Ford Performance’s current surprise for the U.S. market is the Ford Focus RS, a car that has a lineage more in common with the older rear-wheel-drive rally Escorts and this particular car, the Sierra Cosworth, than it will with any domestic-market Ford. America does V8s well, but in Europe Ford could take an inline-four and make magic happen. The Sierra Cosworth project started off in early 1983 when Stuart Turner, the new head of Ford Motorsport Europe, realized that Ford wasn’t competitive in racing. He managed to get his superiors on board with the plan to build a hot car (by 1980s standards) and Cosworth, who had already been tuning the “Pinto” four, agreed to build the engines on two conditions: the street car’s output had to be more than 204 horsepower (from Ford’s initial requirement of 180 horsepower for the street cars) and Ford had to take 15,000 engines, ten thousand more than the program called for. Luckily for buyers, Ford agreed and soon the hills were alive with the sound of angry Blue Ovals. While the Escort RS and Sierra RS500 are better known, even the more-door Sierra could get the Cossie touch. Family sedan? Why not introduce Junior to the joys of boost at an early age?
All well and good – but in South Africa the Sierra XR8 came with a fuel injected 302 and a T5. Australia had the mental Barra twin turbo straight six while in the UK the Sierra Cosworth was the most stolen car on the roads. In fact when Northumbria Constabulary purchased 3 Escort Cosworth police cars they were stolen out of the compound at the force HQ before they’d even turned a wheel in duty!
But prices of original 3-door Sierra Cosworths are sky rocketing at the moment with RS500s set to breach the £100,000 barrier. If I had that sort of money though I’d spend it on a GT350…..