Ford RS200: A somewhat dark and wasted story.

30 Mar 2020

In November 1984 the President of the Italian Republic, Sandro Pertini, arrived in his Maserati Quattroporte at the Turin Motor Show, where he inaugurated an exhibition in which the star was the well-known Lancia Thema and the Italian novelty was the Fiat Regata in a van version. , called Weekend, an exhibition in which much was said about the favorable commercialization in Italy of our recent Seat Ibiza. Beside these relative novelties, the Pininfarina coachbuilder presented a van version derived from the Peugeot 205, as well as a strange prototype commissioned by Honda. A more inspired Giugiaro offered 4 of his creations there: Etna on Lotus base, Maya on Ford mechanics, as well as Marlin and Togheter.

All in all, the only foreign manufacturer that exhibited something really new in that Turin Show was Ford, which exhibited its Ghia Vignale TSX 4 - a family based on the Ford Tempo made in USA - and what would be the Ford RS 200.

The Ford RS 200 - the third generation of the high-performance 4 × 4 - was a true 4-wheel-drive sports car inspired by the Audi Quattro and the Peugeot 205 T 16, an absolute sports car that was intended to build 200 units to compete in Group B of the International Rally Championship, with the declared intention of joining the aforementioned Audi and Peugeot on the podiums before 1986 and becoming the winner of the World Rally Championship, a competition that is highly profitable by the media for manufacturers, but a competition where The increasing demands for performance to run in that Group B - triggered by the bragging of engineering that was the Audi Quattro - imposed increasingly sophisticated and expensive mechanical developments, trying to convert front-engine and two-wheel-drive cars into powerful 4 × 4 turbo that looked like real F 1.

For this reason, the International Automobile Federation (FIA), -through FISA (International Federation of Automobile Sports), tried to regulate in some way such waste of benefits by requiring at least the manufacture in a year of 200 units of each A model that wanted to compete in Group B, so that manufacturers did more than build extreme and unreal prototypes in a crazy and very burdensome race of power, acceleration and CX figures.

The RS 200 inaugurated the third generation of the high-performance 4 × 4 and provided the integral resource to the Ferguson system, which implied the asymmetric torque distribution and front and rear viscous coupling differentials, made in Coventry by FF Development (Ferguson) , as well as the possibility for the pilot to choose between three options such as the rear propulsion to run on asphalt, the 4 × 4 traction with torque distribution by 37% front and 63% behind, or a rigid 4 × 4 With 50% torque distribution on both axles, these two options are recommended for difficult terrain such as snow, dirt or mud.

Ford had started this very radical project in 1983, simultaneously with the highly successful Ford Sierra RS Cosworth, and had done so at the initiative of Ford Motor Sport Europe director Stuart Turner, the creator of the most excellent V8 Ford Cosworth, directing the work of John Wheeeler and Tony Southgate, who were in charge of developing the chassis.

This project, which annulled the RS 1700 T project, which would replace the Escort RS, was a blank sheet that tried to exalt and promote the Ford name globally, without promoting any specific model.

The execution of this proposal, whose first prototype was a rounded two-seater berline, the Ford RS 200, began in September 1983, with 5 more units being manufactured in March 1984 and the manufacture of the remaining 194 being decided in October 1985, until accounting for the 200 that FISA registered in January 1986 after its manufacture by Reliant.

The resulting Ford RS 200 offered these features:

1803 cc 4-cylinder Ford BTD engine, double overhead camshaft and 4 valves per cylinder, all built in aluminum, water-cooled and supercharged by a Garrett T 04 turbo, the injection being managed by a Ford EEC microprocessor IV. This engine was developed by Brian Hart and was a descendant of the F 2 BDA engine. This supercharged engine, installed longitudinally behind the seats, tilted 23 degrees to the right and moved 15 cm to the left, was capable of 250 hp in version road and up to 380 in competition version, being its compression ratio of 7.2 for competition and blowing the turbo at 1.2 bar, which, with a weight of about 1050 kg, would allow acceleration from 0 to 100 km / h in less than 5 seconds. The torque was transmitted by means of an accessible sprocket case, so that mechanics could easily vary the final ratio.

The gearbox was 5 synchronized gears, with a two-disc clutch.
The bodywork had been designed by Filipo Sapino, who worked for Ghia; It had a 50/50 mass distribution, with a wheelbase of 2.53m, offering a CX of 0.40.
As for the chassis, monocoque with a safety arch, it consisted of a laterally reinforced load-bearing platform based on Ciba Geigy aluminum, covered with an external steel cladding, a material that also included the front and rear extensions of the chassis.
The competition-type suspensions were overlapping triangles with a combined double of springs and dampers in the center, completed at the rear with additional cross arms.
The brakes were 4 ventilated discs of 285 mm.
The address was a zipper without assistance.
The roof and doors were made of carbon fiber and aramid fiber. Beside it were some standard parts, such as the steering column and rack, as well as the windshield and doors that came from the Sierra.
The dimensions were 4 m in length, 1,764 in width and 1.32 in height, the weight in running order being 1180 kg, 545 at the front and 635 at the rear. The battle measured 2.53 m. Pirelli P 700 225/50 VR 16 wore.

The price in France was 650,000 f in November 1985, 200 thousand more than a Lancia S 4. Such price put the RS 200 at the level of two Audi Quattro Coupes (324,500 f), a Ferrari 412 (672,000 francs), or above a Porsche 911 Turbo, which was worth 540,800.

In practice, the RS 200 was aligned with the followers of the Audi Quattro: the Audi Quattro Sport, the Austin MG Maestro GR 4, the Citroen BX 4 TC, the Lancia Delta S 4 and the Peugeot 205 T 16.

At the wheel the RS exhibited a spartan interior, did not offer a trunk and its two seats were very enveloping but also hard, without space abounding.

After the first roars, the clutch was sweet and the gears were easily engaged. The engine responded to the slightest request and delivered its power from 2,500 rpm to 6,500. The steering was not open to criticism and the brakes responded by allowing a safe, but not comfortable ride, enveloped in considerable mechanical and body noise.

Drivers who drove it, like Zanini, found it superior to the 205 T 16, with a balanced behavior. Correcaminos, on the other hand, defined it as equipped with an excellent engine and brakes, noting that the engine pushed bestially from 5000 rpm and that “the pull backwards was tremendous”. Carlos Sáinz, who used it in the Spanish rally championship, defined it as a beast, very difficult to drive due to the turbo response time and its brutal power, difficult to dose.

In September 1985, Autopista had had the opportunity to taste the RS 200, describing it as a joke for the road intended for 200 eccentrics, the result of irrational sports regulations, turning out to be a car that had to be analyzed with the heart and not with the head, a car that was running offered crunches, various noises, little living space, an uncompromising clutch and gear, as well as great grip, great traction and unexpected comfort due to its great capacity for absorbing potholes.

The manufacturer of the RS 200 needed to promote its sale to the public in order to somehow defray the cost of the 200 units required by FISA for its homologation in Group B. In October, Motor 16 was therefore responsible for the RS 200, which he had won in his first sporting appearance, at the Lindisfarne Rally (his sporting records in 1986 were third in the Swedish Rally and fifth in the RAC) They had tested in this magazine a 250hp unit and They highlighted the abruptness of its clutch, which forced it to start at 3000 rpm, its hard change and the literally deafening noise of the set, things that would be attenuated in the street version, in which it would be a question of expanding its habitable capacity. Motor 16 also referred to the ease with which the RS 200 entered into high-speed corners, as well as the absorption capacity of its suspension, so that “it could be rolled on dirt roads at high speed as if it were going through a road”.

At the end of 1985, the RS 200, conceived from a blank sheet and made from top to bottom as an absolute sports car, impressed with its highly favorable aesthetics. Then it surprised its central rear engine, as well as its gearbox located behind the front axle, as well as its two drive shafts and its three limited-slip and viscous coupling differentials (one central and one in each train), allowing concentration the whole of the masses within the battle of the RS. Added to this was the possibility of selecting the motor based on the terrain or the wishes of the pilot, who could choose to uncouple the front differential and be left with two driving wheels, which seemed indicated for asphalt, or choose four, choosing a distribution of the torque to 50%, or if not, sending 37% forward, leaving the remaining 67% for the rear axle, which would be convenient on dirt or snow.

So much excellence in mechanics and design was saved from the abortion his predecessor, the Ford GT 70, presented for the first time at the 1971 Brussels Motor Show, due to the 1974 oil crisis.

However, fatal accidents at the 1986 world rally championships killed the RS 200 in infancy, as Jean Marie Balestre, the FISA president, was forced to suppress the rampant Group B due to tragedies such as the one in the first test of the championship, in Portugal, with three dead and 28 wounded when one of the participants left the track, the Ford RS 200 driven by Joaquim Santos, who was unable to avoid the authentic wall of extremely risky public that literally it was pouncing on the cars, especially in the curves, from which they were leaving at a higher speed than expected by the fans, who left too late, with the sad consequences that are known.

To the unfortunate accident in Portugal, where the main pilots, who “are not assassins” - as Allen said then - abandoned and issued a statement in which they literally wrote that “you cannot go 150 km / h between the walls of the public who are not move away ”, join the accidents of Biasion and Metha in the training of the Rally Safari and add the tragedy of Corsica, where Toivonen and Cresto perished charred in their Lancia Delta S 4, which fell apart.

The result of such havoc due to such waste of power was unbearable, intolerable.

In summary, in May 1986, the World Rally Championship had claimed 6 deaths and more than 40 injuries among the public and drivers. And it is that the cars of group B, with their monocoque chassis of sophisticated materials and 400 hp that gave such accelerations that, as some driver said, there were no longer curves, since the co-drivers no longer had time to “sing them”, and all this together with a certain wide sleeve for security, such as the non-mandatory carrying of an automatic fire extinguisher, made all the pilots led by Walter Rohrl ask Ballestre to end “that madness”, as Markku said Allen, since otherwise the pilots would abandon the competition if for the next season the power escalation continued.

Thus, FISA immediately prohibited the homologation of any new group B, the abolition of the spoilers, limited the duration of the sections and the mileage of each stage and forced the assembly of automatic fire extinguishers, prohibiting by 1987 all group B and the future group S (which would eventually be projected with limitations) and created a new world championship dedicated to group A cars, built in at least 5000 copies, that is to say: it would run with cars similar to those of series and not with technologically spawned too evolved cars.

Some time later, in 1988, Ford tried to make as much profit as possible of the large outlay that the manufacture of the 200 RS required for its approval by the FIA had meant, which was done by Bob Howe, who even selected 12 dealers in England to sell them to individuals as extreme sports cars, as before BMW had liquidated its M 1 or the same Ford its GT 40.

Thus, since November 1986, 52 RS 200s had been purchased in 1987, and 48 had been sold in May 1988.

In those days when the RS 200 was for sale, the press of the engine proved it in its tourism version and its impressions were that it was a car with a meager cabin, without a trunk, whose engine was very noisy and vibrant , whose clutch lacked progressivity and whose gearbox had approximate syncs; its suspensions, of great displacement, were more comfortable than in the competition versions and the car manifested itself with a certain docility given the smoothness of its engine, combining with it an excellent stability, motor skills and balance in a curve, where its sub-turning trajectory was precise until the loss of adherence greatly complicated their driving.

The RS could offer powers from 250 to 600 hp, because at 300 hp it was passed thanks to modifications in turbo pressure (from 0.75 to 1 bar), thanks to a more direct exhaust and changes in the injection rate and electrical. The 450 hp came with a different camshaft, pistons and exhaust valves, and to achieve a supposed 600 hp it was necessary to admit then a lightening of 150 kg and the presence of a 2.1-liter block.

In summary, and in the words of its manufacturer written in a catalog intended for racing Ford, the Ford RS 200 was “a small pump designed by Ford to rival the Audi Quattro, 205 Turbo 16 and Lancia Delta s 4 on winding roads of the World Rally Championship. The 1985 victory at the British Lindisfame Rally greeted the start of a promising race, which would be brutally interrupted by the complete suppression of Group B after the accidents of the 1986 Tour de Corse

So this is how the RS200’s dark fate ends. An amazing car that will be remembered by car lovers like us.