HISTORIC TOURING CARS
Group A poster child — Sierra Cosworth
As the value of Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth Group A race cars is going up seemingly by the day I had to ask the Motueka-based owner of one of the few still in regular track use, Brett Stevens; should the right offer ever come along, would he contemplate selling his distinctive yellow ex–kevin Waldock/playscape Racing machine?
Brett, who runs a garage and salvage business in his hometown tucked away at the top of the South Island, and who is a regular and popular competitor in the local Archibald’s Historic Touring Car Series, paused for thought. It only took him a couple of seconds, but his answer was unequivocal … No.
"Not now," he said, as we wrapped up our conversation about the car and Brett’s now 24-year term as owner and custodian. He went on: “There's too much of me wrapped up in it now. So no, I don't think I'll ever sell it. And when my time is up, I'll pass it on to my boys.”
STANDARD SILHOUETTES' WELCOME RETURN
Group A provided a welcome return to production-based silhouettes and track widths and the ‘win-on-sunday-sellon-monday’ ethos that prevailed at the time meant that companies like Ford, BMW, Nissan, and Holden grabbed the opportunity to showcase key models in various Touring Car title series around the world with both hands.
The timing of the move, 1982, could hardly have been better for Ford, as the company finally replaced the iconic Cortina with the all-new (and not universally liked) Sierra in October of that year.
The curves might have been smooth and aerodynamically efficient but wags likened the shape to a jelly mould. It was not to the immediate liking of private and/or fleet buyers. Ford needed to do something quickly to stimulate demand.
These days some bright spark in marketing would no doubt suggest aligning the car with a social media influencer. Fortunately, times were simpler back then and Ford literally had a track record as a pioneer of the strategy of adding sporting credentials to an otherwise mundane family car via limited edition homologation specials — think the Lotus Cortina, and Shelby Mustang — built in collaboration with a performance-oriented partner.
COSWORTH ADDED A TURBOCHARGER
Ford’s motorsport division boss at the time, Stuart Turner, was apparently already casting around for a new base model to replace the Capri, and longtime competition-partner Cosworth had recently presented a normally aspirated Dohc/16-valve (YAA) version of the 2.0-litre Pinto engine to company bosses.
Which was all very well. But what if, Turner asked, Cosworth added a turbocharger? What sort of power figures would you be looking at?
At least 150kw in production (street) form came the reply. But it was very much a case of ‘how much do you want?’ as 400kw [550hp] could be had if you're talking about a race car. This must have
The curves might have been smooth and aerodynamically efficient but wags likened the shape to a jelly mould
been music to Turner’s ears. In April 1983, he and his team locked in the Sierra as Ford’s next big racing project.
PINSKE’S HUGE REAR WING
Under the new Group A rules Ford needed to build 5000 of the new Sierra Cosworths, with 500 reserved for later upgrade by contractor Aston Martin Tickford to competition-ready RS500 spec. Hence the name.
The distinctive look of the Sierra Cosworth, with its table-top-sized rear wing, large rectangular hole in the otherwise smooth, colour-matched grille, and subtle but effective front spoiler/ wheel arch/side skirt combination, was the work of designer Lothar Pinske, a talented German who would later become director of Ford’s motorsport division.
Though it stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, the huge rear wing, mounted half-way up the rear hatch at the driver's rear-view eyeline, effectively countered the significant lift the jelly mould shape produced at racing speed.
That it did its job was not the issue. The issue was the way it looked. Fortunately, Pinske insisted on it staying, and now it is arguably central to the car’s visual appeal, both the historic racer and the now ubercollectible road version.
All 5545 models eventually manufactured by Ford were righthand drive and were assembled in the company’s plant in Genk, Belgium. The first went on sale in July 1986.
The 500 RS500 models, on which all the different racing versions like Brett Stevens’ ex Kevin Waldock car are based, were culled from the original build programme. As demand dictated they were packed off to specialist coachbuilder and tuner Tickford’s performance division in Coventry in the UK where a new, more powerful, engine was fitted. Amongst a number of other changes, a second rear spoiler was added at the base of the Cosworth car’s unique and model-defining wing.
The engine had a thicker-walled cylinder block, larger Garrett Airesearch TO4 turbo, and larger airto-air intercooler. In standard form, the engine produced 167kw, which was 17kw more than the base model fitted to the cooking version of the car.
IMMEDIATE SUCCESS
To say that the Group A racing car in its Sierra RS500 Cosworth guise — officially homologated in August 1987 — was an immediate success is an understatement.
Sierra RS500 Cosworths claimed pole position at all the remaining rounds of that year’s World Touring Car championship and dominated four of them, including the 10th, at the Nissan-mobil 500 meeting at the Wellington waterfront circuit.
There, the Ford Texaco Racing team’s RS500S of German pair Klaus Ludwig and Klaus Niedzwiedz, and Brit Steve Soper and Frenchman Pierre Dieudonne, qualified first and second, respectively, then went on to finish first and third, sandwiching the Schnitzer Motorsport BMW M3 of Italians Emanuele Pirro and Roberto Ravaglia.
Earlier in the month, Steve Soper and Pierre Dieudonne had provisionally won the James Hardie 1000 race at Bathurst, too, crossing the finish line two laps up on German Ford Texaco Racing (Eggenberger Motorsport) teammates Ludwig and Niedzwiedz. However, both cars were disqualified for what were considered illegally modified front wheel arches. These had allowed the cars to run a higher profile tyre than other teams running new Sierras.
The decision to disqualify the two Eggenberger cars effectively cost the team the inaugural World Touring Car Championship title, which went to BMW E30 M3 driver Roberto Ravaglia. But this couldn’t stop the momentum that teams running the cars around the world were building up.
One of those teams, Dick Johnson’s Shell backed squad, went on to dominate the Australian Touring Car championship for the next two years. Sierra RS500 Cosworths also won the annual Tooheys backed 1000km race at Bathurst in 1988 with Tony Longhurst and Thomas Mezera, and again in 1989 with Dick Johnson and John Bowe.
EXPLOSIVE PERFORMANCE
Now Australian explosives entrepreneur Kevin Waldock enters the picture. In 1988, Waldock’s company, Blast Dynamics, was signed up as a sponsor on the Miedecke Motorsport Sierra RS500 Cosworth which NSW central coast car dealer Andrew Miedecke shared with British ace Steve Soper.
A big crash in qualifying and losing boost thanks to blown turbo hoses meant the pair had a wretched weekend, eventually retiring with a split engine bore.
Waldock, on the other hand, was entranced by the whole ‘mountain’ experience and pretty much straight away resolved to be in a Sierra of his
Though it stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, the huge rear wing, mounted halfway up the rear hatch... effectively countered the significant lift the jelly mould shape produced at racing speed
own in the next year’s race.
He didn't do things by halves either, initially contracting Miedecke Motorsport to build and run a second Sierra under his own Playscape Racing banner.
As it turned out, Miedecke had another up and down year. With his own car burnt out at the third round of the 1989 Australian Touring Car Championship series at Lakeside, he was forced to commandeer Waldock’s for the remaining ATCC rounds and commission a third for his contracted driver.
That car is the one Stevens now owns. It debuted in its distinctive yellow Playscape colours at the Pepsi 300 endurance race at the Oran Park circuit near Sydney in August that year.
History records that Waldock and codriver Brian Thomson failed to finish the race, which was won, somewhat ironically, by Miedecke and his regular running mate Kiwi Andrew Bagnall in Waldock’s first car.
STONE BROTHERS TAKE CHARGE
Bagnall was not the only Kiwi with strong connections to Miedecke Motorsport and the team’s various Sierra RS500 Cosworths, though. The car Brett Stevens now owns and drives is the third to be built and was initially maintained by none other than the Stone Brothers, Ross and Jimmy.
In fact, when Andrew Miedecke decided to close Miedecke Motorsport and join Peter Brock at Mobil1 Racing, Waldock set up his own operation on Queensland’s Gold Coast with personnel including Ross and Jimmy.
Ross ran the yellow Playscape car for Kevin in selected rounds of the Australian Touring Car championship in 1990 and 1991. Sharing the driving duties in the enduro rounds both years was Mike Preston, the pair’s best finishes coming in their second year together, 1991, scoring 3rd place at Sandown and 5th at Bathurst.
Not bad for what was effectively a selffunded privateer team but that, as it turned out, was pretty much as good as it got for Waldock and the Playscape Sierra. That was thanks in part to the ATCC organizers’ move away from turbo cars like the Group A Sierra and Nissan's ‘Godzilla’ Skyline BNR32 to favour the normally-aspirated V8 Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores.
KEVIN AND CROS NEXT DOOR
This is where current owner Brett Stevens can finally take up the story.
“After running an Nz-built Group N Sierra for a few seasons, I decided to go to Australia and look at several Group A cars that were for sale. This would have been back in the 1990s —1996 to be exact.
“A friend of mine, Ross Hoare, was working at Tony Longhurst’s at the time and told me about Kevin Waldock's car parked at the back of the workshop of Playscape Racing.
“Ross took me to meet Kevin, and initially he didn't want to sell the Sierra.
“After some discussion, however, a deal was done and — along with a considerable spares package — a container was loaded, and the car shipped home.
“It's ironic when I think about it now but in the early ’90s I was pit crewing for Ashton Wood at the Wellington Street Race and next to us in the pit garages was none other than Playscape Racing and Kevin’s Sierra, which he was sharing with Graeme Crosby.
“I remember commenting to my fellow crew mechanics that if I owned that car, I would put an exhaust system on it that didn't rattle!
“Several years later, of course, I was lucky enough to be able to purchase this very car, and after seeing how well built the rattly exhaust actually was, due to the use of slip joints when it was originally built, I still haven’t needed to replace it. Not bad for a race car which has seen fairly regular use for coming up to 30 years.”
... scoring third place at Sandown and fifth at Bathurst. Not bad for what was effectively a self-funded privateer team but that, as it turned out, was pretty much as good as it got for Waldock and the Playscape Sierra