I don't have any personal history with Mk2 Cortinas. I remember seeing them around when I was a kid, but the last of them would already have been three years old by the time I started work in a body shop at the age of 16. They used to come in with accident damage, or even with rust issues already, and I would work on them, but I never had one of my own. In fact, I didn't even like them! I described them as a cigarette box with a matchbox stuck on top. Back in the day they couldn't hold a candle to things like the Jaguars and Morgans we would also be working on. Your view does tend to soften over time of course, and there is no denying that the Cortina was always a very practical car. Ford absolutely nailed it in terms of four-seater saloons. Yes they had issues with rot, but so did everything else until the 1990s.
I used to have cars like Hillman Hunters and Vauxhall Vivas when they were a few years old, but they were just regular secondhand cars at the time. My first proper classic was a Triumph GT6, which was the first
