The RS1600 is progressing very slowly. I’ve been a little consumed with other things lately but it has progressed. It’s really just a matter of reassembling it now. I have it ready for the paint to be touched up in the engine bay and have resprayed the dash. The original spec wiring loom I bought is all retaped and looking good. Every nut and bolt off the car has been replated. The Bilsteins and vented discs are being replaced with some standard struts and now I just need to find some standard rear springs to fit in place of the single leaf ones. My new stainless exhaust is here from the UK as well. All the go faster bits I’ve taken out of the car are going into another shell but that’s another story.
Although I haven’t actually done anything on the works car I’ve been really actively sourcing bits and pieces and information. I’ve had a trip to the UK in June and bought a heap of parts back in my luggage including amongst other things some period AP discs, callipers and alloy hubs. I‘m quite pleased really that I haven’t started in earnest on the shell because the longer I leave it the easier it is becoming because of the information I’m finding. It’s a long story but to cut it short some friends of mine spotted a torsion bar rear suspension car racing at Nurburgring at a classic meeting. The car’s owner lived in Finland and was just racing there that weekend. They took a load of pictures and sent them to me and the setup was identical to SPU. I arranged to go and have a look at the car in Finland last December after a rally I had been to in the Middle East. It’s not just similar to my shell it’s identical right down to the smallest detail and it answered all the questions I had about my car.
Those in the know in the UK and myself thought there were only 2 torsion cars of this spec built by Gomm. Trawling the web I’ve found some race results from a meeting at Brands Hatch in 1972 where Dave Brodie driving SPU 255K (the car I mentioned above in an earlier post that was written off) and Erik Hoyer driving SPU 254K (my car) and Matti Kemalaiken driving the Finish car above finished 5th 6th & 7th respectively in the same race. Now I know for sure that SPU 254K and the Finish car were torsion bar cars but that left a question about SPU255K given that there was only supposedly 2 torsion bar cars of this spec built. A couple of months ago a friend of mine here who is also restoring a works Mk1 was buying an exhaust for his Ferrari 308. He made a comment to the guy that it looked like a BDA exhaust. They got talking about BDA’s and it turns out he was working for Norman Reeves Motors who were running SPU255K at the time it was written off. He joined the team and was really interested in the car as it had torsion bar rear suspension so made some sketches of it. His notebook hasn’t survived all these years but he still remembers it. The car was definitely destroyed in the crash at Silverstone in 1973, Dave Brodie was in hospital for a while and the team was disbanded as there was no car to race. So obviously there were 3 of the same spec shells built. The Finish car just wasn’t road registered by Ford so doesn’t appear in “The Works Escorts” book.
Something else interesting that I now have concrete proof of. SPU 254K is the car in Sept 06 Classic Ford Magazine page 135. It has number 43 on the side for those that may have a copy. In one of the pictures you can see that the rear wheels are set back like the side shot above. The article was about “The RS1300 the RS that never was” SPU was one of the RS1300 cars that raced in 1973. I new this was the car at the time Classic Ford published the article but until recently I never actually had any proof other than a few people telling me it was the same car and Erik Hoyer drove it.
About a year ago I was sent a few really poor photographs taken of a Danish magazine article from the early 70’s from a guy in Denmark about Erik Hoyer’s car and you can see most of the number plate at the rear in one of the pictures and it’s painted the same as the Classic Ford Article. I’ve asked the Danish guy for the magazine name to try to get a copy but his only reply was that it was Danish and I would never find it. He did promise to scan it but that has never turned up despite asking a few times.
Here’s a few more of my toys – well a few of the ones that actually move under their own power anyway!
The 1300XL Escort is a 1 family owner car of 61000mls that I bought about 4 years ago. Wheels are the original ones off my RS1600
The Cortina was imported into NZ in 1973 and has 24000mls on the speedo but I’m not sure whether it’s been round the clock. The registration details don’t look like it has but I’m not quite sure. It doesn’t really matter anyway as it’s really tidy and unrestored apart from having been repainted sometime. I’ve owned it for about 5 years.
The Transit was a 1969 German fire engine and had done 26000km when I got it. Now 31000km. Definitely original mileage unrestored and original paintwork. I’ve even got photos of it in the fire station where it spent most of its life in Germany. @#$% it’s slow! 1700cc Cologne V4. 5.83 :1 diff ratio. Comfortable at 70kph but over that it screams. Great to tow the MK2 race car and eventually the works car so long as you don’t mind going slow. A sympathetic repower is planned when I have a few things out of the way.
