'Best ever' Guernsey rally attracts the crowds
Mr Marshall added: "It's been wonderful to receive so much positive feedback." The event raised more than £3,000 for The Guernsey Society of Cancer Relief in memory of rally committee member Graham Robert who died in 2023. It has grown since it was launched with 25 competitions at 16 stages in 2018.
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My Week In Cars: New Steve Cropley/Matt Prior podcast (ep.151)
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Time machine: full throttle in the stunning Alan Mann Ford Escort replica
Time machine: full throttle in the stunning Alan Mann Ford Escort replica An identikit Ford Escort to the one that saw Frank Gardner to the British Saloon Championship in 1968? Sign us up Skip 1 photos in the image carousel and continue reading Turn on Javascript to see all the available pictures. The year is 1968. And if you're a racing driver in the British Saloon Car Championship and your name's not Frank Gardner, bad luck. You just lost. Because to be fast that year, only one thing would do: the Alan Mann prepped Ford Escort. Gardner won all but two of the 11 rounds, in a car in its first year of competition. No car is fast immediately. It takes a while for engineers, mechanics and designers to learn their foibles, extract their potential. Unless you're Alan Mann. An instinctive, innovative engineer, he'd set up by himself in 1962 and two years later he'd won the contract to be Ford's official racing partner in Europe, running everything from Mustangs and Falcons to Cortinas, GT40s and this legendary Group 5 Escort. Advertisement - Page continues below Group 5 was as close as things got to a no limits touring car. This car's iconic bubble arches were crafted to cope with fatter rubber, all new multi-link rear suspension was designed, the steering column was realigned so it projected at a straighter angle and the steering rack was actually housed inside the engine crossmember. Apparently this car had a fair amount in common with the GT40s Mann also campaigned. Rounding out the radical package was a 1.8-litre Lotus Twin Cam, developing around 230bhp. The result was a small, light, well balanced and fantastically eager racing car. Painted in Mann's iconic red and gold colours it was as sweet to look at as it was to drive. 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Just as Alan Mann was Ford's official racing partner back in the 1960s, so has Boreham Motor Works (which now owns Alan Mann Racing) recently become Ford's official restomod partner. You may have heard about other fast Fords it has in the pipeline – a reimagined Group B RS200 and a £295,000 roadgoing fast Escort with a 295bhp 2.1-litre twin cam good for 10,000rpm. Advertisement - Page continues below But this isn't a restomod, it's a non-road legal period piece that Henry very much hopes owners will choose to race. It's what it was designed for after all. And what it feels like. I want to start slowly but the car would rather I didn't. It might be an old design, but it's a racing car, it's only got one speed and it's not 'pitlane pootle'. The racing twin plate clutch needs revs to pull away, first can be hard to find, there's plenty of vibration and as I trundle out on to the track it honestly feels like all the wheels are pulling in different directions. 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Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox. Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox. Success Your Email* I assumed my steering inputs would be large and sweeping, that it would settle satisfyingly in corners but that's not the case initially. It's light – just 795kg without fluids – and the wheelbase is short, so every single twitch you make has an instant and marked impact on your speed and trajectory. There's nothing lazy or languid about it and being quick in it isn't about armfuls of opposite lock and big angles, it's about playing with the balance at the margins. The brakes are way more potent than you might expect, but this is not a car you trail brake all the way to the apex. Instead you roll off the brakes sooner, turning in and then immediately back on the power to adjust line and trajectory. 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Daily Mail
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The £280,000 Ford Escort: RS 1800 owned by same family for 50 years
A 1976 Ford Escort that's been retained by the same family for almost half a century has been sold at auction - and for a new record price. The MkII RS 1800 is one of 109 limited edition road-going models built at the car giant's Advanced Vehicle Operations Pilot Plant at Aveley, Essex - each one finished in Diamond White paint. But few remain in the same condition with such low mileage as the one sold on Saturday - let alone an example that's been kept in single family ownership almost from new. The lot winner - having been embroiled in a 'frenzied' bidding war in the auction room - paid an eye-watering £278,848 to secure the keys on Saturday. The vendor's late husband acquired the car from Ford in 1977, shortly after it had concluded its duties as the second of five vehicles provided to the press for test drives - the first being written off during this time. While the price he paid for the car remains undisclosed, when new in 1976 the RS 1800 was priced at £2,990 plus tax. When the hammer dropped at the weekend, registration ONO 804P sold for almost 100 times that amount to become the most expensive MkII Escort in history. This is Money has exclusively spoken to the collector who was last to raise their paddle in the auction hall at the weekend... The vendor's late husband reportedly drove the rally-inspired Fast Ford for around 10 years before it underwent a restoration and was kept off the road in a barn. As such, it has a mere 24,186 miles on the clock - barely 500 miles for each of its 49 years since rolling off the Essex assembly line. Following his death recently, the keeper's widow commissioned classic car specialist Historics to offer the lot the highest bidder at an auction in Windsor. The car, described as the lone owner's 'pride and joy' has now become the world's most expensive second-generation Escort. The previous record was held by a 1975 Ford Escort RS 1800 rally car campaigned by Björn Waldegård, Roger Clark, Ari Vatanen and Pentti Airikkala. That car was sold by Bonhams at the 2015 Goodwood Members' Meeting for a comparatively paltry £85,500. The sale price also far eclipsed the pre-sale estimate of £160,000 to £185,000 as the winning bid exceeded the top end by an additional six figures. 'After travelling 25,000 road miles during its lifetime, this Escort has rested gently under cover in a farm barn for decades,' Historics says. It adds that the performance RS Ford has twice been painstakingly and professionally restored, all with the accent on originality. It is understood that the car remained in the barn for 35 years with a fully rebuilt engine sitting on a pallet next to it. With time and a lack of use taking its toll, the second restoration project was undertaken just five years ago, with the aim of returning the Fast Ford to its former glory. 'It is probably in a far better condition than when it left Ford's Essex low-profile side assembly line, nearly half a century earlier,' the auction house says. Jeremy Walton from Historics added: 'The MkII Escort RS1800 is an icon of Ford's World Championship motorsport history, but this blistering sale result - most surely a world record for a 1976 Ford Escort - is a spectacular endorsement of how few unmodified public road examples of these Escorts remain. 'Certainly, far fewer original RS1800s survive than many exotic classics, bearing more prestigious badges.' Stewart Banks of Historics Auctioneers described Saturday's auction hall as an 'electric atmosphere'. He said: 'After publicising the car far and wide, we had great expressions of pre-sale interest, and bidding on the car was intense - as was to be expected as the Escort RS1800 was such a star of world rallying. 'However, nobody could have predicted such a stunning result.' Speaking exclusively to This is Money, the winning bidder - who requested to remain anonymous - told us: 'I am thrilled to be able to secure what is probably the most original, low-owner RS1800 with such super provenance. 'It has been purchased to enjoy as part of a private collection of some of the most important historic Ford race and road vehicles.
