Ford Escort

dragist · Racing Wind! Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Posts: 308

I hope you guys like to read some great reading here .

http://www.rsownersclub.co.uk/car_info/esc1rs16mex.htm

Just a lil bit .

"The Ford Escort - Most successful rally car in the world
In 1968 the newly launched Escort Twin Cam kicked-off a 30 year winning spree with a spectacular first season scoring enough international rally victories to secure the coveted World Rally Championship for Makes. Ford Escorts of all types, competing at all levels, were successful rally winners up to the turn of the century, and even today are still occasionally winning events all round the world.

When those original Escorts first appeared, Ford cars were already known as fine rally cars, following high-profile victories in the world's most important rallies - Monte Carlo, Safari, Acropolis and RAC. The birth of the Escort was to boost Ford's motorsport fortunes still further: by any measure it would go on to become the world's most successful rally car.

In 1968 the original 1.6-litre Escort Twin-Cam started its competition career in an astonishing opening season - by winning the Circuit of Ireland, Dutch Tulip, Austrian Alpine, Acropolis and Scottish rallies, all within eight weeks. By the end of its first season, the Escort had also won the famous 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland, which helped Ford secure the World Rally Championship for Makes. Ford Escorts won the World Championship again, in 1969.

The 'works' Twin-Cam Escorts continued to win all round the world in 1969 and 1970, while special overhead-valve-engined cars dominated the toughest ever event the 16,000-mile London-Mexico World Cup rally of 1970, taking first, third, fifth, sixth and eighth places. As a result of this victory, the Escort Mexico production model was developed.

As the Ford Escort was developed through the 1970s, the 1.6-litre 16-valve RS1600 took over from the Twin-Cam. By this time, the cars had an amazing reputation for strength and reliability. Engines for motorsport were progressively enlarged, first to 1.8-litres with 205 bhp, and later to 2.0-litres with up to 250 bhp.

By 1975, RS1600s had won world-class rallies as different as the East African Safari (1972, when Hannu Mikkola and Gunnar Palm became the very first European-based crew to win this long and gruelling event), the British RAC (three times in succession, 1972 - 1974), the Finnish 1000 Lakes (five times), the Arctic Rally in Finland and New Zealand's Heatway Rally.

No matter what the competition, the surface, the conditions, or the nation, the Escort was always successful, at all levels of the sport. Near-standard Group 1 Escorts (this is the 1970s equivalent of today's Group N 'showroom' category) were also often victorious, memorably with three consecutive outright wins in the 1974, 1975 and 1976 Tour of Britain events, which combined racing with rallying.

A new-style Escort, the 1.8-litre RS1800, emerged in 1975, and within months the Boreham-based 'works' team had turned it into a formidable World Championship machine. Its first outright victory came in the 1975 RAC rally, when Timo Makinen completed a personal hat-trick, and the Escort took its fourth straight win. Ford retained the RAC trophy in the following year, 1976, when Roger Clark won for the second time in an Escort - four years after his first RAC triumph."
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It's all about the Horse Power

Plex · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 1:34 pm Post subject:

Nice infor...In the late 1970's those engines putting down HP figures like that...Thats impressive...The ford escort is a good car and i could still see why some tuners still want them up until this day..