Real treat, saw and heard a rally prepared Mk2 Escort!

[StephenFord]

Yesterday in a shopping center, spotted this bad boy on a trailer. Shortly after parking, there were quite a few men of a certain age (me included) surrounding it. The driver then got in, turned the engine on, and treated us all to several red-line blips of the throttle, the thing sounded like the devil with someone standing on his tale, just brilliant! Sure made my day!

[unofix]

Oh that takes me back to my youth, I was once a time marshal at an RAC rally an got to be in the thick of it. 😀

 

[StephenFord]

2 minutes ago, unofix said:

Oh that takes me back to my youth, I was once a time marshal at an RAC rally an got to be in the thick of it. 😀

(one small point, the photo of the car on the trailer is a MK2)

Well spotted LOL (I'll edit) I too was a marshal in the late 70s for the Ulster Rally - 15 minutes of training, and my very own whistle, H&S wasn't really a thing back then!

[unofix]

Hi Stephen, I was a marshal at kielder forest in 1993 if I remember right. You are so right about the training (a whole 15 minuets) and a little Hi-Vis waistcoat and I was good to go. I remember it was late autum and freezing we started at 7:00AM and finished at 11:00PM, a very long day, but such good fun !

[MarksST]

Nice but, doesn’t look very rally prepared.

[StephenFord]

25 minutes ago, MarksST said:

Nice but, doesn’t look very rally prepared.

Engine & suspension finished, it's a 'Southern Ireland' car and he was in Northern Ireland getting a roll cage fitted, I'm sure the 'stickers' you elude to will be fitted in due course!

[Frembrit]

I'm really miss going to rallies. Last one was the Wydean Stages in November 2019...hopefully spectators will be allowed there this year. Had hoped to go to the Nicky Grist stages in mid Wales last Saturday (10th June) but spectators weren't allowed.

 

[MarksST]

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Engine & suspension finished, it's a 'Southern Ireland' car and he was in Northern Ireland getting a roll cage fitted, I'm sure the 'stickers' you elude to will be fitted in due course!

 

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

Engine & suspension finished, it's a 'Southern Ireland' car and he was in Northern Ireland getting a roll cage fitted, I'm sure the 'stickers' you elude to will be fitted in due course!

Did I mention stickers? No, it’s the lack of cage, bucket seats and harnesses. 

[TomsFocus]

2 hours ago, MarksST said:

Did I mention stickers? No, it’s the lack of cage, bucket seats and harnesses. 

Don't the Cibie spots count as rally prep?  

[StephenFord]

13 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Don't the Cibie spots count as rally prep?  

They're on proper brackets too! I had some fitted to my 1st car, Datsun 120Y, and just drilled them into the bumper, they wobbled like hell and were pretty useless LOL

[Daniel Elliott]

I love the Wydean pics. Seeing those cars raced on that fantastic track over the years has been great fun. I was surprised by how young some of the racers appeared to be. There must have been some head to head incidents with the wild boar. I remember a large group of them 'ploughing' the ground over the road from the Speech House. I think I recall preparation for a race some years ago around Afan as well. I think that track was less claustrophobic for the drivers than at FoD. Great times.