ESCORT COSWORTH

The Escort Cosworth deserves recognition as a legend purely for being such an antagonistic non-conformist. It was probably the world’s first ‘yob’ car. The aggressive looks and return of the famous ‘Cossie’ rear wing certainly caught people’s attention, and the way in which EsCos owners tried to emulate the flame-spitting Group A cars they watched tearing up the rally stages at the weekend on their Monday morning commute did nothing to discourage the boy-racer reputation. But that was kind of the whole point of the Escort Cosworth. It wasn’t just a ‘soupedup’ version of the base model, in fact it had very little relation to the humdrum Mk5 Escort on which it was based. Instead, it shared more of its DNA with the Sapphire Cosworth 4x4, itself an evolution of the mighty Sierra Cosworth that went before it. So, what the Escort Cosworth was, actually, was Ford engineers’ unapologetic efforts to build a world-beating rally car – it just happened to look like the newly-launched Mk5 Escort to keep the big bosses and PR men happy!

As with the Sierra Cosworth, the Escort Cosworth was a prime target for thieves, and once again this high risk of theft coupled with blistering performance made the EsCos all but uninsurable, but they have always remained a pin-up of the fast Ford world. And there’s little an EsCos can’t do either; even today you’ll still see immaculate examples winning trophies in concours competitions, big-power monsters tearing up both the streets and tracks around the country, and more than a handful are still being flung around a muddy forest stage in competitive rallies too. It really is a fast Ford that can do it all, a proper legend.