Jeff Uren will be a well-known name to all British Ford enthusiasts; principally for his term as team manager of the Ford Rally Team, and his successful racing career in saloon and touring cars from 1955 to 1964. Although Uren also raced a GSM Delta in GT races, his name is still closely linked with Ford through his later role in motor sport management and, as well as his work with the Ford Rally Team, he also worked with Ford Detroit and Willment.

Jeff Uren’s own company — Race Proved Performance and Racing Ltd — was well known during the ’60s for its ‘Savage’ conversions on re-engineered Cortinas. Uren’s special talent was put to use as he figured out how to drop Ford’s V6 Essex (Ford Zodiac) engine into the shell of the Cortina 1600E MkII. Prior to the Cortina Savage, Race Proved had developed other potent combinations — such as the Navajo 2.0-litre Escort Estate, Apache 3.0-litre V6 Escort, Comanche V6 Capri and the Stampede Boss Mustang V8-powered Capri.

Nevertheless, just sticking a bigger engine into a car it was never designed for usually has negative side effects — ones which could also be detrimental to the driver’s health — but Uren knew what he was doing.

Operating with Ford’s knowledge and assistance when working on his 3.0-litre Essex V6-powered Savage Cortinas, Uren followed the well tried formula of ‘big engine — light chassis’ and he was well aware that significant chassis modifications would be required if the V6-powered Cortina was to be anything more than a hairy, straight-line performance car.

Many structural modifications were built into the lightweight Cortina body shell to cope with the additional weight and stresses put upon it by the V6. ¨The chassis members were seam welded down the sides of the engine bay and a new cross-member was fitted for extra rigidity. The suspension mounting holes were left blank by Ford, so Uren could drill them out himself to allow for tuning in some negative camber. ¨New engine mountings were also required, as the weight of the V6 sat well forward of the standard four-cylinder engine.

Modified springs and shock absorbers were used, with carefully developed new ratings to avoid axle tramp. Much emphasis was put on selecting the rear springs, which were designed to allow the front linkage to act as a locating swivel for the axle, while the rear linkage supported the weight of the car.

Other modifications included a new wiring loom, relocating the battery to the boot, an alternator conversion, an uprated exhaust system, a special differential ratio, a larger capacity cooling system, and even a driver’s footrest. Even with all these changes, it wasn’t that easy to pick out a Savage in the crowd — but if you were close enough you’d notice the ‘Savage’ badges on the front quarter panel behind the wheel arches and on the boot lid. ‘V6’ badges appeared in place of the more usual GT.

Other options included an extra fuel tank, sunshine roof, Minilite alloy wheels, Lucas iodine-vapour headlights and a limited slip differential along with various seat options.

Steering by Throttle

Fitting a weighty V6 engine into a Cortina could have produced a nose-heavy car with excessive understeer, but Uren’s extensive suspension changes resulted in a vehicle with precise and predictable handling — certainly better than the donor car. The V6 engine meant that 56 per cent of the Savage’s weight sat across the front wheels, but that was pretty close to the stock 1600E’s 54:46 weight distribution.

With sufficient understeer to provide good directional stability, contemporary road-testers quickly discovered just how forgiving the car really was, although they also noted intrusive wind noise (a standard Cortina MkII misgiving) and considerable road noise over broken roads.

However, most of the Savage’s unruly nature could be forgiven as the car’s performance was considered quite outstanding for its era — with 101kW and 247Nm on tap in a vehicle that weighed only 1068kg, that is hardly surprising.

Apparently it was possible to have your own Cortina converted to Savage specifications — providing, of course, it was deemed to be in good enough condition for the conversion. Several hundred Savages were built between 1967 and 1970.

Rob Halliday’s Savage

To most motor racing fans, the Halliday family needs little introduction. Brothers Rob and Don started off drag racing at the Kopuku Dragway before taking on the challenges of motor racing in the late ’60s. With Rob’s mechanical support, Don went on to become multiple NZ Touring Car champion while Don’s son, Matt Halliday, is currently enjoying much success today racing GT3 Porches and, of course, has also represented New Zealand in A1GP.

Rob and his son, Robbie, are also well into the local motor sport scene, currently racing their classic Cortina MkIIs — one is an Alan Mann Cortina replica, the other a Lotus twin-cam-powered Cortina MkII. Rob admits that Robbie is fairly competitive on the track and has been known to give the old man a bit of a hurry up at times. But that’s all about to change, as Rob is now building a stronger engine for his car — one which should hold Robbie at bay, at least in the short term

Rob is based on the Mangawhai Heads, where he has now lived for over 11 years. Initially he was in the business of building bulldozers, these being constructed from start to finish in-house, with a range of different-sized vehicles available.

Unfortunately, New Zealand’s small population provided only a limited market for his bulldozers — and export proved too difficult without government support, which wasn’t as forthcoming as expected. As a result, Rob decided to change direction and founded Halliday Racing Developments, a business fabricating and building race cars — or any other car for that matter.

Wandering around Rob’s workshop, it was clearly obvious that he and Robbie are masters at their trade, with every piece of engineering machinery imaginable available in their well-equipped workshop. Building race cars seemed like second nature to these guys. And I have to admit, I have never seen so many Lotus twin-cam engines before in my life. Rob’s workshop would be heaven to any Cortina buff; with Cortina GTs, Cortina race-cars and the odd Capri scattered around the place it was clear that Fords ruled in the Halliday household. I happened to ask Rob about the number of Cortina GT MkIIs around and about their popularity in New Zealand. He laughed and said he wasn’t sure, but intimated that he probably owned most of them anyway, and there were even more tucked away at home.

Replicating Uren’s Savage

With his new workshop up and running, Rob decided he wanted to build a Targa car but wasn’t too sure what to build. Then about a year ago Rob’s good friend Neil Tolich (whose Capri Perana replica featured recently in these pages), suggested he build a Savage Cortina replica, considering that would provide all the necessary power and torque for Targa-style events. It didn’t take much persuasion from Neil before the build was underway.

Rob started off with a Cortina GT MkII, being fully aware that these cars had the advantage of additional reinforcing in the strut towers and heavy-duty anti-tramp rod brackets already built in.

The Cortina was completely stripped down and Rob fitted an automatic transmission tunnel courtesy of a Ford Capri. ¨This provided enough space to house a Sierra Cosworth T5 gearbox. A World Cup cross-member was added before the V6 engine was nestled into its resting place. Naturally, this engine has been imbued with a healthy dose of additional power — courtesy of being bored out to 3.1 litres and being fitted with a Kent Cams cam kit and 11.0:1 forged pistons. The fully balanced engine was then topped off with aluminium downdraught heads, an aluminium high-rise intake manifold and triple down-draught Weber carburettors. The final result sees the revitalised V6 pumping out 194kW (260bhp), more than enough power to keep Rob — and his competitors — honest.

The Cortina’s rear end has also received some serious modifications, including a shortened Capri Atlas differential with fully floating hubs and high-tensile axles. A Capri Watts linkage mounts the ZF differential unit and four wheel ventilated discs, with specially fabricated alloy hubs up front, and four pot callipers take care of the stopping department.
As you can see from our photographs, the Savage Cortina replica is still a work in progress, although only minor items are now required before it’s ready for the start line.

We were fortunate enough to see Rob take the red beast out of the workshop and drive it for the first time, and it sounded suitably ‘savage’ and menacing. Everything seemed to work perfectly and I could see that Rob and Robbie were looking for any excuse to take the Cortina out onto the road for a test drive — but they’ll have to wait awhile before they get to that stage.

Rob has received a lot of help and encouragement along the way and would like to thank Neil Tolich, Kevin Hurst, Nelson Marshall and Geoff Campbell for all their support.
With the NZ Tourist Trophy having been postponed for several months, Rob now has plenty of time to get any bugs ironed out and will undoubtedly be a serious contender, although he reckons he’s just in it for the fun. However, we have to remember one thing — Hallidays are serious about their motor racing.

Words: Ashley Webb Photos: Dan Wakelin