Table of contents for August 2022 in Fast Ford

SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE! One of the best things about owning and modifying a Ford is the blank canvass it offers to really express your individuality. Yes, certain tweaks will always work particularly well, and you’ll always have similar trends, but modifying a fast Ford allows you to create something that truly reflects your personality. Over the years, we’ve seen everything you can imagine applied to a Blue Oval. And if you want proof of that, get yourself along to Ford Fair on 14 August. Here, classics sit harmoniously alongside the very latest models, show cars share the paddocks with motorsport machines, and standard examples are proudly displayed next to heavily tuned versions. And, because each car reflects their owners, there’s never two the same. To get you in the mood,…

WORLD RECORD CAPRI PRICE A prototype Capri RS3100 set a new world record price at the recent Classic Car Auctions Summer Sale, selling for a whopping £74,250. Built in 1972 at Ford’s Advanced Vehicle Operations facility in South Ockendon, the Sebring Red RS3100 was retained by Ford and photographed for the sales brochure and the supplementary handbook that was supplied with each production car. This RS3100 was first registered in 1975, before it was acquired directly from AVO by the vendor, making it a one-owner car. Recommissioned in 2022 after being stored for 40 years, the Capri attracted a huge amount of interest and was bought by a bidder in the room. CCA says the buyer was understandably delighted, and will be keeping his new purchase next to the yellow…

Finding a suitable venue to host a car meet can be a real challenge. Over the last 20-odd years, we’ve been to events held everywhere from dodgy pub car parks through to stately homes, with pretty much everything in between. But one of our favourites has to be the Brooklands Museum. Recognised as the birthplace of British motorsport, the museum boasts a collection of some of the most important performance vehicles ever made. From a mighty 24-litre V12 Napier-Railton (which had a top speed of 170mph back in 1933) to stars of Formula 1, there’s something for everyone. So, it’s the perfect venue to show off some of the UK’s best fast Fords as the Cosworth Drivers’ Club rolled into town. Right from the off, there was a buzz about…

Original factory-built Group A Ford Escort Cosworth rally cars are a pretty rare sight in competitive rallying these days. But the car owned by Gareth Hurford-Jones returned to rallying last month after eight years out of action (Fast Ford featured this fabulous rally weapon in the March 2012 issue). Hurford-Jones and his co-driving friend Richard Goring ran the Group A car at a small event on the former Down Ampney airfield in Gloucestershire but were sidelined on the second stage with a detached oil pipe. Thankfully, Hurford-Jones turned it off and parked up before any serious harm was done. “It is an ex-works Group A shell from 1991 and it’s not been used for eight years,” said Hurford-Jones. “We were going to come back out sooner and then Covid got…

WILD CARD When your working week involves spannering on genuine ex-Group A Sierra RS500 Cosworth touring cars and restoring the finest road-going examples of Ford’s iconic homologation special, whatever car you jump into at the weekend is always going to leave you a little underwhelmed. Unless, of course, that car just happens to be a raucous supercharged V8-powered Mustang tickled by the legends at Shelby to produce a ludicrous 800bhp and enough toque to jump start a planet. And that’s exactly what you’ll find parked up next to all the Sierras inside Paul Linfoot’s garage. But why does a man who has spent the last 30-odd years messing around with Cosworths want an American muscle car? “I don’t really know. I guess it started when I sold my Moonstone ’500.…

C E9 9 -CANCELLED ESCORT P ity the Escort and Ford’s design team in the mid-Nineties. The unloved ’91 Mk5 Escort was ridiculed for its tame styling and poor dynamics, leaving Ford’s designers scurrying to replace it. Ask even the least knowledgeable car enthusiast and they will tell you that the Escort was replaced by the Focus – but that wasn’t the original plan. The full story, told in detail in Steve’s book Secret Fords Volume Two, was to create a new sixth-generation Escort. But things didn’t turn out that way. Here’s what happened. The new ’97 Escort was codenamed CE99, intended as a new body sitting on top of the chassis of the tweaked ’95 car. Ford had taken such a beating for the existing Escort’s looks that its…

WWW.FASTFORDMAG.CO.UK Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL EDITORIAL EDITOR Jamie King (jamie.king@kelsey.co.uk) ART EDITOR Mark Field SUB EDITOR Dan Williamson CONTRIBUTORS Ade Brannan, Dan Williamson, Paul Lawrence, Simon Holmes, Motorbase Performance, M-Sport, Alex Nevill, Dan Sherwood, Mike Rysiecki, Leigh Jones, Jason Dodd, Jonathan Fletcher, Davy Lewis, Jon Cass, Steve Saxty ADVERTISEMENT SALES ADVERTISING SALES Paul Thompson, 01732 446757 paul.thompson@talkmediasales.co.uk PRODUCTION TALK MEDIA: 01732 447006 MANAGEMENT CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Phil Weeden CHIEF EXECUTIVE Steve Wright RETAIL DIRECTOR Steve Brown AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Andy Cotton BRAND MARKETING MANAGERS Debra Hagger EVENTS MARKETING MANAGERS Kate Chamberlain EVENTS MANAGER Kat Chappell PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER Georgina Harris PRINT PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Kelly Orriss SUBSCRIPTION MARKETING DIRECTOR Gill Lambert SUBSCRIPTION MARKETING MANAGER Rochelle Gyer-Smith SUBSCRIPTIONS 13 issues of Fast Ford…

DIRENZA MK4 FOCUS ST GPF DELETE £119.99 The stock GPF filter on the latest fast Focus is a real constraint when tuning; it restricts the flow of exhaust gases and handicaps any potential performance gains. Thankfully, Direnza has a wallet-friendly solution in the shape of this new 3in GPF delete pipe. Designed as a direct replacement for the OEM filter, the delete pipe has been handcrafted to ensure a quality finish and accurate fit, and features CNC-machined flanges that are TIG-welded for strength. Direnza says the delete pipe helps improve throttle response, offers a more aggressive exhaust note, and will help release untapped performance, especially when coupled with engine tuning mods. The company also advises that GPF bypass software may also be required on the ECU. For more details, speak…

Ford Fair has long been the biggest Blue Oval event of the year, and the 2022 show is already shaping up to be yet another fantastic festival of all things Ford. Attracting over 5000 cars on display and more than 18,000 visitors, Ford Fair is the mustattend event of the year for any true Ford fan. Once again, the show returns to the famous Silverstone circuit in Northamptonshire, and being positioned right in the centre of the country, it draws the very best cars from all over the UK – and always attracts European visitors in their cars too. They say diversity is the spice of life, and that makes Ford Fair the spiciest show in town; not only will you find an eclectic mix of classics and modern machines…

Picture the scene: the year is 1999, a huge Saturday-night seafront cruise is taking place, hundreds of cars and onlookers pile into a car park, and there are burnouts and subwoofers everywhere you look. Then, out of the darkness, a rear-wheeldrive Sapphire Cosworth bursts in to take centre stage, going ballistic, smoking the rear tyres, and scoring donuts quicker than seems physically possible. Aged 13, it was Greg Carr’s first glimpse of a big-power Cossie in action, and from that moment on, he knew no other car would come close. Greg smiles, “They were driven by drug dealers, used by ram-raiders and thrashed at car cruises. We all love a Cosworth, but the rear-wheel-drive Sapphire has always been the bad boy of the bunch.” Now, we should point out here,…

T he transformation from repmobile to race car is really gathering pace, so after last month’s race-style wrap was applied to the Mondeo, this month we’ve turned our attention to the next round of mechanical upgrades. We’ve still got a long list of performance hardware to install, but one thing that needed immediate consideration was the stock highrise suspension. Fair enough, the Mondeo was designed as a comfortable cruiser to waft along the motorway in a state of calm to de-stress pentup businessmen as they road-trip between mundane meetings all day long. And it did that very well; indeed, it’s without doubt one of the comfiest cars we’ve ever driven. But that doesn’t exactly lend itself to a sporty enthusiastic drive on the back roads or being hammered around a…

It was all smiles for the M-Sport crew in Italy in June, with Craig Breen fighting hard to take second place in the soaring temperatures and challenging conditions. Not only that, but Pierre-Louis Loubet exceeded expectations and found himself battling for the final spot on the podium, delivering a top-flight career-best finish of fourth place. In soaring heat on the Friday, Loubet set the tone for the weekend with a fantastic opening stage, just 0.8 seconds off the lead. Breen also got off to a great start and was clearly on the hunt for a podium finish from the outset; Breen finished the morning the session in fourth place just 1.2 seconds behind Loubet in third. In the afternoon, the pair continued to post near identical times; they ended Friday’s…

H avingone Group A Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth in the family is pretty special, but Sean Brown and his son Daniel will soon have one each to race in the UK and Europe. Sean raced Sierras when new, and his racing has gone full circle and he’s back in an RS500 that he shares with his son Daniel in the Historic Touring Car Championship. “It was built up from a brand-new and unused Ford motorsport shell but they’re not easy to run,” said Sean. They also unearthed a second unused shell, and that project will soon be ready so they can race one each – in the UK and Europe. When business from their BG Racing Equipment operation takes them to the US, they also have a Mk1 Escort with…

Ford’s Racing Puma (the FRP as it became known) is a dead cert for classic fast Ford status; hand-built by Tickford in limitednumbers, fabulous to look at, and bursting at the seems with unique performance parts, it followed very closely in the footsteps of homologation specials like the mighty Sierra RS500 Cosworth. Yet, poor sales at the time – no doubt hampered by Ford’s decision to call it the Racing Puma rather than Puma RS – meant just 483 FRPs were sold, and today it’s estimated that only around 280 survive. But despite the rarity and rapidly rising values, the FRP is a car that can still be used and enjoyed. And some well-placed upgrades – plus a tweak or two in the right places – will make the whole…

We’re always amazed by what people manage to build at home in their garages and on their driveways. We’ve seen all kinds of creations over the years, and just when we think we’ve seen it all, something new comes along that leaves us blown away. These two cars are the latest in the line of jaw-droppers – owners Sam Harrington and Sean O’Connell have built these heavilymodified Focus STs, each putting out over 500bhp, and each fitted with all-wheel drive running gear to make the most of it. But while they share the same technical upgrades, one is a show-ready road car and the other is a stripped-back track weapon. Sam is the owner of the white ST, and his is the car most likely to be found on track.…

W e’ve read all of Steve Saxty’s Ford books over the last few years, but it’s the Secret Ford series that we’ve found most entertaining and interesting. Secret Fords Volume One came about after Steve uncovered loads of confidential photos and never-before-told stories about cancelled projects, proposed prototypes, and generally cool stuff that helped shape the models we all know and love today. That first book in the series covered models from the Seventies and mid-Eighties, including fast Fords such as the Sierra Cosworth and RS200. Next came Volume Two, which continued the story through the late-Eighties and Nineties. Supporting limited-edition scrapbooks and supplements completed a three-book boxed set. Now, Steve is back with a final Ford swansong, and he brings us full circle back to the first Secret Fords…

The last time we attended one of Collins Performance’s insightful open days, we were all worried about having enough fuel to get home again due to sudden fuel shortages. This year, it wasn’t a case of being able to find fuel we were worried about – more like if we could afford it, with pump prices for V-Power topping £2.00-per-litre in some places. Ouch. Of course, that did nothing to deter Ford fans from flocking to the Cheshire-based tuner; after enforced lockdowns for the last couple of years, a few extra pounds on the cost of filling the tank seemed a small price to pay. And looking at the sheer quality of cars that made an appearance on the day, we’d say it was money well spent for those who…

This is not Stevie McLuckie’s first fast Ford, but the tale of how it came to be created starts about five years ago when Stevie bought his first Focus. He says, “It was an Electric Orange Mk2 ST and I loved it. I loved it so much, in fact, that I ended up buying it back again not long after I’d sold it.” Stevie fell on hard times and simply couldn’t afford to run the thirsty five-pot any more, so sold it on to a mate. But a few months down the line, and with a new job, Stevie bought back his previous steed and went to town on the modifications. He remembers, “I must’ve spent £15,000 on that car. It was a proper weapon that was making about 340bhp.…

QUICK SPEC YBB with 205 block and Stage 3 chip ■ RS500 intercooler ■ T34.48 turbo ■ Gaz GHA coilovers ■ Powerflex bushes ■ Hose Technik brake hoses ■ RS500-type splitter ■ Compomotive MO5 7.5x17in rims ■ Momo rear wheel spacers Ford has never been what you’d call a premium brand. Stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap has pretty much been the Blue Oval’s motto since the Model T first trundled around town. Perfect paintwork and precision-aligned panel gaps were the last thing on Uncle Henry’s production sheet. And although the 1970s were a low point in build quality (of many brands, not specifically Ford), the 1980s weren’t much better. We all know Ford built cars from pre-rusted Kit Kat wrappers in the mid-Eighties, and I surely wouldn’t be the…

THRUXTON: ROUNDS 7, 8 AND 9 The Motorbase Performance-run Focus ST BTCC cars endured highs and lows at the incredibly fast Thruxton circuit at the end of May. NAPA Racing UK’s Dan Cammish showed real pace when he qualified third, but thoughts of a dream start soon became something of a nightmare when he was barged off track halfway through the opening lap of the first race. After making it back to the pits, he rejoined, finished 25th and only just missed the fastest lap. That meant he faced an uphill battle to make progress in round eight, but he fought hard to bring the Focus ST home in P18. Further contact in the final race, this time at the chicane, resulted in a P20 finish, and a weekend to…

M aximumpoints were on offer again at the end of May during the British GT Championship’s second endurance race, the first of its two visits to Donington Park. The mid-season three-hour battle placed greater emphasis on team strategy thanks to three mandatory driver changes, no pit-stop window prescription and a maximum of 100 minutes of drive time per driver. Given their previous success here, the Academy Motorsport Mustang team were quietly confident before the race. The combined qualifying time for Academy’s Mustang placed Matt Cowley and Marco Signoretti in fourth on the starting grid by just 0.005s; the top five GT4 qualifiers were covered by less than one second. The Academy Mustang is particularly well suited to a longer race at Donington Park. The circuit has sufficient variety in its…

NAME DAVE COCKELL CAR ESCORT COSWORTH RACE SERIES MODIFIED FORD SERIES HISTORY OF THE CAR “In its early life, this Escort Cosworth had been a Group A clubman tarmac rally car. I purchased it as a bare shell in 2005; it was acid-dipped, electro-primed, and then finished at what was then GK Ford’s Accident Repair Centre. “From there it came home to be fitted out. I stripped a wiring harness back to all but the essentials, and then prepared and made fuel lines and a fuel system. I also did all the brake lines and brake system. The complete running gear from my track-day Escort Cosworth was then installed, to turn it into the finished car. “To date (May 2022), the race history is 102 races; 31 pole positions; 34…

WHY YOU WANT ONE… ■ If you’re a hardcore RS enthusiast, the RS2000 is the most cost-effective way into the driving seat of a Rallye Sport Escort. ■ The RS2000 is a terrific all-rounder, still modern and comfy enough for the daily commute, yet an absolutely engaging point-topoint B-road blaster when you want to feel like being a driving hero. ■ Unlike the original RS2000, it excelled in motorsport – scooping FWD class honours on the 1994 and ’95 RAC Rally, and winning the British Rally Championship in 1996. WHY YOU DON’T… ■ Everyone at shows will tell you the Mk5/6 Escort was lousy, and they know because their mate’s mum had a 1.3 Fresco in 2006. ■ Body rot takes on a whole new meaning with Mk5/6 Escorts, and…