Ford Anglia 105E: British Champion. Aussie Racing Icon.
When Ford of England released the new 105E Anglia in 1959, its instant popularity with new car buyers was shared by motor sport competitors in the UK and many other countries, including Australia.
The 105E was a natural for competition use. Disarmingly simple yet thoroughly modern for its time, it featured the latest in lightweight unitary body-chassis construction, MacPherson strut front suspension, a leaf-sprung live rear axle, four-wheel drum brakes and a trim kerb weight of only 740kg.
It's compact 2299mm wheelbase and 3912mm length embodied contemporary US styling cues that were influencing car design the world over, including a full-width chrome grille, subtle tail fins and a distinctive reverse-slant rear window reminiscent of the 1958 Lincoln Continental.
The new Anglia was also blessed with a new ‘Kent’ 997cc overhead valve engine, four-speed gearbox and electric (as opposed to vacuum) windscreen wipers. A more powerful ‘Super’ 123E model with larger 1198cc engine followed in 1962.
The Anglia’s greatest racing success was unquestionably the 1966 British Saloon Car Championship, when John Fitzpatrick in a 997cc 105E won both the under-1000cc class and overall driver’s title.
Britain’s premier tin-top class complied with FIA Group 5 regulations that year, which allowed for extensive mechanical modifications even though body shapes had to remain standard. The new rule freedoms attracted numerous specialist race tuners including Ralph Broad, who ensured Fitzpatrick’s ‘Team Broadspeed’ 105E was the class of the field.
The under-1000cc division was dominated by Anglias and Hillman Imps, which outclassed the 998cc Minis. Fitzpatrick’s championship victory was as much a credit to the Anglia’s excellent reliability and race-winning speed as it was to his driving skill, claiming six class wins from eight rounds.
Ford was also active with the Anglia in UK and European rallying, with works-prepared and privately-entered 105Es showcasing their ruggedness in the small car classes in famous events including the RAC, East African Safari and Monte Carlo rallies to name a few.
Ford Australia was also keen to prove its products were tough enough for Aussie roads through motor sport success, so factory-backed and privately-entered 105Es (along with XK-XL Falcons and Mark 1 Cortinas) mirrored their UK cousins by competing in domestic rallying events in the early 1960s.
The Anglia’s sporting prowess also established a small car design blueprint at Ford that would ensure the phenomenal sales and motor sport success of its famous replacement – the Escort Mk 1.
When released in 1968, after eight years of 105E production had churned out more than one million examples, the Escort was slightly larger than the Anglia in all key dimensions. On reflection, it could be seen as an Anglia on steroids.
The Escort also carried over many of the 105E’s design principles including lightweight unitary body construction, MacPherson strut front suspension, a leaf-spring live rear axle and variants of the robust and willing ‘Kent’ inline fours.
In motor sport, though, the Escort benefitted from Ford’s resolute commitment, under its global ‘Total Performance’ strategy, to optioning more powerful Cosworth-designed engines for competition use.
Anglia Down Under: The Australian Connection
The Anglia 105E wrote its own chapter in the long and colourful history of Australia’s greatest motor race, with private entries taking part in all three Armstrong 500s held at Phillip Island before the event moved to its permanent home at Mount Panorama, Bathurst.
In the first ‘500’ held in 1960, when classes were based on engine capacities, a lone 997cc Anglia 105E shared by Bill Nalder and John Amp found itself in Class B (751c to 1300cc) where it faced stiff competition from Simca Aronde, Triumph Herald, VW Beetle and Renault Dauphine rivals.
As expected the fast and rugged Simcas stormed off into the distance, with the French cars claiming a resounding 1-2-3 in Class B. A Triumph Herald and three Beetles finished ahead of the Anglia, which crossed the line in eighth place six laps behind the class winner. However, the Anglia did manage to survive almost eight and a half hours of racing on the disintegrating Phillip Island track, which couldn’t be said for some of its faster Class B rivals.
Anglias turned out in force for 1961, with five 105Es entered under a new four-class structure which saw them moved to Class D (up to 1000cc). This put the small UK Fords on a collision course with a trio of rapid Renault Gordinis, with one driven by future touring car champion Norm Beechey.
The French cars stamped their superiority by finishing first and second ahead of two Triumph Heralds, with the highest placed Anglia shared by Lou Molina and multiple AGP winner Doug Whiteford in fifth place, five laps behind the class-winning Renault. Again the Anglia proved its rugged durability, with all five finishing and maintaining its perfect durability record.
1962 was the third and last time an Anglia would compete in the 500, with the classes now based on retail prices. This put the lone Anglia shared by Graham Hoinville and Kevin Burns up against a more powerful VW Beetle and numerous entries of BMC’s fast and agile Morris Mini 850. In finishing strongly, the Anglia’s reliability was now beyond doubt, but it was outgunned again in raw performance terms, finishing eighth in class and five laps behind the class-winning VW.
Sports Racing Closed: Anglia Finds a Sweet Spot
As mentioned earlier in this story, the 105E was embraced by amateur competitors in sedan racing classes that allowed modifications to improve performance. This included Australia’s burgeoning ‘Sports Racing Closed’ category in the 1960s, which would be renamed ‘Sports Sedans’ during a stratospheric rise in popularity and professionalism in the 1970s.
Sports Racing Closed was a new playground for home-grown hot-rodders. What they lacked in raw dollars was made up for with lots of elbow grease and late nights in dimly-lit home garages or, if they were lucky, the corner of a well-equipped workshop at a local servo or car dealership.
Minimal technical restrictions allowed fertile imaginations to run free. Small cars could be fitted with big engines and large cars could be fitted with even bigger ones.
You could also relocate engines in chassis to improve weight distribution, mix and match drivetrains, chassis, brakes, suspensions, wheels and tyres and create some wild bodywork with flared wheel arches, spoilers, wings, scoops and other things.
These home-grown hybrids were raw, fast and loud, often with compromised chassis and spooky handling that made them exciting to watch. Memorable creations from this period include Peter Brock’s home-built Austin A30 with a Holden six squeezed in beside the driver. And Harry LeFoe’s insane Hillman Imp with a small-block Ford V8 strapped to its back, to name just two.
The Anglia proved a popular choice for many of these budget-strapped racers. On the used car market early 105Es were cheap and plentiful, with a good supply of spare parts available through Ford dealers and local wrecking yards.
Case Study: Phil Ward’s Anglia 105E
Sydney-based Phil Ward was one of Sport Sedan racing’s biggest names at the height of the category’s popularity in the 1970s and early ‘80s, firstly with a wickedly fast Cosworth-powered Escort before moving up to the fearsome ex-Bob Jane HQ Monaro GTS 350.
However, like many others he got started in the Sports Racing Closed era of the late 1960s driving a home-built Anglia 105E, after deciding he’d served his racing ‘apprenticeship’ by often scaring local residents near his home in Sydney’s western suburbs.
“The Anglia was my first road car; I had a couple of sedans and a panel van as well,” Ward told the Shannons Club.
“I lived in Dundas and worked in the city so I’d drive to work and back every day. And I used to drive absolutely flat-out, just like I was on a race track. It makes me shudder when I think about it now. These days, if you went around just one corner the way I went around every corner, they’d put you in jail!”
Given Ward’s ownership of several 105Es, the Anglia was an obvious choice. The Sports Racing Closed category was also a no-brainer, as a decent race car could be built relatively cheaply if he did most of the work himself. And he was impressed by John Fitzpatrick’s then-recent victory in Britain’s premier touring car series
“I just liked the look of them and the way they handled and steered,” Ward said. “The Anglia had a really good chassis configuration too which Ford followed for a long time, right through to the end of the Cortinas. The only problem with the Anglia was that the front-end used to flex a fair bit, although I didn’t know about any of that back then.
“There was a guy called Jesse Griffiths who raced a black Anglia at the time. We became good mates and because he worked at Lynx Engineering he used to help me with some machining work and other things. I always built my own engines, but he was a great help when we were racing Anglias.
“I won my first race, which was a club meeting at Warwick Farm. I beat a Simca Aronde and a Ford Zephyr, which gives you some idea of the competition. At the time there were heaps of Minis and Anglias and we had some great races against guys like ‘Leffo’ (John Leffler) who was really quick (in a hot Cooper S).
“The Minis and Anglias were pretty evenly matched at the time although my car was definitely faster towards the end when I dropped a twin-cam in it…nothing like a bit of straight-line handling!”
Ward’s home-grown modifications were typical of the era. He started by replacing the standard 997cc Kent engine with a larger 116E (1498cc) version, which remained largely stock apart from a ported and polished head, hotter cam, home-made exhaust headers and a pair of side-draught Weber carbs.
Interestingly, Ward took Griffiths’ advice in downsizing to a 113E (1198cc) “because everyone wanted to run a 1500” and parts were becoming harder to find. Therefore, things like cranks and rods for the less popular 113E were cheaper and more plentiful. And by increasing the cylinder bore to 85mm, the 113E could be safely stretched to a 1475cc capacity anyway.
In his insatiable search for more power, Ward then experimented with a Norman supercharger which generated its positive displacement via a rotary vane, which looked like a large rolling pin inside a cylinder casing with replaceable blades along its length made from Bakelite of all things.
“With those Bakelite blades you had to run some oil in the petrol to lubricate them, but I just couldn’t get it to work and blew up lots of engines trying to make it work. I never had any money, so trying to develop such things on my own was a waste of time really.”
After giving up on the supercharger, Ward found more grunt another way by installing a crankshaft from a 1.6 litre crossflow Kent engine, which with its longer stroke and existing 85mm over-bore resulted in 1760cc. Even so, the definitive engine fitted to Ward’s Anglia was a “BRM-tuned” 1.6 litre twin-cam from a Lotus Cortina.
“To psych-out my rivals I told everyone it was BRM-tuned, but it was actually just a stock Lotus twin-cam fitted with a BRM-badged cam cover I managed to scrounge from somewhere,” Ward quipped.
“There was nothing fancy about that engine, apart from fitting what they called ‘L1’ camshafts which were all the go in those days, but it did have more grunt and reliability than any engine I’d used up until that point. It ended up being a pretty quick little car.”
You’d think with all of that engine development going on, the rest of the Anglia’s drivetrain, suspension and brakes would have attracted equal attention. However, given Ward’s wafer-thin budget, it remained remarkably close to stock.
The clutch and gearbox were mostly standard Anglia, with the four-speed ‘box running a taller 2.5:1 first gear similar to the Lotus Cortina. The only change to the standard rear axle assembly was to weld the diff and half-shafts together so that it worked as a fully-locked unit.
“To lower the suspension, I just got out the oxy torch and cut the front springs down until it was sitting at the right height,” Ward recalled with dismay, giving another insight into Sports Racing Closed ‘technology’ for tight budgets.
“To lower the rear I just made up some lowering blocks. I never bought any springs or fancy shocks or any of that. The wheels and tyres were just widened steel rims with my first set of Bridgestone race tyres. I can remember us all standing around in the garage when I first bought them, thinking how amazing it was that they could stand up all by themselves without falling over.”
To shed weight Ward removed all of the interior trim and fitted a light plastic chair, similar to those found in sporting grandstands, as his driver’s seat! He also admitted to “drilling holes in everything” but concedes that he probably went too far and compromised the car’s chassis rigidity.
“We didn’t know about the importance of chassis stiffness. When I think about some of the cars that raced in those days, with six cylinder and even V8 mid-engine swaps, they must have been flexing so badly given the amount of floor and firewall they had to chop out to do it. Some of the stuff that was allowed…it was just crazy when you look back now.”
Sadly, Ward’s Anglia twin-cam was destroyed in a high-speed crash at Queensland’s Surfers Paradise Raceway in 1972. Its demise prompted the building of a new car – his famous Cosworth-powered Escort sports sedan. Which was entirely appropriate given the Anglia 105E’s pivotal role as the Escort’s predecessor, on the road and in competition.
