1978 Ford Escort RS 1800

‘STW 4R’ is a Ford Escort RS1800 that was built to full Group 4 rally specification in 2011. Then sold to a member of the RS Owners Club, who immediately submitted for MSA approval, it took 1st place in the Modified class of the 2015 Silverstone Ford Fair Concours event and was featured in Retro Ford magazine in the same year.

Since then, it’s only come out for gentle road use on dry days, clocking up around 300 miles in the past 15 years.

Which is a shame because it’s powered by a two-litre Millington Racing Engines ‘Diamond Series’ inline-four that serves up a dyno-proven 298bhp to the rear wheels via a racing clutch, a quick-fit alloy bell housing, and a Quaife 60G six-speed sequential gearbox that sends the power to an Atlas rear axle that’s further fitted with a Titan heavy-duty limited-slip differential. 

The engine alone is reputed to have cost its owner more than £28,000 and while we don’t have performance figures, we imagine you could market it as the Ford Escort RS1800FQ.

It’s also got a seam-welded RS1800 bodyshell, 13-inch Minilite alloy wheels and Cooper Rally Classic tyres, AP Racing brakes, a Quaife steering rack, GRP4-spec suspension, and a Simpson race exhaust system.

Plus more. Much, much more. 

Only being sold because the owner finds he just doesn’t have as much time to drive and show it as he’d hoped, it’s been recently serviced and runs and drives beautifully. 

The Escort was resprayed in the iconic colour of Diamond White in 2008, a colour we agree suits it much better than the red it wore before. 

The boot spoiler, wheelarches, and front valance came from Alloy Racing Fabrications rather than a Chinese fibreglass factory, and the 13-inch alloy wheels are from Minilite. 

Yup, genuine Minilite, not Minilite-style, which is what we normally have to write. Finished in gold and eight inches wide, they’re fitted with a matching set of 225/45R14 Cooper Rally Classic tyres that were made in 2022 and 2023 and whose stickiness is obvious, even in the photos.

Other juicy bits include two brace of Cibie Super Oscar lights, quick-release bonnet catches, stick-on numberplates, carbonfibre-wrapped bumpers, and even Montgomery mudflaps.

Hidden bits you might not notice include protective tape behind the retaining springs that hold the boot closed, a small detail that’s typical of the attention to detail that went into the build.

But no-one could fail to notice the Millington Racing Engines sun strip across the top of the windscreen: As our Canadian friends might out it, there’s no point in having the undercarriage of a bull moose if you aren’t going to let it swing once in a while.

And yet, even accoutrements as magnificent as these would be worthless without a good base. Or good bones, as TV property shows so tiresomely put it.

And this base is solid, well-aligned, and straight; whereas we normally have to reach for cliches about how this example’s patina has been “forged in the heat of competition”, no such excuses are needed here.

Because you don’t win concours competitions unless your shutlines are razor-sharp, your panel alignment mm-perfect, and your paint has been professionally applied to a seam-welded and seam-sealed RS1800 Motorsport shell.

Of course, it’s been a decade since it last won a concours, but it’s only covered around 3,000 miles since then and it has continued to be curated with a degree of fastidiousness that borders on the obsessive.

Flaws, therefore, are few. The paint has cracked towards the front of the offside sill, the front and rear bumpers have a few very light marks and scratches, the nearside headlamp has a crack in the lens, the windscreen seal isn’t as neat as it could be on the offside vertical, and the nearside A-pillar has a couple of bubbles under the paint.

The cabin is a compelling blend of the old and the new: The old includes the familiar MKII Escort instrument binnacle and air vents and the new, well, the new comprises just about everything else.

We’ll start with the instruments, which are largely white-on-black analogue gauges that suit the car’s classic status rather well. They also provide all the information even a competition driver could ever need including engine and road speed, coolant temperature, oil pressure, fuel level, and battery charge. 

So far so normal.

But, being a thoroughbred rally car, you also get dials for the fuel pressure and the engine oil temperature plus a digital gear position indicator, a Monit Q-20 tripmeter, and a pair of Hanhart analogue stopwatches.

The seats are Sparco Pro2000s, and the same firm has supplied the steering wheel. The driver and passenger are further retained by HRS harnesses – and should it all go wrong they’ll be relieved to find switches to kill the engine and trigger the Lifeline 360 gas fire suppression system plus an FIA-complaint Safety Devices roll cage that includes door bars and padding in vulnerable areas.

They can communicate using 3M Peltor headsets, and the Stilo WRC helmets that are included in the sale are stored in dedicated foam holders behind the seats. 

The windscreen is heated, the engine starts via a button, the handbrake is a vertical hydraulic jobbie for effortless handbrake turns, the pedals on the adjustable-bias pedal box are drilled alloy items from OMP, the navigator has a hefty foot brace, an ‘OK’ sign is mounted on the headlining, and the six-speed sequential gearbox is operated via a rapid-fire white-topped gear-lever with a red anodised collar.

The boot contains an AH Fabrications alloy fuel tank that features some of the neatest welding we’ve ever seen alongside a dry sump tank, a swirl pot, and a spare Minilite alloy wheel fitted with an Ecsta V700 tyre.

Oh, and the switches are so beautifully labelled they could be displayed in a gallery. 

As for work to do, the only obvious problem is that the Sparco seats and the Historic Rally Sport harnesses are out of date, so will need to be replaced if you want to compete in it. 

The rear axle is a fully-floating, WRC-spec Atlas jobbie complete with a Titan heavy-duty limited-slip differential – but then you want only the best when your dyno-proven 296bhp is being sent to the rear wheels via a Quaife 60G six-speed sequential gearbox and a bronze metallic High Mass clutch that costs a four-figure sum all by itself, don’t you?

You’ll want good brakes too, which means phoning AP Racing to order a set of its four-pot, radial-mount, aluminium alloy brake calipers and ‘J-Hook’ grooved brake discs, underpinning them with a bias pedal box and a hydraulic upright ratchet-locking handbrake.

The suspension is Watts-linkage at the rear, Group 4-spec adjustable struts with Bilstein 300/100 inserts at the front, and the steering is electrically assisted.

You probably aren’t going to trust yourself to bolt it all together either, so you’ll want to get an increase in your credit card limit in order to pay folk like C Bradley Motorsport and Wayne Mitchel Competition Engines to do their thing.

The star of the show is undoubtably that two-litre Millington Racing Engines ‘Diamond Series’ engine that weighs just 83kgs yet delivers a dyno-proven 298bhp thanks to all the sexy stuff like all-alloy construction, a 16-valve cylinder head, a DTA S60 ECU with a ‘wet map’ switch, an 80-amp alternator, and a Simpson Racing exhaust manifold and system that cost a solid four-figure sum all by itself.

Nigh-on 300bhp is a helluva figure to put through a 1970s car but it is also worth remembering that Millington engines put the emphasis put on reliability and useable torque rather than outright power, so it probably feels even quicker than you think – and should last for longer.

The 2.2-litre engine protected by a C Bradley Motorsport sump guard and fed by a 12-gallon baffled alloy fuel tank, further reinforcing its credentials as a money-no-object build. 

Its servicing regimen in the past few years is equally impressive – and this is all for a car that’s covered just 300-odd miles since it was completed:

• 08.08.2024 – service by Milford Garage including new sparkplugs, fresh brake fluid, and a check of the fire suppression system
• 29.03.2022 – service by Mellor Elliot Motorsport including new sparkplugs 

The engine bay is every bit as well-finished and beautifully detailed as you’d expect. Note the multiplicity of anodised fittings, the neatly run cables and braided hoses, the gold heat shielding, and the fact the chassis plate has even been stamped with the correct paint code for its new colour.

It’s also been kept very clean and very well serviced, so it won’t come as a surprise to learn that it starts on the button, idles solidly, and drives even better than you’d expect.

It’s enormously addictive and the only negative we can find to say about it is that the foam air filter is starting to disintegrate – and that we can’t afford to run it as a pool car.

The underside has been left painted rather than undersealed, which will make wire-brushing off the modest surface rust and repainting it an easy and satisfying job, although the crack we mentioned on the leading edge of the offside sill has extended underneath and may need more in-depth work.

The chap who project-managed the build bought it as an unfinished project with just 13,000 miles on the clock from France. 

But – and if you’ve been paying attention this won’t surprise you – our hero wasn’t happy with the quality of the work, so he had it all stripped back and started again. 

He chose to use a genuine R1800 instead of a good used ‘shell because he wanted authenticity, and if he was to achieve his goal of making it as close to a Works rally car as possible then that meant starting with the real article and hang the cost – which is estimated as being around £75,000.

The Escort’s MoT expired at the end of March 2026. Obviously, it doesn’t need one but as the six it’s been issued with since 2012 were all clear passes, getting a new ticket might not be too difficult. 

The recent Vehicle History Check is clear bar the marker for a change of colour and the paperwork includes invoices and expired MoTs, a list of what fuse does what, a copy of the dyno run, and invoices. Lots of invoices.

Obviously, it also contains a copy of the December 2015 edition of Retro Ford it appeared in plus a photo album of the build.

Obviously, it isn’t going to be cheap because no-one is going to spend £28,800 on an engine for something that’s going to be worth peanuts when it’s finished.

And that £28,800 was just the beginning of the expenditure; we haven’t added up the vast number of receipts in the history file for ourselves but the chap who built it estimates it owed him £75,000, which coincidentally is our lower estimate – and if that sounds like a lot of money, just imagine what it would cost you to buy and build one to this specification now.

The RS1800’s rock-solid reputation means it should also hold its value, if not appreciate, so you could make the argument that it is less of an expense and more of an investment.

We’re confident to offer this fine car for auction with an estimate of £75,000 - £80,000.

Viewing is strongly encouraged, and this lot is located at THE MARKET HQ in South Oxfordshire. Viewings are STRICTLY BY APPOINTMENT and we are open weekdays (apart from Bank Holidays) between 10am - 12pm or 2pm - 4pm. To make a booking, please use the ‘Enquire About This Vehicle’ button on the listing. Feel free to ask any questions, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.