Cutting his teeth as a Ford mechanic for six years, it was safe to assume that Mark Nicholson was always going to have a soft spot for cars sporting the Blue Oval. And despite starting out in a Mini 1000, it was his mum’s Mk2 XR2 that really got his creative juices flowing. “Well, that and a passion I had from a young age having helped my grandad out on the driveway with cars he used to service and tinker with. The passion just grew from there…”
Fast-forward a decade or so and Mark had his heart set on his mum’s XR2. “I ended up buying the car from her and that was when I started going down the modified road,” he says. No sooner had he got his mitts on the keys, he ended up fitting a performance cam with vernier pulley, a four-branch manifold and full Magnex exhaust system. All off-the-shelf parts, but with a re-jetted carb and the new cam setup, Mark claims it was a quick little
