FWD ESCORTS IN MOTORSPORT

The early rear-drive models and the flame-spitting Escort Cosworths may have more silverware in their trophy cabinets, but the front-wheel drive Escorts were formidable motorsport machines in their own right too…

We look at the racing and rallying careers of the Mk3-Mk6 models.

The year was 1981, and the great days of the Mk2 Escort were over. So, how was Boreham going to continue its fight for supremacy on track, and in the gruelling rallies of the world? Rear-wheel-drive, after all, was on the way out. It looked as if all future Escorts would have transverseengine with front-wheel-drive layouts, and, technically at least, it might be difficult to turn them into winners.

In 1980 the thinking started. In the early 1980s there were high hopes, but my mid-decade Boreham and its associates had turned to other models and other priorities. Thereafter, the Escorts were always around, always credible, but usually overshadowed by other fast Fords dominating the top-tiers of motorsport all around the world. What follows, make no mistake, is going to be a complex story, full of drama, disappointment, and ecstasy. Why? Because front-wheeldrive Escorts were often not only trendsetters in class motor racing, but also in the high-profile rallying ‘Formula 2’ of the 1990s too. Sometimes they were turbocharged monsters, and sometimes they were high-revving 16-valve projectiles. It was only the fact that their exploits were often overshadowed by mighty RS200s, ever-dominant Sierra RS500 Cosworths, and radical four-wheel-drive Escort RS Cosworths that they didn’t always get the headlines they deserved. It was a saga which covered at least fifteen years, but one which finally faded away in 1998.

To make sense of it all, therefore, we must summarise (and, unhappily, sometimes shorten) the various stories, recalling only the highlights of the most prominent model programmes. Here we go…