What the car is and where it came from
The Escort RS1600 is a high-performance version of the Mark I Ford Escort. RS denotes Rallye Sport. It took over from the Escort Twin Cam, which had been built for Group 2 international rallying with a Lotus-made, eight-valve twin-camshaft head on a 1.5 L block, giving 1,558 cc. Production of the Twin Cam was phased out as the Cosworth-engined RS1600 began.
How it works, in terms someone would actually use
The RS1600 was developed with a 1,601 cc Cosworth BDA, short for “Belt Drive A Series”. It used a crossflow block with a 16-valve Cosworth cylinder head. The Mark I Escort it is built on had conventional rear-wheel drive, MacPherson strut front suspension, a live rear axle on leaf springs and rack-and-pinion steering, the first on a small Ford. Like the Mexico, it had a higher-performance engine and sports suspension, and a strengthened bodyshell.
What it gets right
Its strengths are the 16-valve Cosworth head, the strengthened bodyshell and the sports suspension. It builds on a Mark I Escort that became one of the most successful rally cars of all time, and Ford’s works team was practically unbeatable in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
What it does not
It was not an easy car. Ford produced the RS2000, with a 2.0 L Pinto overhead-camshaft engine, as an alternative to the “somewhat temperamental” RS1600. In South Africa, some of the first cars suffered oil-feed problems, which Ford later rectified in collaboration with Cosworth.
What it changed
The Twin Cam was originally built at Halewood. The RS1600 and the Mexico were built at Ford’s Advanced Vehicle Operations facility at the Aveley plant in South Essex, with the strengthened bodyshell, and the RS2000 was produced there on the same shell.
Who it is for, and who it is not
It is for readers who want to see what Ford changed to turn the Mark I Escort into the Cosworth-engined RS1600. It is not for anyone put off by an engine described as somewhat temperamental: Ford offered the RS2000 as the alternative.
Is it worth your time
Yes, as a short history: a Mark I Escort given a Cosworth BDA engine. In South Africa about 100 arrived as knock-down kits in 1970/1, and a batch of 60 was sold on to Basil Green Motors, which replaced the BDA engines with 2,000 cc Pinto engines and renamed the car the Escort Perana.
