The Group B monster that never saw the light of day

In 1983, Ford had a Group B challenger, almost ready to go. And then the axe fell on the Ford Escort RS1700T. In Tazio 4, we look back on the history of this unicorn with the help of author Steve Saxty and Malcolm Wilson of M-Sport.

The scene is M-Sport’s headquarters in Cockermouth, Cumbria, just a stone’s throw away from the Scottish border. In what used to be a mental institution – “some say it still is,” Malcolm Wilson jokes – Wilson has built up state-of-the-art facilities for his motorsport team M-Sport.

M-Sport is of course mostly known for running the WRC campaigns for Ford, for decades, but the team also developed the Bentley Continental GT into a serious challenger in the GT3 racing series. And all the junior Ford Fiesta rally versions are built here as well. M-Sport has its own test track, which you can see here in a video of the Panda project M-Sport undertook when they had a bit of spare time.

Before the RS200

Anyhow, we are here, because we wanted to get a close look at a car that is considered a unicorn: the Ford Escort RS1700T. Before the Ford RS200 came out, Ford had been working on a Group B world rally car project around the new Ford Escort. The official story has it that when Audi came to rallying with the four-wheel drive Quattro, Ford simply gave up on the project. But, of course, there is more to the story. Much more.

Rallied in South Africa

We went to Cockermouth because Malcolm Wilson is one of the few people who owns one of these cars, one of the road cars needed to homologate the RS1700T in Group B. But not only that, Wilson was involved in the project from early on as a test driver. “And I had a contract to make my debut in the world rally championship with the RS1700T,” Wilson says. That didn’t happen, even though Wilson would rally the Escort RS1700T in the end in the South African championship.

“Fantastic on Tarmac”

We asked Steve Saxty, author of the Secret Fords book series, to delve in the history of the Ford Escort RS1700T. Together with the input from Malcolm Wilson, we bring you the full story on how this car was created, tested and how ultimately the whole project would collapse. You can read it in issue 4. “It would have been a fantastic car on Tarmac,” Wilson remembers.