My 1969 Ford Cortina GT Mk 2

"I didn't want to have to rebuild later, so I've done a proper job first time."  His 1969 Ford Cortina GT Mk 2 is painted 1968 zircon green and is a shining example of committed restoration.

Firth, 62, has moved to Brisbane from Port Macquarie after selling his child restraint fitting business and now plans to semi-retire and spend more time driving his GT.  "It is the first car I've ever restored and probably will be the last," he says.

"It's not a concourse car because of the non-original parts. It's just for fun. I just want to enjoy it."  But that's not entirely true.  A year ago — just one week after he got it on the road following a laborious and expensive seven-year restoration job — Firth took it to a Baby Boomers Week car show at Forster.

"I just parked it and left it to look at the other cars and when I came back I found I'd won a couple of trophies for best British car and sponsor's choice," he says.  "Then I won another trophy in Port Macquarie a month later.

"It's done its show bit and now we just want to enjoy it."  Firth bought the Cortina in 2001 for $1500."It was a bit of a mess," he says.  "It wasn't registered. I think 64 people had had a go at restoring it and given up in disgust.

"There was a lot of rust in it and it needed a fair bit of surgery on it.  "I cut the boot off and grafted on another one from another car, replaced all the door sills and just kept at it and did something to it each weekend."  The GT is powered by a 69 kilowatt 1600cc cross flow engine, but not the original.

"I suspect it came out of a Capris like the gearbox.  "I know that because reverse is up beside first while the Cortina had it beside fourth."  Firth says it may only have 69kW, but it more than makes up for it with loads of torque.

"My wife has a Honda Civic Sport and I have a VW Caddy van, but the torque of this old Cortina motor is so much better than the high-revving engines of modern cars," he says.  "There are a couple of hills out here and it just accelerates up them in top whereas the others I have to drop down a gear or two."

The GT has a dual-throat down-draft Webber carby, GT disc brakes on the front with drums on the rear, Stratos seats, inertia reel seatbelts, adjustable strut tops, Koni shocks and 13-inch Cheviot Turbo 6x13 alloys replacing the original steel wheels.

"I`ve spent an undisclosed figure on it because my wife is within earshot," he says.  "We just wanted to make it a bit more comfortable so we can drive it around," he says.  "The only thing I haven't got around to yet is the diff, but I've since got hold of a 3.5 ratio out of a two-litre Escort and that's a job I will get on to.

"The standard ratio is 3.9, so I just wanted to go down for quieter highway cruising which is what I built it for. It's not going to be a race car."  Firth has a long history in motorsport having been a member of the Thornleigh Car Club in Sydney since he was 12.

"My sister and her husband used to run around in motorkhana and I used to hang out the window and do the flag pick-up," he says.  He has mainly competed in club events and hillclimbs, worked on his son's motor racing ventures and plans to go to Bathurst for the 12-hour race next weekend (FEBRUARY 12-14) to help his friend and race driver Andrew Miedecke.

Firth's first car was a 1962 Austin A40 Farina, followed by a Morris 1100, a series of Hillman Imps "during the funny era of cheap motorsport" and a Cortina 440 Mk 2.  "I had about nine Hillman Imps over two or three years. People used to give them to us and we'd play around with them and get the parts we needed and throw the rest out.

"We had one working road car and one working race car and the total cost was $250."  He decided to restore a Cortina because he thought it would also be cheap.  "All the mechanical parts are still available but the body parts are actually hard to come by," he says.

"It was just something to do after our son decided to sell his race car.  "I thought it wouldn't take long and cost much, but seven years and a truck load of money later ... Nevermind. I'll keep it another 40 years and the kids might recover what it cost to build it, so that's their inheritance."