RS500 SIERRA
Sticking two-fingers up at the collectors and investors, Pete Wooltorton’s doing what he and his RS500 do best – making lots of noise and causing lots of havoc…!
560bhp RS500 that gets used - a true old school hero!
Purists get the tissues ready, because by the end of this story you’ll be sobbing your little heart out shedding a tear for ‘that poor Sierra’ you see before you. Why? Because despite its stunning appearance, this RS500 Cosworth is no garage queen. It doesn’t live in a dehumidified temperature-controlled Carcoon. Nor does it only come out on high-days and holidays, trailered to an event only to be pampered some more before being wrapped up in cotton wool and transported home again until the same time next year. Nope, this RS500, lives life in the fast lane, literally! It gets
used, driven to and from shows and events, and taken out for the odd blast whenever the mood takes – and it doesn’t get an easy life either, certainly not judging by some of the antics we’ve heard about!
But don’t for one second think this is some kind of replica or unloved example. It’s the real deal. It’s all there, everything present and correct – and most importantly of all for those classic collectors and investors, it even still has the matching numbers YBD engine too. It’s one of a few remaining original cars, and worth a small fortune.
But that’s where this particular story takes a twist – current owner Pete
Wooltorton couldn’t gave a damn about the money side of things, that’s not what he’s got it for. You see what we have here is an RS500 – and an RS500 owner – from the old school. We need to remember the reason these cars exist; they were built for one reason, and one reason alone – so Ford could go racing and win. And it’s exactly that kind of spirit you’ll find deep-rooted inside this particular RS500 too. Why would you settle for 224bhp when over 500bhp is so readily available? Most of the required bits are already there for crying out loud; huge turbo, fancy inlet, eight injectors, big intercooler, and so on… it’s why they exist!
And that’s exactly the kind of person we’re dealing with here. Let me tell you a little bit about Pete… For a start he’s fast Ford through and through. He’s owned most models, but it was the Cosworthbadged Blue Ovals that really stole his heart. On top of that, he and his cars have had huge influences on others in the scene too – not least of which the editor of this very magazine! Yep, me. I’ve known Pete for years, and it was his Cossies that sparked my interest in the fast Ford scene in the first place. By rights, growing up at a time when Subaru, Toyota, and Mitsubishi dominated world rallying, films like Fast & Furious were setting trends, and popular cruises comprised mainly of modded Skylines and 200SXs, I should have, by rights, been into the Japanese car scene. But it was Pete’s Cossies that convinced me otherwise.
“My love for Cossies started with my big turbo Escort, then I bought my Saph Cossie not long after that,” Pete recalls speaking of two cars he still owns, “so I needed an RS500 to complete the collection really,” he laughs. Ahh, so this is the car that completes the collection…? Err, not quite. Over to Pete to take up the story…
“I did buy a Diamond White RS500 to go with my Diamond White EsCos and Diamond White Saph, but that’s not this car… Sadly I lost that one back in 2000 when I was run off the road and involved in quite a serious accident. I was in intensive care for three weeks, shattered several bones, punctured a lung, and was off work for a year while the surgeons basically rebuilt one side of me.” And as if that wasn’t bad luck enough, while waiting for the insurance company to sort a pay-out for the accident, the crash damaged car (and its valuable salvageable bits) was stolen while in storage, so Pete never actually got paid out after losing his dream car either! Talk about kicking a bloke when he’s down.
“But not to be defeated, I always said that I would replace it, and I would have another white RS500. Fair enough, it took me 14 years to save up and find the right one, but I did it…!” laughs Pete.
And what a car he found. “I was looking for years, and even contemplated going
“It made 558.9bhp on the dyno, but it’s quite ferocious – Harvey even told me ‘this car is dangerously quick’ when I collected it...”
over to view one in Australia,” remembers Pete, “then the RS500 Registrar for the RSOC at the time, Paul Linfoot (who will need no introduction to anyone linked with RS500s!), was selling his old white one.” Anyone who knows Paul (and you should, as regular readers can keep up to date with his current RS500 race car build in our project cars pages) will know that not only does he know everything there is to know about these cars, he is also Mr Meticulous. So, if you’re looking to buy an RS500, you could do a lot worse than buy the car he used to own personally!
“I went up to view it, said I’d have it, gave Paul a deposit, and went to collect it a few days later,” recalls Pete. But the car never made it home. Not because it broke down or anything daft like that – it drove back from North Yorkshire faultlessly – but because it was booked straight in at SCS in Peterborough for Harvey Gibbs and the crew to work their magic! “I couldn’t leave it standard!” Pete cries, “plus I actually needed a bit of time to sort out some secure storage, so it made sense to let Harvey do his thing while I moved bits around my end.”
“This is one RS500 that you’ll never see getting trailered to a show. Instead, you’re more likely to see him come through the gates broadside in a cloud of tyre smoke...”
A few weeks later the car was ready, now rocking a reliable and suitably old-school 400bhp setup, not too dissimilar to the spec of the car he lost in 2000. That was enough to keep Pete content for a couple of years, pleased to have the trio of Cossies back together (which has subsequently expanded with the addition of Snow Storm, a well-known Saph Cossie that we featured last year too), happy to take out for regular blasts and attend all the summer shows and events throughout 2014 and 2015.
Then, in 2016 the car developed a slight tick-over issue when hot, so Pete saw it as the perfect opportunity to drop the car back to Harvey Gibbs, this time with new instructions for a ‘550-plus’ engine too. “Harvey went through the lot; new pistons, Nick Waples’ ported head, custom cams, rebuilt T4 turbo, new air-to-air injectors, the lot. It made 558.9bhp on the dyno, but it’s quite ferocious – it makes best part of 500lb.ft from 4000rpm upwards. Harvey even told me ‘this car is dangerously quick’ when I collected it,” laughs Pete. With that stark warning ringing in his ears, an enormous grin slapped across his face, and most of the car’s Toyo rubber left all over the road, Pete headed straight to Ford Fest to get in the last show of the year.
Since then, Pete’s been enjoying his beloved RS500 at every possible opportunity; including being on display at several shows and events all over the country and appearing in magazines and on TV programmes like The Grand Tour. And he’s doing it in his own, exuberant style. This is one RS500 that you’ll never see getting trailered to a show. Instead, you’re more likely to see him come through the gates broadside in a cloud of tyre smoke, with purists and collectors looking on in disbelief. But to people like Pete, there’s more to life than a car’s value. He may have already lost one dream car, spent a year in recovery, and searched for a replacement for 14 years, but for him this is a passion that runs deep. It’s not something you can put a price tag on. So, sod what the collectors and investors say, if Pete wants to drive his car like a lunatic, who are we to say he shouldn’t? In fact, the world needs more people like Pete – people who don’t have any hidden agendas or ulterior motives; but instead do what they like, and like what they do. It’s good to be a non-conformist. It’s good to be a Pete…
“You see what we have here is an RS500 – and an RS500 owner – from the old school. They were built for one reason, and one reason alone – so Ford could go racing and win”