1972 Twin cam Escort

Personal memories from the time when these cars were new (or at least not as old as they are now).
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carrat
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:21 pm
Location: MI.

1972 Twin cam Escort

Post by carrat »

I was about 18 when I bought the Twin cam off a friend I knew from school. It was his mothers car that he had inherited as his own when he got his licence. When I got the car it was less than perfect in both body and soul, I was, and still are in the automotive body/paint trade and thankfully one of my friends was well into his mechanics apprenticeship so rebuilding the car was not an issue.
It should be noted that we grew up next to the Wellington international airport in New Zealand and that there was a nice long straight away running down each side of the runway used as public roads, and on the odd occasion late night race tracks.
One Saturday morning we decided to give the car the ultimate tune up. We took all morning, doing everything a couple of testerone infussed 18 year olds could think of to make it go faster. New plugs, points, color tuned the webers and the replacement of that special rev limiting rotor, obviously put in there by the experts at Lotus for a reason, not that we thought about it at the time. Will after all the work we decide it needed to be tested. The garage my friend worked at just happened to be located at one end of one of the straight aways on an adjascent road, as it was my car I went first. Man it flew, it pulled all thew way into the mid 7000rpm range, it had never done that before. Off down the long straight over the rise at the opposite end, around the round about and back. According to Kevin, my friend, he could hear it all the way there and back, except for when it went over the rise and around the turn at the end, so obviously I had to hear it too, so off he went. It sure did sound nice, especially with the airbox cover removed so we could hear the webers better. That car ran great for about six months, then one day, there I was impressing myself with it's acceleration, and noise ( the air box was seldom covered after that day) when there was a loud noise and a large cloud of smoke emitting from under the car. I had managed to kill the Lotus. Remember that special rev limiting rotor, that's why it was there, it seems the safety point of that motor was about 6600rpm, not 7500rpm. I never drove the car again, sold it along with my Cooper S Mini to come overseas. Boy do I miss those two cars :(
never be scared, build it for yourself
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