WHY BRITAIN AND IRELAND LOVE THE FORD ESCORT Mk2
When Ari Vatanen led home fellow Finn Markku Alen on the 1981 1000 Lakes Rally – claiming his third victory of what would be a World Rally Championship-clinching season behind the wheel of a Ford Escort RS1800 Mk2 – he was looking untouchable. The idea that this would be the Escort Mk2’s final success at world level was laughable.
But the emergence ofAudi and its four-wheel-drive quattro ushered in a new era of rallying, and quickly looked to have killed the Escort off. Rear-wheel drive just wasn’t going to cut it at the very front of rallying anymore.
Yet, some 39 years on from the Escort’s final WRC win, its popularity has never been higher. While it was deemed redundant among rallying’s elite, it became an extremely potent weapon in national rallying all over the world and particularly in the UK and Ireland. Club
