Ford RS Heritage

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Where it started (left), JW testing a pre-production Escort RS1600 at Boreham airfield, home to Ford Competition Department from the 60s to the 90s.

Right: the RS Owner's Club kept the legend alive even when there were years without new RS cars.

In 1998 the Ford Escort (in this case the RS Cosworth) ended its competition career with this outing on the RAC Rally. This is the scene around the Juha Kankkunen example during service by Malcolm Wilson Motorsport personnel near Milton Keynes.

Graham Goode runs a successful speed business in Leicester and has raced Ford and RS products with equal success. By 2004 this line-up represented his performance technology applied to (l-r) 4-door Sierra Cosworth RS, the original 3-door, Escort Cosworth and the front-drive RS Focus.

Scenes from a successful 2007 WRC season for the M-Sport prepared Focus team. Major backing came from BP - but Castrol got a major presecence too! In summer 2009 the BP backed Fords led both championships for drivers and manufacturers.

The latest RS Ford is the 300+ bhp Focus which has attracted rave reviews across the media. Only a limited production run was planned and waiting lists were lengthy. Created as a front-drive road car it was remarkably entertaining, but not a true technical cousin to the 4x4 WRC Focus.