Ode to Cortina

Click Here for Full Size Image

I can think of nothing better in life than to be a young man and overseas. However, if you were overseas in the time period of the late 1970s or early 1980s than the one thing that could make this scenario even better was to own a Ford Cortina. This model was never sold in the United States; however, it might look familiar because in European movies it was for some unknown reason often the car of choice for the bad guys, especially in black as my model was.

I owned my 1977 Ford Cortina in South Korea (the Republic of Korea [ROK]) while in the Army. To be totally correct I should call this a Hyundai Cortina, as it was made in Korea under license from Ford. If memory serves me correct (which it at times doesn't, so I could be wrong on the specs) the motor was a 1.8 liter, in-line four cylinder, with overhead cam. Unfortunately because of the high price of gasoline in Korea, Hyundai equipped the motor with a single barrel carburetor so acceleration was never it's strong point; however, it could still race away from a Hyundai Pony (the most popular model for taxi cabs and the primary vehicle, and competition, on the roads back in early 80s).

I always thought the Cortina had really nice looking lines, for a four door sedan. In addition, the transmission was crisp and easy to shift and the suspense and handling were superb. It was great to hit the road in spring and go zipping around tight corners, which Korea had a lot of being very mountainous, with the radio blaring--life just doesn't get better than that.