SERIES ONE RS TURBOT
oday’s market for 1980s RS
Fords is more buoyant than it’s
ever been, with collectors
buying up tidy RS Turbos and
RS1600is to sit alongside the Ferraris and
Lamborghinis in their hermetically sealed
private collections. So turning a Series One
RST into a stripped-out track car might seem
like a bit of a mad thing to do these days...
although when you weigh up the pros and
cons, the car we have here makes perfect
sense for two key reasons: firstly, Rallye
Sport Fords were built for hardcore use and
abuse, it’s right there in their DNA. Andsecondly, this car hasn’t been gutted and
chucked together on a whim; Nathan Rea’s
been working on this for twelve years,
perfecting and honing and refining until it
was able to make its track debut at the
Nürburgring. Forget your speculative
investments and your concours
pernicketiness, this is an old-school RS in
the traditional style.
“Funnily enough, I wasn’t really into cars
back when I was a kid and these things were
new,” Nathan ponders. “I grew up with my
dad always tinkering with his Capris, V6
engine swaps and the like – and with theusual XR3i and Orion ownership amongst
his Capris, there was always tinkering on
weekends down the garages. But out of me,
my brother and sister, I was always least
interested in the cars... especially after the
‘thumb stuck in the car door’ incident!”
The less said about that the better, we
imagine, although by the time Nathan got
to the age of sixteen he was finding his
feet, burying his head in Redline and Max
Power and hankering after a Mk2 XR2. “I
began collecting interior strip lights and all
sorts of trim,” he recalls. “Luckily that car
was never really on the road before weSEPTEMBER 2019 FAS T FOR D ѴT
oday’s market for 1980s RS
Fords is more buoyant than it’s
ever been, with collectors
buying up tidy RS Turbos and
RS1600is to sit alongside the Ferraris and
Lamborghinis in their hermetically sealed
private collections. So turning a Series One
RST into a stripped-out track car might seem
like a bit of a mad thing to do these days...
although when you weigh up the pros and
cons, the car we have here makes perfect
sense for two key reasons: firstly, Rallye
Sport Fords were built for hardcore use and
abuse, it’s right there in their DNA. And
secondly, this car hasn’t been gutted and
chucked together on a whim; Nathan Rea’s
been working on this for twelve years,
perfecting and honing and refining until it
was able to make its track debut at the
Nürburgring. Forget your speculative
investments and your concours
pernicketiness, this is an old-school RS in
the traditional style.
“Funnily enough, I wasn’t really into cars
back when I was a kid and these things were
new,” Nathan ponders. “I grew up with my
dad always tinkering with his Capris, V6
engine swaps and the like – and with theusual XR3i and Orion ownership amongst
his Capris, there was always tinkering on
weekends down the garages. But out of me,
my brother and sister, I was always least
interested in the cars... especially after the
‘thumb stuck in the car door’ incident!”
The less said about that the better, we
imagine, although by the time Nathan got
to the age of sixteen he was finding his
feet, burying his head in Redline and Max
Power and hankering after a Mk2 XR2. “I
began collecting interior strip lights and all
sorts of trim,” he recalls. “Luckily that car
was never really on the road before weSEPTEMBER 2019 FAS T FOR D Ѵ