My Love Affair with The Blue Lady

I've had some sweet sleds over the years, and some complete shitboxes, but back in '82 The MkII Ford Cortina 1600e was something else.

She was the Blue Lady, two-tone, sky blue metallic paint and black vinyl roof, an explosive sound system, a unique "Banana Bunch" exhaust manifold and (e-for) executive interior complete with leather wrapped alloy punched sport steering wheel and a walnut dashboard (punctured with far too many clocks and dials for an early 70s saloon). It was about as pimp as a stock Ford out of Dagenham ever got. A serious car in it's day, both in terms of performance and appointment and I felt like an absolute gangster driving it around London especially late at night, somewhere sketchy.

Coveted by every cockney low life across the 33 boroughs, even in her middle age -  I lost count of the times my1600e was broken into, TDA'd, and dumped. One night the police called at my door and told me that my car had been found in Notting Hill and that I should go and recover it (I didn't even know it had been nicked, I thought it was parked up round the corner) I whizzed down to Portobello with a pal and there it was, parked Blues Brothers style, at a diagonal angle to the curb, down the side of Westbourne Park Tube Station. like something out of "The Sweeney" crossed with "The Twilight Zone", three of the doors open. Apart from a few Ruperts (spliff burns) in the Mock leather seats and a footwell full of torn up Rizla papers Blue Lady would live to roll again. Apparently a couple of rude boys had bailed out of it mid-drive, mid road, after they had attracted a daisy chain of panda'd up  feds.

It was stolen for the last time and driven to a car park in Swiss Cottage under the tower blocks, where it was stripped at leisure by a Cortina Hyena. By the time it was reported and I got to it, there was no interior, steering wheel, Rostyle wheels, dashboard and carbs. I said a prayer for the departed parts, a goodbye to her with a heavy heart, turned on my heels and vowed never to buy another Ford. Don't get me wrong the car was dreamy (and for me popped my cherry, I was now a car lover, something that people don't admit to very often these days), but you could open the doors and start the flipping thing with a five pence piece.

Three weeks later I was in love again, this time with a little orange Mini that had winked at me from a used car lot in Kilburn, which also disappeared within the year.

Tom Robinson wrote our best (and possibly our only real) road song 2-4-6-8 Motorway
listen to it on my Spotify Playlist: Bad Scooter - Cockney & Canvey Playlist