With the Focus RS, Ford has demonstrated that it can
make a hot hatch at least as good as any from the likes of Volkswagen, Renault,
or Honda. But the top Focus wasn’t the first hot hatch to wear the Blue Oval –
or the vaunted letters RS.
Among the first of them was the Sierra RS. It was
the product of a joint project between Ford’s European motorsport division and
the British racing engine constructor Cosworth. Ford made about 5,500 of them
between 1986 and ’92, which leaves them as anything but common. But far more
rare was the RS500 version.
With a bigger turbocharger and a smattering of other
mechanical enhancements, the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth offered 222 hp. A decent upgrade over the 204 hp with which the standard
model came. And a whole heck of a lot more than the contemporary VW Golf GTI’s
137 hp.
Ford only made 500 of them, from which this example
stands out even further. It’s the very first one – a pre-production prototype
which Ford later sold to a private customer. Now it’s coming up for auction.
Silverstone Auctions will sell it to the highest bidder at the grand-prix
circuit on May 19.
The auctioneer expects it will sell for between
£ 90,000 and £ 120,000, or about US$ 120-160k in equivalent US currency. It has
another (later example) of the same and three more “ordinary” Sierra RS
Cosworths consigned for the same event. So if you’re bent on putting one of
Ford’s earliest hot hatches in your driveway, Silverstone will be the place to
be in a couple of weeks.
