I just don’t get the Ford Escort madness that has swept the country. How on earth can a Mk2 Ghia four-door auto be worth £5000? Let alone a pukka Group 4 rally car £50 shy of £80,000.
Or at least, I didn’t get it. The other night, during one of the occasional fantastic perks of this job, it all suddenly made sense.
My moment of clarity came during the Goodwood Motorsports Launch Dinner, an event that carries near-mythical status because an invitation is so hard to come by. And because they do things such as opening the Goodwood Festival Forest Rally Stage for diners to enjoy passenger rides between glasses of champagne. In the dark.
Naturally, I headed straight for the fabulous MG Metro 6R4. Then, because there wasn’t a queue, I thought I’d have another go, making a beeline for a Fiat 131. Before I got there, however, I was pipped to the passenger door and was instead directed to the car behind, which was ‘only’ an Escort.
Dear me, how little I know. Far from being ‘only’ a Ford, Aziz Tejpar’s recently acquired 1975 RS1800 – one of three Escort rally cars he owns – was used by Timo Makinen and Henry Liddon to win the 1975 RAC Rally (main pic), then driven by Ari Vatanen to victory in the 1976 British Open Rally Championship.
It was later used by Roger Clark (above, in another Escort) as a recce car for the East African Safari Rally. So just a little bit of history, then.
