Tim from the original owner. And the black paint over red interior is actually the factory specification making it even rarer.
What’s perhaps most special about the car is the attention to detail that’s been lavished on it. Tim has gone to great lengths to make sure every element of the car both works and is as close to what the factory would have done back then.
Well, up until you clock the under-dash bias-adjustable pedal-box and the 13-inch Rebel alloys. But, hey, making them better than they ever were is hardly a criticism in the world of hot little Fords. And nor should it be.
THE DROPOUT
If the whole point of a panel van was as an accessory to commit fun (and you know what kind of fun we’re talking about here, right?) then the Escort Sundowner was always going to be a bit limited purely on the basis of the length of the fun pitch in the back.
But Ford, being the can-do company it was, got around that by producing a factory option called the Bed Extender which, as the name suggests, was an extra cushion section designed to slip behind the front seats (when they were tilted and moved all the way forward) thereby producing a longer playing surface.
This is a rare option to see now, but let’s face it, it’s rare to see an Escort Sundowner at all. Especially one in this sort of nick.
The owner is long-time Escort fancier, David Vervaart, who found this 1978 version in a pretty sad way. “It had the traditional Escort rust, plus it had no front end after being hit by a Holden one-tonner.”
Not put off by the box of junk he bought, David set about a full body resto including RS front wheel arches (mounted a little lower than stock) the factory porthole side-windows, as well as a total mechanical rebuild of the two-litre Escort Ghia motor (now with twin downdrafts). Other trick bits include the tacho dashboard, driving lights, bumperettes and fat Hotwire wheels.
The colour is that fabulous Pine ‘n’ Lime and the stripes echo the Ford factory rally colour schemes of the day (David is a major rally and race nut).
The great thing about this car is that it really gets used. It recently travelled from Melbourne to Queensland and back (including a stopover in Bathurst) and has been super reliable.
And if you’re thinking you haven’t seen an Esky Sundowner for a while, that’s probably because Ford Australia only made 666 of the things in both Series 1 and 2 forms, and with a choice of 1.6- or two-litre power.
THE IMMIGRANT
Australia might well be a bit of a Galapagos Island of cars; our specific culture and preferences have meant we’ve spawned a heap of local oddities and B-sides based on mainstream stuff. And small Fords have not escaped this effect.
We’ve already mentioned RS2000s with four doors and Cortinas with Falcon engines, but even the GT500 Mk 1 Cortina that Harry Firth brewed up to win Bathurst in 1965 fits that broad description. But we’re not alone.
Nope, the South Africans have also waved a gas-axe over some popular British Fords and come up with their own take on these blue-collar heroes. Maybe you’ve heard of a South African car dealer name of Basil Green.
Basil, who left the chat back in 2022, hit on the idea of taking a Ford Capri, dicing the V6 and slinging a 302 V8 into the empty slot. And the V6s he yanked? Well, some of them found their way into Mk 2 Cortinas to become Basil’s other Perana-badged hot-rod.
But this car is a South African version of the factory Ford Granada Coupe. It’s not a Basil Green Perana (although there was a V8 Granada Perana) but being a factory South African Ford, it skipped the V4 commonly fitted to British Granadas (and plenty of Transit vans).
Yep, just like the Aussie Cortina, the 1970s South African Ford buyer wanted the biggest mill the Ford engineers could cram under the lid, in this case the big Essex V6.
Grant Gapriside has owned this car for the last 20 years, initially keeping it in South Africa for when he was there on holidays. But a little while back, he figured the car needed to be closer to home, so he drove it into a container and unloaded it in Melbourne where Grant reckons it’s one of about four examples.
The V6 is a three-litre and the trans is a C3 three-speed. Oh, and there’s an independent rear suspension that Grant reckons makes the car a real comfy cruiser. Strangely, even though it’s a South African take on a British car, the look is unmistakably American.
There’s a bit of Chevy Chevelle in the front three-quarter view and plenty of Ford Torino around the rear. Odd, but intriguing.
THE LOCAL HERO
I had a mate many, many years ago who owned a TC Cortina XLE with a 250 cubic-inch six and a four-speed manual. It also had a Holley carb and a camshaft swap and was capable of seeing off most of the local V8s at the time (and we are talking decades ago).
I borrowed that car one night and its ability to accelerate has stayed with me. As has its dogged observance of Newton’s First Law of Motion which dictates a body moving at a constant velocity will continue in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force.
Newton could have been talking about the 4.1-litre Cortina, because any force less than being T-boned by an Abrams tank was not going to deflect it at speed.
Anyway, because of that willingness to plough headlong into a variety of non-deformable things, not to mention the march of time, tide and rust, Mk 3 Cortys aren’t exactly thick on the ground any more. So when you see one, you take notice. And when you see one like Damain Stanley’s 1973, Walnut Glow example, you pretty much stop in your tracks.
Damain has owned the car for many years now, having picked it up when they were a big nothing-burger.
“I bought this one 16 years ago when nobody cared,” he told us. “I had a TD before this one and loved that, and I managed to buy this one when they were still stacked six-high at the tip.”
The car has since sprouted a bit more grunt from the engine bay with a rebuild incorporating a ‘bit of a cam’ and some higher-comp pistons, but it’s the cylinder head that is the go-show. While the crankcase is the car’s original, the head is the fabled 2V 250 version as seen on XY and XA GS Falcons. Oh, and Damain has switched the BorgWarner tranny to a C9.
Meantime, the venetian blind, the vinyl roof and the body-coloured hubcaps are just perfect. Makes you wonder how these things were ever overlooked. Even Isaac Newton would have dug them.