Biography of Malcolm Archbald Smith - Ford Cortina Mk1 1300

Malcolm Smith's Family History Archive

Vehicles driven by

Malcolm Archbald SMITH

[Ref. S.1]

Ford Cortina Mk1 1300

At the time thast Malcolm was looking for a new job, he was looking to buy a new car and had viewed both Volkswagon Beetles and Nissan models. Luckily he had dallied because, when he got the job, it came with a car. He was given a Ford Cortina 1300 to undertake the frequent journeys that he would make throughout the UK.

It came that Malcolm would be making probably two journeys per week which could be up to 350 miles. In order to get the distances covered in reasonablr time, it was necessary to go as fast as possible. Unfortunately th cars were not up to it and two of them had their enhgines blow up on Malcolm. He recalled one instance when he had been to Stansted in Essex when the engine gave way. He rang the transport manager who siad that if he could keep it going to bring it back to the office. Luckily Malcolm managed to achieve that.

The model that he had the longest was metallic blue just like that in the photograph above. Coming back from an appointment in North London one afternoon, he was going round the North Circular Road was in the outside lane of three on a dual carriageway section. A car attempted to pull out two cars ahead of Malcolm which caused that driver to make an emergency stop. The car behind collided with it then Malcolm ran into the back of them. The collision crumpled the wing onto a front wheel so the police who attended forbade Malcolm from driving any further and called a tow truck. The car was taken to a small back street garage and he was given one of their cars to get home. The replacement car was in very poor condition, probably worse than the car he laft at the garage. Whilst Malcolm had been waiting by the roadside for the tow truck, the men in his team tat he had been visiting drove past without seeing him. Malcolm had tried to attract their attention in order to get a lift home. When he got his car back he found that the resprayed wing had a coulour that obviously did not match the car. Anyhow, it was not his car so not a problem to him.