TRACK AND ROAD 2.1 ESCORT
Chris Dancer set out to build his dream-spec Escort for track days and B-road blasts. Then this one came up for sale, and after a few false starts and trick touches, the Mk1 is ready for action.
Just at home on the B-road as it is Brands Hatch, Chris Dancer’s Pinto-powered Mk1 ticks all the right boxes.
I f you want a job doing properly, then do it yourself, is a fine saying. Especially when it comes to buying modified cars that can look excellent, but are sometimes hiding quite some horrors beneath seemingly perfect outer layers of paint. In the everinflating world of classic Fords and Ford parts, however, there is occasionally a different option to be had. And by a weird coincidence, good research, and an eye for a bargain, Chris Dancer from Birmingham discovered the ‘other way’, when he bought this immaculate and race-ready Mk1 Escort.
Chris has been in the motor trade since leaving school and currently works for a firm that, amongst other things, rents out ambulances — who knew there was a demand for such things?
His list of previously owned cars starts with his Grandad’s Mk2 Fiesta that was suitably souped-up, then includes many of Ford’s finest including Cossie Sierras, Cossie Escorts and an RS2000 Mk2 that he flogged for peanuts just before demand lit the blue touch-paper of prices… Ah, selling-regrets, we all have them!
“BY WEIRD COINCIDENCE, GOOD RESEARCH AND AN EYE FOR A BARGAIN, CHRIS DISCOVERED THE OTHER WAY AND BOUGHT THIS RACE READY MK1”
“ONE OF THE BIGGEST SELLING POINTS IS THE RACE SPEC, IM-MACULATELY DETAILED INTERIOR WITH BESPOKE PARTS”
“I’d wanted a Mk1 Mexico or RS2000 since I could drive,” Chris states, “but somehow one never appeared that I liked, or was in a position to buy. Last year, however, with the expensehump of getting married and starting a family a suitable distance in the rear-view mirror, I started looking around for an Escort to buy as a project build. One day I spotted a Mk1 with bubble arches and wide Compomotives locally, and followed it for a few miles hoping to get to have a chat with the owner, and to get some ideas… but the chance didn’t come.”
“Two weeks later,” he continues, “the very same car popped up for sale… and the seller lived less than a mile from me! I was straight round and listening to the guy’s story of how he’d bought a base-model 1100 more than 15 years before, stripped it to a bare shell and rebuilt it with full Group 4 strengthening and to a race-rally spec with a 2.1 Pinto. With restoration pictures to back-up the quality of work carried out on the car, my plans to put my own Escort together went out the window.”
“This Mk1 was white — the colour I wanted — with the bubble arches I’d planned and was Pinto-powered. With fully adjustable and top-spec suspension, electric PAS, discs all-round on a biased braking set-up, and a six-linked Watt’s-linked Atlas with LSD, there wasn’t a lot I’d have done differently. One of the biggest selling points was the caged, race-look, immaculately detailed interior, with aftermarket digital gauges, perfect door cards, and a bespoke centre console/fuse box that was engraved by the owner, who was in the casting and engraving business. The way each individual switch is
marked up is something very special. The front windows are also electrically operated,” Chris adds, “but that’s mainly because the Safety Devices cage gets in the way of the window winders!”
“A quick mental add-up and I’d figured that to recreate a similar spec myself would probably approach £30,000 at today’s prices. A deal was done to buy the car at significantly less than that — after a full inspection and a few hours poring over the build photos to double check that the Escort had been put together as well as it looked, of course — which, so far, it certainly seems to have been.” Small change No bought-car is 100 per cent perfect, so Chris has made a few changes since buying his Mk1 last September. Some were just through preference, but most, so far have been through necessity (aka bad luck). The seats were changed to some more comfortable Cobra Imolas and he widened the track, and has added various RS-related badges, plus a Devilsport sticker, which is a collective of mates with fast road cars, including a Series 1 RS Turbo with the registration D666 DLS! All four tyres were changed also, after an ‘interesting’ track day at Mallory Park early in 2016.
“I was told the tyres were virtually brand-new, having been changed by the previous owner and he’d only done a couple of thousand miles on them. What he didn’t say was that those few miles had been put on the rubber in the 15 years since he’d built it — lack of use being the main reason he’d decide to sell in the first place. Consequently, the rubber had deteriorated to such a point that I span the Escort on the first corner at Mallory and had quite a few more near misses throughout the day.”
With some brand-new Toyo R888Rs on the 15 inch Compomotive MLs, Chris tried again at Mallory, but this time he’d come home with and even more expensive problem.
“After a short time the engine suddenly lost power, started backfiring and after a loud bang, shut down,” he reports. “At the time I had no idea what had caused this, but later found out
“THE BONNET FLEW UP AND FOLDED STRAIGHT IN HALF, JUST MISSING THE ’SCREEN AND SURROUND”
that it could have been due to contaminated fuel — bought fresh from a filling station on the morning of the track day, which is a bit annoying to say the least! Suspicion has also fallen on the sump, which was unbaffled,” Chris admits, “so oil surge probably didn’t help either.” Power up A new engine was needed and for this Chris turned to MJA Automotive Engineering in Bromsgrove, who put together race-winning motors for rally cars, circuit racers and autograssers. One of the firm’s specialisms is Fords, and Chris’s new engine is a 2.1-litre Pinto, with Mahle pistons and a Kent race cam, fully lightened, balanced and port-matched to the exhaust and inlet manifolds (which carry the twin Weber 45DCOEs). There’s also a big-wing sump that is fully baffled bolted to the bottom end this time!
Since the engine rebuild, Chris’s enjoyment of his Escort has been (mostly) trouble free, with plenty of miles put on the odometer when the weather allows. He’s redesigned the dash, with the speedo, rev counter, temperature gauges and battery charge and oil pressure warning lights now mounted in a six-dial dash pod. And there’s plumbed-in a fire extinguisher system just in case of further ‘accidents’. Flying incident Talking of which… Since the Classic Ford photoshoot the bonnet is also a new fibreglass item, painted matt black, which replaces the lightweight race aluminium one the Escort came with. Why? Because Chris’s bad luck struck again when he didn’t clip the bonnet pins in place properly… and the panel flipped up while driving. With a slight re-levelling of fortune this didn’t do any damage to the windscreen or paint. “It just folded straight in half, missing the screen and surround,” Chris says, “so I have to be grateful for small mercies!”
Let’s hope that’s the last ‘mishap’ Chris suffers with his excellent Escort, because at this rate his bargain-buy is starting to add up to the sort of cost figures that he thought he’d cleverly side-stepped. You do have to wonder if the Devilsport stickers have something to do with his run of bad luck though…