Background
1968 is the important year as far as blue oval rally fans are concerned, as this year saw the launch of the Escort Twin Cam. The Escort’s future in rallying was quickly cemented, as it secured wins on the Circuit of Ireland, Dutch Tulip, Austrian Alpine, Acropolis, Scottish and the Finnish 1000 Lakes rally and in so doing took the manufacturer’s title in its debut year. In 1969, the wins kept coming, as the Escort once again took the championship.
Further success came in 1970, when the Escort truly dominated arguably the toughest event in the world at the time, the London to Mexico World Cup Rally. When the cars finished in 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th, it prompted Ford to release the iconic ‘Mexico’.
Shortly afterwards Ford replaced the Twin-Cam, with the RS1600, this upgrade further enhanced the car’s rallying pedigree as it secured wins on the RAC Rally in 1972,’73 and ’74, and on that year’s Scottish Rally every position in the top ten was occupied by an RS1600. The Escort was also a highly adaptable car, a trait demonstrated by securing wins in the mixed rallying and racing Tour of Britain in 1974,’75 and ’76.
This car
The car is a 1973 Mk1 RS 1600 Works replica and was built by the current owner( Chris Spooner) and his father Gordon Spooner (Ex works mechanic at Ford Motorsport Boreham from 1968 – 1979) who built all of Hannu Mikkola cars from his 1970 Thousand lakes winning car the iconic 1970’s London to Mexico car and the first Non-European to win the 1972 Safari Rally in the cars Gordon built and finally my car in 2020.
When Boreham finished at the end of 1979 Gordon started his own business and GSE Motorsport and went on to build works Group B RS200’s, developed the first Escort Cosworth (ACE 14) and many Escorts from 92-95. He developed his own Ford RS 2000 F2 front wheel drive car 1994 which won the F2 category on the RAC with Gwyndaf Evans and again in 95, finally Winning the British Open championship in 96. Chris was lucky enough to work at GSE Motorsport building all the Ford RS 200 road cars for Boreham plus work on the development of the Escort Cosworth before building all Gwyndaf Evans F2 cars over the years.
This car was an 8-year project fabricated to Boreham’s specifications. The car finally rolled out of the workshop at the end of July 2020 ( Boreham style ).
Technical specification
Engine: 2000cc BDG,12:1 compression, Steel crank and rods, Acralite pistons.
Induction system: Twin weber 48 DCOE’s.
Transmission: 5 speed ZF gearbox, Gartrac fully floating Atlas axle,
Suspension: 4 pot AP Calipers, Bilstein coil overs.
Power output: 264 BHP