The Ford Escort. One of the original sports compact cars. There are many people out there who still remember how these used to slide all over the rally stages of the world and Europe’s race tracks back in the 70ies. But the Escort wasn’t only successful in motorsports, it was a popular car even on the streets – the souped up RS2000 variants were a boyracers dream come true. 
The original Escort was launched in 1968 and spawned a legacy that would last until the european Ford Escort was laid to rest in the year 2000, after seven successful generations.
Now, most of these were your everyman’s grocery getter, but Ford did not forget performancy oriented drivers. Even with the first generation of the Escort, Ford already produced performance models called ‘RS2000’. The RS2000 label appeared in the first two generations and marked the top-of-the-line performance Escorts.
After the first two generations the Escort switched to a front wheel drive layout and lost a bit of it’s performance appeal, even though Ford churned out models like the Mk3 ‘RS Turbo’. A real head turner would once again appear with the Mk5 Escort in form of the ‘Escort RS Cosworth’ – a toroughbred race car for the streets equipped with flared fenders and a huge rear wing. The Cossie, as it was affectionally called, lasted until the end of the Escorts life span in it’s seventh generation.
The example posted here is a amazingly clean Mk1 RS2000 with wide fenders as were popular on the rally and race spec RS2000s back in the day. The car’s two tone paintjob also brought back memories of those glory days.
The car looked ready to hit the track, as the inside was completely stripped out with only two bucket seats and a roll cage filling up the interior. And judging from the stickers on side window, it looks like the owner certainly drives it, too!
The wheel arches were filled out by a set of period correct BBS E50 magnesium wheels, which looked absolutely amazing.
It was amazing to see such a car in such a condition at the Low Rulers meeting. Very unexpected between all the more modern and less performance oriented builds and it came as a very nice surprise!
