Readly RF Feb 20

FROM THE COVER
When was the last time you saw
a Corsair either at a show or
out on the road? Six months
ago, a year? Or possibly longer?
Often mistaken for the Mk1
Cortina compared to those the Corsair is quite
a rare thing. First launched in October 1963 the
mid-sized car replaced the Consul Classic range
and was basically a re-skinned Cortina with a
longer wheelbase. It still retained the same styling
of the era with its sharp V-shaped front end and
the pointed rear light units, and with a hint of fins,
the Corsair was and still is an attractive car and
remains very rare and a sought after classic. One
person who was drawn in by its rarity and styling is
Perry Murch, owner of the lovely grey example on
these very pages.
The Corsair is only Perry’s second retro Ford with
the first being a 100e Pop which was powered by
a V6 engine. “I’ve always been creative and have a
huge passion for powerful cars and motorbikes,” he
says. “I was 20 when I got my first car, a Vauxhall
Victor, which certainly wasn’t fast and had no scope
to be creative with,” he laughs. However, fast
forward a few years when the 100e came along,
this gave Perry something to get his teeth into,
at last! “The Pop was a fantastic car, especially
running the ‘Essex V6 power plant’, plus being a
lightweight car it assuredly didn’t hang around.”
After Perry waved a fond farewell to the Pop, it left a
big empty car-shaped hole in his heart and garage
which he just had to fill.
The search for a suitable candidate commenced.
It didn’t take long as Perry now explains, “The car
actually belonged to a friend of mine and had been
sat neglected in his barn for several years and was
in a very sorry looking state by the time I came
along to rescue it.” What Perry had taken on was
not going to be a few weekends worth of rebuilding,
far from it to be exact. “Years stored in the barn
had really taken its toll,” he sighs. “The shell was
just a mass of rust and had no doors, bonnet, boot
lid or windows, and all of the interior was missing.
Thinking back to that day when I viewed it, the
more I crept around the car poking and prodding
the sensible side of me kicked in telling me not to
take on such a mammoth task, but, as I’ve already
said I like to be creative and take on a challenge.”
With the sorry looking Corsair awoken from its
slumber and pulled carefully from its resting place,
it got snuggly tucked up into Perry’s garage in
readiness for what laid ahead. “I struggled like mad
to get a pair of decent doors,” he remembers. “The
only saving grace was while the search progressed
there was plenty of other jobs to be getting on
with.” Despite languishing in a barn for many
years, on closer inspection, the shell was found
to be in pretty good shape with no replacement
panels needed and requiring only minimal welding
to the floorpan to get the car in shape. “I also
fitted the full roll cage which is welded in place
so adds extra strength to the car, plus it looks
good!.” With the cage neatly in place, attention
See our behind the scenes footage on Instagram: @retrofordmagazine
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