FIESTA RHD RALLY

The Group 2 Fiesta was designed by Ford Motorsport with the intention to explore front wheel drive rallying and even thinking on a replacement for the Mk2 Escort in international rallying.

A lot of special parts and modifications were designed to convert the little Fiesta into a competitive rally machine. Only a few cars were built at Boreham (It’s believed 5 or 6) while some kits of parts were sold to privateers and national teams to build the car themselves.

The international debut of the Fiesta was in the Monte Carlo Rally ’79, with Ari Vatanen driving a LHD car built by Ford Germany and Roger Clark driving a RHD one built by Ford Motorsport at Boreham. They were very successful with Ari finishing 10th overall after doing some fastest ss times (and collecting a big penalty) and Clark 14th overall. The following year, the Ford Spain Fiesta driven by Salvador Serviá was 9th overall, doing some ss times in the top 3.

The fact that in the end a full spec Gr.2 Fiesta was as expensive as a Gr.2 Escort but more difficult to drive and to maintain, not many proper Gr.2 Fiesta’s were built.
Most of the few Boreham built Fiesta’s ended their days competing in rallycross.

This particular Fiesta was one of the original Boreham built shells for the Roger Clark Fiesta program but never got used and was sold by Ford Motorsport in the 80’s to be used in circuit racing first (highly successfully) and then back to rally. It passed by different hands over the years but thankfully it was not used extensively in rallying and retained most of its original parts.

It was subject to some extensive restoration works by ourselves a few years ago and never used since.

A perfect addition to any Ford Motorsport collection or for use in historic rallying or demonstration events.

Here are some of the specifications:

Suspension:

Front: Rose-jointed adjustable TCA’s. Bilstein adjustable dampers. Specially designed big aluminium upright’s (this design was later on used in Ford 4WD cars as the RS200)
Rear: Rose jointed adjustable axle links. Rose jointed, adjustable Panhard rod. Bilstein dampers.

Brakes:

Adjustable pedal box
Hidraulic hand brake
AP/Lookhead 4 pot front calipers + 2 piece ventilated discs
Ate 2 pot rear calipers + 2 piece ventilated discs

Engine:

Dry-sump 1.6 kent engine on twin Weber 45’s, special camshaft, rods, crankshasft, pistons, etc. Power around 160 hp.

Transmission:

Hewland 4 speed close ratio gearbox
LSD
Heavy Duty Driveshafts
The transmission was designed to cope with over 200 hp, as the thoughts were to homologate a BDA engine for these cars! (only one prototype built)

Steering:

Big Ford Motorsport – Quaife quick rack with special steering column

Bodyshell

Reinforced bodyshell, some strechtening plates were fitted and seam welded
Rear section modificated to install a bigger safety fuel tank. Fuel filler relocated to the rear left side.
Alloy wheel arch extensions.
This was the original Boreham spec; most of the cars built outside Boreham retained the original tank and were fitted with plastic wheel arch extensions.
Safety Devices 10 point roll cage.

Electrical:

Boreham type wiring loom with the typical Boreham starting “key”, fuse box, etc
Rev counter replaced and fuel gauge relocated in the original dash. A separate dash pod fitted to the centre of the dashboard with different gauges and switches.

Wheels:

Centre lock magnesium wheels.