S2 RS TURBO
When lifelong Ford fan Jon Cassidy bought this RS Turbo recently, he wasn’t just getting a retro Escort: he was buying a chapter of hot hatch history…
Legendary RS Turbo from the old-school, now with a 2.1 ZVH.
Ah, nostalgia. It’s a funny thing, isn’t it? An illogical but beguiling state of mind that leads us to hanker for an age when there was no wi-fi, Instagram, live-pausing, same-day delivery or NFC swipecards. Things were simultaneously worse and better; simpler but perhaps more
rewarding… it’s a dichotomy, a conflict that’s probably not worth worrying about too much. Would you give up the ease of today for the freedom of yesterday? There are so many debates tied up within that question it makes your brain itch.
It is, however, the principal state of affairs that’s landed this copy of Fast Ford in your hands. If you didn’t nostalgically pine for the halcyon days of yore at least once in a while, you’d be reading What Prius? or something. And perhaps the strongest nostalgic yearning of all is that which we have for the cars we grew up around. As time telescopes away from our teenage years, we get ever keener to recapture our youth
by buying an example of the first car we had and building it up into what we would have done back then if only we could have afforded to, or perhaps to buy an example of the car we always yearned for but could never afford in our early flushes of youth. For Jon Cassidy, however, this misty-eyed nostalgia has developed a richer texture: he bought himself a Series 2 RS Turbo, as these were basically the archetypal fast-road Fords back in the day (and, for many, they still are)… but this isn’t just any old RS Turbo. No, this one’s a bit of a legend.
Those who know Jon expressed little surprise at learning that he’d acquired an S2 RST, as he’s a born-and-bred Ford fan and has been from day one. It’s so often the case that feature car owners we talk to enjoy the proclivities that they do thanks to having an enthusiastic parent who got them all riled up about hot motors from an early age; the apple seldom falls far from the tree, and this was very much the case with Jon. His old man owned pretty much every sporting variant you can name of the Cortinas, Sierras and Escorts that we all desire today, and it was no great shock that Jon’s first Ford was an XR2. He followed this with various RS Turbos and RS Focuses; along with the
“The S2 RS Turbo was the dream, the car everyone wanted to mod and street-race and cruise. You either had one, or you really, really wanted one”
current RST, he also owns a Sapphire RS Cosworth and a Focus RS Red Edition
– a boxfresh special edition that’s been extensively and controversially modified (and featured in our May 2019 issue).
So what’s so special about the RS Turbo model anyway? Well, two things: first of all, it’s a genuine slice of Ford motorsport history. The Series 1 RS Turbo was conceived after Stuart Turner, appointed to Director of European Motorsport in 1983, assembled a crack squad of experts and decided that the best way to get the fresh new FWD Escort competitive in racing and rallying was to build 5000 turbocharged road cars and scatter them amongst
the dealer network. With that mission firmly accomplished, the Series 2 was developed for the 1986 facelift with more refinement and better road manners; the S2 wasn’t specifically destined for motorsport like its S1 forebear, but it carried its sporting spirit forward and transplanted it firmly into the seafront cruises, car park meets and showand-shines of the late-1980s and through the ’90s. And this is the second thing that makes it so special: there are few cars that sum up the retro hot hatch movement like the S2 RS Turbo. It was the dream, the aspiration, the car everyone wanted to mod and street-race and cruise. You either had one, or you really, really wanted one.
And what is about this car in particular that makes us refer to it as a legend? What makes H242 GWC so special? Ah, see this isn’t just a sweet contemporary RS build. This is properly old-school. A survivor. A car that was built properly way back when, and simply didn’t need to be changed too radically. To many RS enthusiasts, this is the perfect S2 spec.
Let’s start with the looks. There’s been no need to embellish the exterior with zany bolt-on fibreglass doo-dads, the era of asymmetric bumpers is way behind us. This is pure-and-simple factory RS as Ford intended, although sitting noticeably lower (thanks to the timeless combo of Koni adjustables and Rally Design springs), and sporting some truly heroic wheels. Those are genuine ex-WRC Compomotives,
“This is properly oldschool. A survivor. A car that was built properly way back when. To many, this is the perfect S2 spec”
fitted on a Group A stud conversion and making a clear statement about the seriousness of what’s under the skin.
What is it that’s under there? Pleasingly, it’s a 2.1 ZVH, the most modern chapter of the car’s lengthy and gentle evolution, packing an ST170 bottom end and a Stage 2 hybrid turbo, along with a Stage 4 Newman cam. Plus we find those two glorious stalwarts of retro S2 tuning: the Ahmed Bayjoo chip, and the Mongoose stainless system. These details in particular are enough to transport you back to Southend seafront circa 1997, Firestarter pounding from huge subs through an acrid fug of holdback tyresmoke.
What’s particularly cool about this S2 is that, despite the fact that this model was never officially zeroed in on motorsport, it’s got so many serious and forthright details that make it an impressive competitor in the traffic light Grand Prix – and you just know it’d be as hardcore as hell on track. The bona fide rally wheels hide some fairly massive brakes; Brembo 4-pots up front, with 330mm discs on custom Reyland alloy bells, with a 4x4 Cossie disc conversion out back, all of which is very much justified by the howling mayhem of what’s under the bonnet. In a previous incarnation it was well-known for running RS7 soft-spokes, but the Group A MOs really do heighten the aggression. A plethora of auxiliary gauges stud the otherwise stock RST interior, again highlighting the perfectly balanced fusion of form and function. Every decision is a good decision here.
This car is a real dream acquisition for Jon. Having been a fan of fast Fords for his whole life, and the RS models in particular, the idea of owning a Series 2 RS Turbo was always a very attractive one. But this particular example? This is a car which trueblue enthusiasts commonly agree is one of the all-time greats, a marker of how things have been done right, and they’ve been universally agreeing on the matter for the last decade or so. Whereas some builds ebb and flow, decay and decline and either get binned or resurrected, H242 GWC has been a star of the scene consistently across the decades. It’s essentially an RS celebrity. No doubt about it, this Escort is a legend.
“...It’s got so many serious and forthright details that make it an impressive competitor in the traffic light Grand Prix – and you just know it’d be as hardcore as hell on track...”