http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/frame...m=1&carnum=976
What do you do when your previously all-conquering rally car suddenly starts getting a flogging on some of the world’s most important events? Do you continue to compete while looking for ways to improve your car or do you see the writing on the wall for your current car and begin looking outside the square? In the 1970s, the Ford Motor Company almost came up with an Escort replacement, just 2 years after the Escort Twin Cam had been introduced.
Over the years since 1970, Ford have had some quickly-aborted rally cars that perhaps could have been world beaters, given a bit of stability in the regulations. The Escort RS1700T and the RS200 of the 1980s were products of the pace of technology at the time but also became victims of the rules. One other less well-known model was the still-born Ford GT70.
Ford had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Porsche and Renault on the 1970 Monte Carlo Rally. It wasn’t a good year for the Mk.1 Escort in the alps around Monte Carlo – Bjorn Waldegard’s Porsche 911 and a small battalion of Renault Alpines had beaten the Escort hands down. It got Ford motorsport manager, Stuart Turner, and rally driver, Roger Clark, thinking deeply on the plane on the way back to Britain.
The Escort had suffered in many areas, particularly traction – the Porsche and the Renault both benefitting from being rear-engined. Turner and Clark soon came up with an answer – they devised a mid-engined, purpose built 2-door sports coupe that could be fitted with either Ford’s V6 engine or a BDA, an engine which was about to come on stream to replace the Twin Cam.
Their rough ideas also included a steel backbone chassis with a fibreglass body, independent suspension and a ZF transaxle and, because traction was an important factor, the engine would be mid-mounted with most of the weight over the rear wheels.
Style, it seems, must have been important so a sporty, 2-door body along the lines of the the racing GT40 was designed, one that wouldn’t look out of place against the Renaults and the Porsches. Ford took the program seriously, engaging World Cup Rally winners Hannu Mikkola and Gunnar Palm as consultants on the project.
Turner and Clark were sure it could be a winner, but when a prototype was commissioned and built, Clark was less than convinced, complaining about the car’s handling with the big and heavy V6 sitting amid-ships. Handling improved when the lighter BDA engine was fitted but the car didn’t prove to be the huge leap forward over the Mk.1 Escort that they had hoped for.
Critics suggested that the handling problems were caused because Ford were not used to building cars of a sporting nature and it was too radical when compared to its mainstream models.
Nevertheless, Ford at Boreham dipped their corporate toes in the water by entering the GT70 in a few French events, the Tour de France (which welcomed prototype vehicles) and the Ronde Cevenole. Although substantial results weren’t forthcoming, it wasn’t the car’s lack of performance which spelled the end of the GT70, but a strike in Ford’s British factories.
As a result, the motorsport budget was cut and Ford found ways of making the Escort more reliable and lost interest in the GT70 project.
By 1972 there were other players on the scene, notably Lancia, which was about to release its Stratos. Strangely, it too, was a car that took many of its components from run-of-the-mill cars such as Fiat, as did the GT70 which used many Ford Zodiac parts in the GT70s construction.
Only five GT70s are believed to have been built and none are known to have survived – a far cry from the 500 initially planned for homologation. Had it succeeded there is no doubt that the pretty-looking fibreglass sports coupe would have been one of today’s classic rally cars.
Perhaps some day some far-sighted entepreneur might release a GT70 replica. Like the RS200 (or for that matter, the Ford Cobra), it would be an instant success. What a pity that Stuart Turner and Roger Clark, as well as Ford of Britain, didn’t perservere. Who knows, the Escort’s life might have been drastically shortened into the bargain.
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