Lotus Cortina with Webasto sunroof

[WHEELIE]

Hi good morning to all members
I am trying to locate the whereabouts of my old Lotus cortina i sold her in 1985 to raise money to start a new buisness venture that turned out to be a good move apart from the fact that i sold her for the princely sum of £1100 wow anyway i cannot even remember the registration but what i do know is that it has and there cannot be that many that have a full length webasto cloth sunroof its prickled my conscience for some time and i would like a photo of her if she still around today i can identify the sunroof as when the guys installed it they broke a piece of trim of the inside so if you know of this car pm or email me
Regards Wheelie

[Steve 155C]

What colour was the sun roof? It may sound like a strange question but there are some MK1's around with white ones , rather then the usual black.

Also was you car ever registered with the LCR? If so there should still be a record of its reg number.

[WHEELIE]

Hi Steve
The sunroof was black and i was not a member of the LCR at that time s i said i do not even remember the reg but it was for sure the airflow model
Regards WHEELIE

[DAVE65]

the only one I have seen with a black sunroof resides in jersey.
I saw it at this years Motoring Festival.
It is road registered and is used on sprints.
You can see a picture of it on http://www.policecaruk.com/PCUKin jersey
I found it by searching for lotus cortina in jersey and it came up in search result list
Give it a look

[Mal Plunkett]

Can you advise which town you sold it from. My Mk1 had a black webmaster when I bought it in '85.

[WHEELIE]

Hi Mal
Mal i lived in the Halifax area in west yorkshire
Regards Wheelie

[MagnusHolmgren]

Maybe this car?

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1363&p=8202&hilit=178+TJH#p8202

178 TJH, yes a Pre-A, but with the vents in the C-pillars......

/M

[WHEELIE]

Well maybe it was this car i did feel for sure it was an airflow as back then the early pre airflow cortinas where not very desirable we all wanted the airflow model anyway where is this car now is it going to the club show at Gaydon this weekend i can tell for sure by looking at the sunroof internally as it has a small piece broken of the interior moulding which would be nigh on impossible to repair or replace without a new sunroof
Regards WHEELIE

[MagnusHolmgren]

If 178 TJH was your car you will probably not recognize it today..... It is one of the best LCs around. Completely restored. The sunroof has been removed.

You can find pictures of it on this forum, and on various websites, e.g. here :
http://www.lotuscortinainfo.com/?page_id=1215

/M

[WHEELIE]

Hi Magnus
What i also remember but i did not appreciate the significance way back then i knew it was an A frame car
it had strengthing tubes inside behind the rear interior trim cards as i took them off to look if they where there as i say i did not realy understand them however i sold it as i said in the spring summer of 1985 to start up in buisness maybe that is the car hopefully the guy who owns it now may have some early history of its former owners but going back to 1985 i sold it for £1100 how times have changed

[Steve 155C]

The trouble is lot of cars have now been restored and the sunroof replaced with a full steel roof , so without anything also to identify your car hope of finding it are probably very slim.

What is your real name (as was on the log book) - that may jog the current owners memory.

[Breeny]

My lotus Cortina 1966 model FCD 719D used to have a sunroof when it was in the UK
Now in Perth Australia minus sunroof.It came from Dorset , and Southampton area originally..

[WHEELIE]

Hi good morning
Thanks for the reply i seem to have drawn a blank on this thread as it seems most recent owners have taken out the sunroofs and had them refilled i suppose it it is there choice myself personally i love the webasto type sunroofs to my mind far better than a full convertible here in the uk and i have more classics in my collection with them installed i tend to view things like these as part of there dna and would not remove one for the sake of originality anyway many thanks for your reply
Regards Wheelie

[lotustwincam]

My first Lotus, FCV 744D, originally came from St. Austell and must be a close relative of your car Breeny. When I first got it, it was fitted with a full length webasto. However I am not sure when it acquired it, when I stripped the car to start restoration I found a replacement roof had been crudely welded on, and damage to o/s quarter suggested it had been rolled at some stage!

[voyager]

So once upon a time, around September/October 1985, my future father in law came home from his work where someone had mentioned a car for sale, considered to be a green and white sporty Ford!

After a bit of Q & A it was thought to be white with a green stripe. I had an idea what it may be and asked him to find out more. No idea of the connection between his work and the seller. The car wasn’t local.

We went late evening to what I remember was a very hilly area of Greetland or West Vale, near Halifax. there was an unmade track or lane running along the back of a row of terrace houses, the lane was at a higher elevation than the houses and you looked down into the back yard. Parked on the lane was the mk1 Cortina, with the little yellow badges. A quick look round brought an instant ‘I want’ moment.

There were quite a lot of the standard Lotus bits missing, the wood rim, air box/filter, ¼ bumpers, it was fitted with some odd gauges, it was on aftermarket alloys, cosmic I think and the seats were normal standard pale green Cortina items, not Lotus.

At some point the car had been in a body shop where the original interior had been stolen, but I can’t actually remember where that info came from.

Can’t even recall if it was a runner. It was a late 64, early airflow ‘A’ frame car, But the ‘A’ frame was gone it had been changed to leaf springs and std axle/brakes.

However at the time I either didn’t know about all this, what it should or shouldn't have or more likely just didn’t care. It had yellow badges and most importantly for this storey a new webasto!

Remember standing in the guys kitchen and seeing what I thought were some commercial butchers shop type meat slicers, if not they were still scary looking things, can’t remember if he said he’d just bought them or they were also for sale but he did say he was raising funds for a new business venture and the car had to go.

The car had been for sale for a while but with no offers, I can’t recall the actual price initially mentioned could have been £1100, but remember thinking it was well out of my budget at the time and I was ready for leaving.

I made a cheeky ridiculously low offer then waited to be escorted out of the door. After a pause Instead the guy said if it was cash and I could pay in full and collect the car before the next weekend I could have it.

The next few days were spent rushing round to beg/steal/borrow a trailer and a car with a tow bar, the car was my sisters boyfriends, a Volvo 245 estate in blue and me thinking could its clutch cope with the trailer and the hills, strange what odd facts you remember, no idea where the trailer came from.

Does this ring any bells.