1986 Ford RS200 Evolution
For years, many people were
baffled when they opened up the Guinness Book of Records and discovered that
the world’s fastest accelerating car was a none other than a Ford – and a
curiously small, almost goofy looking one which looked like nothing made on
American soil.
That’s because the RS200 was a
homologation special produced by Ford of Great Britain. It was specifically
designed as Ford’s first four wheel drive contender for the radical Group B
class rally racing, but a minimum number of road-certified examples had to be
made to meet homologation requirements.
Since the best in the business
came out to help Ford, including chief engineer John Wheeler and Tony
Southgate, the RS200 Evolution represented the absolute pinnacle of modern
racing development. What these blokes did was take bits from the old RS1700T
breed of rally cars, mount a modified version the Ford/Cosworth engine in the
middle of a lightweight aluminum chassis, clothe it with a simple white gel
coat body designed by Ghia and then apply the four wheel drive formula which
Audi successfully introduced into the series.
While over 200 standard RS200s
were made, only 24 Evolution models were produced to stay ahead of the
competition. These included a special BTD-E 2.1 liter engine equipped with a
massive turbo to the effect of 420 bhp. Each was easily identified by the much
larger air scoop that houses the large air/air intercooler. Depending on boost,
the engine could produce a wide range of power, and at maximum boost (1.6 bar,
23psi) it offered a remarkable 580 bhp at 8000 rpm. When combining the
extremely lightweight chassis, a low polar moment of inertia and massive amount
of turbo-lag, power delivery on the limit was particularly hard to manage.
However, the resulting four wheel
drive monster was ‘the fastest accelerating car in the world’, and as driven by
Stig Blomqvist, a RS200 Evo achieved the 100 km/h Guinness world record
time of 3.07 seconds, a figure that stood for twelve years!
Other smaller details
distinguished the EVO version such as a solid mounted suspension. Like the
regular version it also borrow parts from the Sierra including the front
windscreen, mirrors, doorhandles and some instrumentation.
