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Ford Rallye Sport Heritage

http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_ ... ease=28564

This is a good press release on the history of the Rallye Sport Ford range in Europe. Technically the first RS model was not the Escort RS 1600 of 1970, but the German 20M RS and 15M RS of 1968. However (winning the 1969 East African Safari aside) these German RS models were not true limited production performance models like the cars that came later.

In North America Mercury applied the RS badge (decal) to the Capri and the Lynx , but these are also not considered to be in the same catagory as the European cars.

The September 2008 issue of the British magazine CAR had a great cover and 26 pages devoted to “Fast Fords.” There is an article on the soon to be released 2009 Focus RS. This wasn’t a road test and some might consider it almost an advertisement. Next comes a five car road test of the new Focuses predecessors. These are a Mk I Escort RS 2000, Mk II Escort RS 1800, Mk III Escort RS Turbo, Sierra RS Cosworth and the Mk I Focus RS. I was surprised by how critical the test drivers were of these iconic Euro-Fords, but it was a great convergence of vintage Rallye Sport models. Finally CAR concluded with a three page guide to performance Fords from Europe and the USA going back to the original Cortina Lotus.

Mike,i think i read this week that the latest ford Ka is based on the new Fiat 500.Some of those little euro cars would do quite well over here,if we could get them.
cheers,
Gary