During the period surrounding my marriage breakup in the winter of 1991/2, my wife was working as a cab driver for a local cab company. One day I had to go there to leave something - I can't remember what it was now and it's not important anyway.

Now the company was a well - known, well - respected firm, but as I looked around I remarked that their cars appeared even worse than the ones I used to have, and that was saying something. There were a couple of old Sierras at the back of the yard which they used from time to time, but one of them had a blown engine.

The boss took me over to see it to ask what I thought, and while we were there he pointed out an old Mark 3 Cortina behind it. The poor thing - the Cortina, that is. I mean, who cares about Sierras - was dirty, rusty, and generally in poor condition, but the boss explained that he'd bought it for the motor, to go in the Sierra.

So I went over to look at the Cortina and the first thing that hit me was that it was the colour. Someone had resprayed it really badly into a disgusting dark chocolatey - brown, yet even so, you couldn't mistake what it was, or, at least, what it used to be!, which was a 2000E.

It still had its white vinyl roof and traces of the original bronze paint showing through and, even more interestingly, it still had its original gold wheels. It was M - registered - TNY134M - which meant that it was one of the very first 2000E vehicles.

So me being me, I took it for a drive to see what it was like and noticed that the big ends were rattling away like nobody's business and that the engine smoked like a chimney. How the cab owner had missed it when he'd bought it I had no idea.

Mind you, judging by the rest of his cabs, this motor would go down very well here.

Less importantly, the whole car swung over to the right - hand side as if one of the springs on the subframe was broken.

On my return I told the owner what I thought it was like, but he was absolute in his denial of the car's condition. Especially as he had paid the enormous sum of £80 for it.

"Never mind", I replied. I would pay him the £80 for it. I liked Mark 3 Cortinas.

But he didn't bite, so I walked away and that was that.

A couple of weeks later it was my birthday, and I saw the lights of something being driven into my yard.

The noise of someone closing a badly - fitting car door made me go outside, and there was the wife. She threw a set of keys and an envelope at me, said "happy birthday", and walked out of the yard into her friend's car and drove away.

There, sitting in the corner was a disgusting dark brown poorly - resprayed 2000E, still with its white vinyl roof and traces of the original bronze paint showing through, still with its original gold wheels.

And in the envelope were the papers.

Happy Birthday!

And frankly it was in bad condition. A good look around revealed

• The rear valance and undervalance were falling off
• the boot floor sides had disappeared
• the rear quarters were absent
• the real wheel arches and inner wings were as rough as the proverbial bear's proverbial nether regions
• there were no outer sills
• the inner sills were almost gone too
• Under the bonnet, the inner wings were just about hanging in
• the end stops of the sills under the front wings had gone too

And that was just the body work. I took the car for another test drive which confirmed all my impressions of the engine and suspension. Hitting the offside spring with a hammer did in fact reveal a broken spring.

And in case you're wondering, well the question about the state of the void bushes needs no answer. After all, it is a Cortina.

What was in fact surprising was that the front door pillars and scuttle under the windscreen were totally intact, and looked like they'll remain intact for ever. Whilst it is always possible to replace them, nevertheless that's what I look for in a Cortina. If they're okay, the rest is worth doing.

The body would have to be done quickly. It was almost too far gone, and no time could be wasted. It was necessary to leave the car outside, as I had no longer any covered garage in which to work or store cars.

It was winter too, and the weather would soon get at it and finish it off.

So, what have I done at it so far?

• I stripped out completely the interior and stored it in the spare bedroom, having cleaned as best I could the beige carpet.
• The floorpan I found to be quite solid and needed nothing doing to it so I left it alone.
• I cut out the nearside inner sill, ground off the rough edges and quickly put a new one in. Then I smeared the inside (that is, the side inside the car) with red lead.
• Next step was to cut off the outer sill, paint with red lead the other side of the new inner sill, underneath the door shut and the inside of the outer sill, then weld it on and red-lead it all.
• The process was then repeated with the offside inner and outer sill. At least now, the car won't fold in half.
• The usual places on the sides of the boot floor were plated, to stop the boot falling out.
• The spare wheel carrier had rotted through, but a replacement was cut out of another car ready to weld in at a later date.
• Now at least the car was something-like weatherproof so I then quickly changed the engine and gearbox for a 1600cc with manual box that I had lying around, and the car was a reasonable runner.
• A broken offside spring was a problem, so I swiftly slid a new subframe underneath, and off to the MOT station, where the car passed without a problem.

Thanks to Paul Lynch of the Mark III Cortina Club we now have a set of rear wings too which will help considerably the restoration of the car. Many thanks, Paul. I'll have to fix these one day.

So I drove it around a bit but laid it up when I emigrated to Belgium. Once I sorted out a garage there, I a-framed it across, and when I moved to France, the car was trailered down.

It now lives in a garage in Montaigut-en-Combrailles with a Citröen Light 15 and the red Cortina estate for company as well as its original engine and gearbox for refurbishing, waiting for me to build a workshop on the farm.

But since writing the above there have been some new developments, like the arrival of a 2000E estate, which, quite frankly is in much better condition, and also has my personal guarantee to the previous owner that I'll restore it to the condition it was when he bought it.

And with there not being enough 2000E spare parts to go around for both restorations at the moment, it means that the saloon unfortunately isn't going to get them in the forseeable future, which is a shame.

However,

1. I'm never one to cut up a car unless there's really no other way, and there are plenty of other ways that that with this one
2. I've always wanted to go classic car rallying,
3. I'm a firm believer in the use of non-polluting plant oil
4. I've recently been to the States on a Biodiesel course
5. I've recently bought a Sierra 2300 diesel engine and 5-speed box off eBay