Your Letters

Ienjoyed reading your special magazine about Classics of the 1980s, so I thought I’d drop you a line with a little known fact from that era.

In 1985, I joined Royal Mail to look after its large fleet of vehicles in Scotland, many of which operated in rural areas and semi off-road conditions. My choice of delivery vehicle at the time for these routes meant that I could either deploy a small van (the incoming Escort MkIII) or a Land Rover, neither of which was necessarily an ideal operational solution.

The purchase and running costs of the two were very different

(the Land Rovers were very expensive) and often, I really needed something with operational capabilities part way between the two. The front-wheeldrive Escort was far better than its rear-wheel-drive Marina predecessor, but couldn’t match the Land Rover on the really rough stuff. However, there were many opportunities for a vehicle with just a little more traction than the Escort for the rough farm tracks on which farmers were prepared to risk their own Sunday best cars.

As you describe in the magazine, the Escort MkIII was available in everything from shopping trolley format to storming rally car with many interchangeable parts. After scratching my head and checking out the practicalities, I had the limited-slip differential (LSD) from the Escort RS Turbo installed in a diesel van.

One snowy day, courtesy of a friendly farmer in the Borders, I organised for a standard diesel van and the modified version to be taken to a steep mud- and snow-covered track and using a variety of drivers, we pitched one vehicle against the other to assess any

differences.

On the same snowy and muddy conditions, the LSD-equipped van was head and shoulders above the standard version no matter what the driving style and ability of the driver.

Consequently, during the late Eighties, I had quite a number of diesel Escort vans equipped in the same way. So, if any reader has ever bought a red diesel Escort van fitted with an LSD, this is why! ❚