Just a few quick lines about this as it's going to be the subject of a much longer article.

I've spent years of my time and driven so many people to distraction (sorry, Nerina!) in my relentless pursuit of a "Light 15" (the 6 - cylinder version), totally without success.

However shortly after I came to live in Belgium, I was in a supermarket and just happened to knock a magazine off the shelf. When I picked it back up, it was open at the "car sales" page, and my eye fell straight away on an advert for a Traction for sale to "an amateur" (a way of describing the vehicle as a wreck).

It was only 40 miles away so I leapt into the red Cortina and went to see it.

It was only an 11L, the short 4-cylinder and not the long 6-cylinder, for one of which I would die. It's not quite all there either, but seeing as neither am I, that makes two of us. It was also overpriced.

However in a fit of madness, I bought it, hired a trailer and towed it back. And I don't regret the purchase for a moment

It's travelled quite a few miles on a trailer, as you can see in the photograph. This was when it was on its way from Belgium down to a warehouse in Montaigut en Combraille in the Puy de Dôme that I had bought in order to store some of my old vehicles.

Anyway, to cut a long story short ... "for which we are all grateful" - ed ... it now lives in France in a warehouse with the 2000E and the red Cortina estate (the same one as in the photograph).

Now that I'm retired I can consider turning all of my attention to it, once I've dealt with the mountain of other jobs that have piled up over the years.

So don't hold your breath. This is going to be a very long project. But its fate could have been far, far worse. At least the car is in shelter out of the rain and hasn't been transformed into half a dozen baked bean tins.

back to top