Trying too hard can be worse than not trying hard enough. There is no effortless fluency here, more a bad case of pre-commitment jitters on entry to a tight right-hander. The car scrambles for grip where none is to be found and third gear was a laughably bad choice. Then it’s off down a long, narrow straight, the turbo spooling up before delivering the sort of thrust that snaps the thread of linear thinking. Next time around, there’s too much speed on entry and too little on exit as the front end tries – and fails – to find purchase. Third time’s a charm, though, and the Ford RS200 reveals itself to be awesome in the most old-fashioned sense of the word.
It’s balletic and fully deserving of a more accomplished pilot. The car’s owner, a racer in Portugal and beyond, looks on with amused tolerance. He is aware that getting the hang of a Group B weapon is not the work of a moment, especially when it’s in a heightened state of tune and equipped with tyres not best suited to dusty roads. You don’t approach a car like this expecting it to be easy. It’s the sort of machine that separates the men from the boys and the boys from the rest of us. When you do get it right, or a close enough approximation, it’s an almost religious experience.
Or at least it is if you discount the small matter of the ‘Diabolique’ warpaint. There is no getting away from it, the car pictured here played a role in reshaping the history of rallying. It did so thanks to its role in that accident on the Portuguese round of the World Rally Championship in 1986. However, as is so often the way with these things, the narrative behind what transpired that fateful day is freighted with caveats and codicils. The who did what and why has been picked over ever since, some observations being barn-door obvious, others less so. What is clear is that the RS200 in its various guises never quite lived up to its early promise.
Ford’s new RS200s at the ill-fated 1986 Rally Portugal – Kalle Grundel’s car is nearest; No4 is Stig Blomqvist’s
McKlein
The Blue Oval’s initial attempt at building a WRC winner for the 1980s was a new breed of Escort. The RS1700T was created while Karl Ludvigsen helmed the competition department. Former team principal Stuart Turner was then tasked with writing a paper outlining the best direction of travel for Ford’s European motor sport bids. He suggested canning the C100 Group C sports-prototype programme. He also expressed doubts as to the RS1700T’s prospects.
“The face of rallying was changing and it was clear to me that four-wheel drive was the future”
Turner, who died last year, told me in 2016: “The face of rallying was changing and it was clear to me that four-wheel drive was the future. We needed a purpose-built car.” He was reinstated as competition chief and tasked with creating something new, but first he had to put a proposal before the board. Some were understandably sceptical, fearing they would be throwing further cash onto the pyre with nothing to show for it. Turner added: “I was incredibly lucky in working with people such as [PR guru] Walter Hayes, in that I could fight to put something like the RS200 into production for homologation, or the Sierra Cosworth later on for that matter.”
Clockwise from top left: This actual RS200 was involved in the Rally Portugal incident; Lack of ventilation means it can get hot in here; Front spots for the classic RS200 rally look; Power came from a 1.8-litre Cosworth BDT engine – a proper bellow
Gordon Murray was sounded out about taking on ‘Project B/200’ as it was known internally. He was intrigued but there was no way he could fit it in around his day job at Brabham. The Williams F1 squad was also approached but it was already mired in what became the MG 6R4. Ultimately, it fell to Arrows co-founder Tony Southgate to make it happen, with significant input from Ford’s John Wheeler. Power came from a turbocharged 1.8-litre four-cylinder Cosworth BDT. It was sited longitudinally amidships in a purpose-built platform that comprised a monocoque centre section with multi-tubular sections fore and aft. Double wishbone suspension was employed all-round with twin coils and dampers per wheel. Front, centre and rear differentials incorporated FF viscous-coupling limit-slip mechanisms.
While preliminary sketches were produced by Tony Catignani in the UK, the definitive outline was penned by Filippo Sapino at Ford’s Ghia studio in Turin. A driveable test mule was presented to the suits in March 1984 and a production run was sanctioned shortly thereafter. While it is widely held that Reliant Motors built the production RS200s, it is closer to the truth to say that it moulded the composite bodies and other elements. The assembly was overseen by Ford’s Mike Moreton at Reliant’s surplus Shenstone works.
Production got underway in October 1985, and Ford had until the end of January 1986 to prove to FIA inspectors that it had built the requisite 200 cars in order to homologate the car. As such, a degree of smoke and mirrors chicanery was involved. The RS200 had already been blooded in competition in the UK, though, the works team having fielded a car on the Lindisfarne Rally in September 1985. Malcolm Wilson emerged victorious despite an ‘off’ on the first forest stage. In February 1986, the newly homologated RS200 made its WRC debut in Sweden with factory cars fielded for Stig Blomqvist and Kalle Grundel, the latter placing third place overall.
Then came the Rally Portugal. Just three weeks separated the first two rounds of the WRC, the works team in Boreham working overtime to prepare the brace of RS200s for Blomqvist and Grundel plus a car for Diabolique Motorsport. This Porto squad was the benchmark player on the Portuguese rally scene, with Joaquim Coelho da Rocha Santos its superstar driver. Known to his fans as ‘Quim’, a nickname that loses something in translation, Santos made a name for himself racing a Ford Fiesta. Like his brother Fernando, he also shone in rallycross.
The RS200 shared parts with the Ford Sierra, including the windscreen, doors and rear lights
While Santos made his rally debut in 1976 aboard a Datsun B110, it wasn’t until 1981 that he fully committed to competing off-piste. He was picked by team-boss and co-driver Miguel Oliveira to be the lead driver for the newly formed Diabolique Motorsport. The duo dominated aboard a series of Ford Escort RS1800s, bagging a hat-trick of national titles from 1982-84. Backed by Ford’s Portuguese concessionaire, the team ordered an RS200 (chassis 072), with Santos joining the works squad early in the year while extensive tests were conducted in Portugal.
“Diabolique Motorsport was the benchmark player on the Portuguese rally scene”
However, due to repeated delays, the new car wasn’t completed in time so Diabolique Motorsports was armed with a former development hack, chassis 06, that produced around 350bhp rather than the 420 or so of the works cars. Santos drove it for the first time at 2am on the opening day of Rally Portugal, a mere seven and a quarter hours before the start of the event. In addition to rivals from Peugeot, Lancia and MG, the Fords faced a new threat in the form of Walter Röhrl who was armed with an Audi Sport Quattro E2. The self-directed German was among the first to voice concerns about crowd control.
The first incident occurred a few seconds into the opening stage when Timo Salonen’s Peugeot 205 T16 clipped a cameraman who suffered a fractured leg. Then came the big one. Santos, who was the highest seeded of the local drivers, had been mobbed wherever he went during the run-up to the start. He was two-and-a-half miles into the Lagoa Azul (Blue Lagoon) special stage when it all went horribly wrong. Autosport reported: “…there was nothing to keep the fans from the action… Certainly there was no safeguard and the cost was to be high. Santos covered the opening minutes hoping to avoid drama, but was unaware of the desperate measures which his fans would willingly take to get close to their idol.”
The plastic-glassfibre composite exterior was moulded for Ford by Reliant, which had expertise in such materials
The road was slippery and Santos was travelling flat-chat over a crest only to discover spectators across the road. The car moved slightly in avoidance and Santos found himself offline for the following left-hander. The RS200 then left the road and came to a rest in a gulley. Oliveira managed to clamber out of the wreckage but Santos stayed in the car for several minutes, his eyes glazed in horror. Three people died at the scene, a fourth succumbing to their injuries in hospital. Santos had been the 15th runner to start the stage and, incredibly, nine cars followed before the stage was cancelled.
“Santos drove the RS200 for the first time at 2am on the opening day of Rally Portugal”
Works Volkswagen driver Franz Wittmann stopped at the scene, only for an angry mob to lob stones at his car. The factory teams then convened at the Estoril-Sol Hotel and unanimously decided to withdraw. As such, the reigning Portuguese national champion, Joaquim Moutinho, recorded a hollow victory aboard his Renault 5 Turbo. The works Ford squad, meanwhile, dovetailed outings in the WRC and the British Rally Championship for the rest of the season. That podium finish in Sweden was as good as it got for the RS200 at the highest level, Group B being axed following the accident on the Tour de Corse that claimed the lives of Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresta.
Despite its dark past, this RS200 saw success with Portuguese rally ace Joaquim Santos
As for the car pictured here, it wasn’t badly damaged during the accident that had such a terrible human toll. Santos continued to campaign chassis 06, claiming victory on the 1986 Rallye Internacional da Figueira da Foz e Região Centro. However, Santos pranged it on an event in Porto later in the season and the car was dispatched to the UK to be rebuilt, chassis 072 having by now arrived in Portugal. Oliveira requested that chassis 06 be re-shelled to look more like the production car variant. The idea was for him to occasionally use the car for his own amusement but it soon became clear that it was too hardcore for road use.
Ford will return to the WRC as a factory manufacturer in 2028, developing a new car for the 2029 season under the FIA’s incoming regulations
As such, it resided in his garage for many years alongside chassis 072 and a mountain of spares until the current owner acquired the lot. The upshot was that ‘our’ RS200 was rebuilt to period spec and reunited with its original body while chassis 072 was sold to a Spanish collector. Which brings us to today and a blisteringly hot day somewhere in the middle of Portugal. Up close, the RS200 appears stubby bordering on attractive. While a bespoke design, some of the parts-bin thievery is obvious. The Sierra surrendered 117 components in the creation of this Group B hero, the windscreen, cut-down doors and rear lights among them.
The large air intakes atop the roof lend it a purposeful air, as does the bank of auxiliary spotlights up front. Once inside, the cabin is all business, the surprising part being that it’s bordering on comfortable. The driver’s seat embraces rather than pinches while the pedals aren’t offset unlike in some of its period rivals. With the kill switch in the on position, you partially turn the ignition key to prime the fuel and oil pumps. Once they stop ticking, you twist the key and it fires with the sort of fanfare most closely associated with mortar fire.
As expected, the clutch doesn’t respond to slippage. It’s either in or out and you need to dial in at least 3000rpm before the car moves off the line by way of an awkward bunny hop. More revs equate to more noise and not just from the exhaust. You are serenaded by a madrigal of percussive squeaks and clonks, the initial drive being conducted behind a camera car travelling at 40mph. It’s toasty, too, the only ventilation provided by the outlets in the side glazing; the ones you have closed so as not to let the dust in.
From left: Grundel, 1986 Rally Sweden; Disaster in Portugal, ’86
McKlein, LAT Images
Estimated power is somewhere between 350 and 400bhp, the turbo having been tweaked to give a more linear power delivery than in period. It’s all relative, though. Once the photographer has what he needs, we head for a test route that comprises a partially paved road which leads into one that is rough enough to rattle your kidneys. This is followed by a couple of testy 90-degree corners and long, tree-lined straights that result in a rooster tail of dust being kicked up. It’s effectively a loop and one in which the RS200 proves to be devastatingly fast.
“On the smooth stuff, the RS200 is OK, but it becomes a ‘busy’ car once you’re in the dust”
That is a given, but here fast feels fast, but then the car weighs only 1050kg. The owner insists that the power delivery before the turbo mods was savage; it was all or nothing. It isn’t exactly subtle now, either, but it spools up relatively low down the rev range and keeps pulling all the way to 8000rpm. It’s the sort of acceleration that prompts your mouth to slacken and pupils to dilate. The five-speed ’box is a delight, too, which comes as a surprise. It’s relatively easy to guide between planes and doesn’t snatch on the downshifts.
Grip is at a premium, mind, but then it is running on semi-slick tyres. On the smooth stuff, the RS200 is perfectly OK, but it becomes a ‘busy’ car once you’re playing in the dust. The brake pedal requires a hefty shove before you notice even trace elements of retardation. Once the brakes finally bite, the front darts left and then right but get back on the power and it self corrects. It’s almost eery. The steering is ultra rapid, which rather goes with the territory. There’s balance here; real poise, but the paucity of traction makes cornering efficiently a bit of a lottery. It’s either slow in, slower out because the nose washes out and turbo is off the boil, or it’s fast in and pray that you don’t get an epic speed wobble on the exit.
You feel as though you’re defying the laws of physics, and it’s worth the price of admission just to hear the snap, crackle and-pop-pop-pop bellow out of the stubby exhaust. Playing chuck-it-in-and-see-what-happens is soon over, though. There’s work to be done, not least the small matter of washing the car before it returns to its lair. It resides in a collection that comprises rally veterans, touring cars and sports-prototypes, and it’s the one that is least likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
Yes, it has a chequered history, but the ironic part is that Santos was once renowned for not crashing. He rarely discussed what happened that fateful day other than to say that he wasn’t sure what happened. He refused to watch TV footage of the crash. It would be too painful. He died in March 2024, aged 71, his legacy being 46 major rally wins in Portugal, his fourth and final title bagged in 1992 aboard a semi-works Toyota Celica GT-Four. As for this infamous former steed, think of it as a brilliant car with a bad reputation in search of redemption.
Thanks to Manuel Ferrão & Adelino Dinis.
Björn Waldegård with RS1800, 1979
LAT Images
“Fun and exciting times” to follow…
Ford’s return to the World Rally Championship as a full manufacturer team comes in 2028, after a 15-year absence of official involvement. The Blue Oval ended its run as a full-fat factory squad at the end of 2012, although M-Sport, the team that had long operated Ford’s works effort, has continued in the series, with Sébastien Ogier winning the 2017 and ’18 titles in a Fiesta WRC.
As any forest-dwelling, bobble-hat-clad rallying aficionado will know, Ford’s Mk1 and Mk2 Escorts are the stuff of legend. Björn Waldegaard became WRC drivers’ champion in an RS1800 in 1979, with Ari Vatanen following suit in ’81. After the cancellation of the RS1700T programme, the RS200 became Ford’s four-wheel-drive Group B monster. With the advent of Group A, the Sierra was used, initially the XR4x4 before the rear-driven RS Cosworth came on stream. The Escort RS Cosworth that came next enjoyed success, while the 21st century has featured various iterations of Focus, Fiesta and Puma WRC.
‘Cossie’, Monte, ’94
LAT Images
The new WRC27 regulations allow adapted Rally2 cars, so Ford’s return – with M-Sport, naturally – will come with a modified version of the Fiesta Rally2 before an all-new model for 2029. Ford sporting chief Mark Rushbrook wants a return to the “fun and exciting cars” that came from its WRC involvement. But we’d be surprised if it was a Mk2 RS200. MJS
