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In 1982, Ford unveiled the Sierra to the world.
Motoring journalists of the time were quick to dismiss the 'jelly mould' Sierra as one of Ford's mistakes. Well, you can't please everyone! It turned out to be one of Ford's most successful and powerful racing cars they have ever built.
In 1985, Stuart Turner (then Ford's Public Affairs Director) was asked by Walter Hayes, to write a paper with suggestions on how to improve Ford's European racing affairs. As a result of writing this paper, he was asked to take over Ford's Motorsport operation...his only condition being that he have a clean slate to start Motorsport with.
The unique RS1700T was cancelled, along with the C100 sports car. Some other pipeline operations such as an Escort RS1600i Turbo, a racing Sierra and a Group B Rally car were also scrubbed.
Ford weren't doing too great on the motor racing front: the front wheel drive Escort RS1600i wasn't doing at all well in rallying, and Ford weren't even running any cars in any of the Touring Car championships...a bit dire for a company with such a great racing pedigree.
One sunny summer day, Stuart Turner, along with Ed Blanch and Ed Capolongo (Chairman and President, respectively) of Ford Europe paid a visit to Cosworth Engineering in Northampton, initally to see about getting a Formula 1 engine from Cosworth. On the way to the Formula 1 testbed, they spotted a Sierra engine with a different cylinder head attached - this was the YAA prototype, which after a little witchcraft became the YBB. They casually asked Keith Duckworth (one of Cosworth's co-founders, and where half of the Cosworth name comes from) what it was. He told them that it was a 16 valve, twin cam head that they would produce a few hundred of, as a performance part. Nothing more was said about it.
After the four had seen the Formula 1 engine, they went for a ploughmans lunch around the corner from Cosworth's head office. Stuart Turner threw (what turned out to be) a great idea into the conversation: he said that if Ford stuck Cosworth's 16 valve Pinto hybrid in a Sierra and turbocharged it, Rover wouldn't win another Touring Car race...
As with any project (or good idea for that matter), unless the people who are going to pay for it like the idea, you're gonna get nowhere. That ploughmans lunch got the those people interested in the project. The Sierra RS Cosworth still had to get through corporate red tape, but with the backing of the European Chairman and President, there wasn't much tape to cut.
For the Sierra Cosworth to race, Ford had to manufacture 5000 examples in 12 months. The Sierra was chosen because the Capri was dead, and the Granada was lardy. They couldn't use an imported model, like Andy Rouse's (very successful) American Merkur XR4Ti because a high-profile sport like Touring Cars would show Ford to be lazy if they didn't have a locally available model.
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Jim Clarke, a successful Touring Car driver had a role to play in the Sierra Cosworth's creation: In the board room at Ford, there was (and still may be) a picture of him on three wheels in a Lotus Cortina. Sam Toy, the then Chairman of Ford of Britain, looked at this picture and asked Stuart Turner if this venture with Cosworth would do for the Sierra what Lotus did for the Cortina so many years ago. "It will do exactly that." came the reply. From then on, the Sierra Cosworth had another important fan to help push it through the pipeline. |
Prototypes were built in 1985, and in 1986 the Sierra RS Cosworth was launched. Early motorsport efforts were distincly average, but failing head gaskets held the Cossie's progress back. But, once the mad scientists had worked out how to keep the head and block together, the 'jelly mould' showed the world (and Rover!) that Ford still knew how to make a car go fast!
In 1987, 500 of the 5545 Sierra RS Cosworths were fettled by Tickford to produce the RS500 (can you tell a Marketing Department named it?). As soon as the RS500 was homologated, all racing Sierras were upgraded to it's spec - this was the beginning of the end, really. The RS500 spec Sierras were wasting everything in the Touring Car races they attended - the only car that had a hope of beating one, was another one! The last Touring Car Race that an RS500 attended was in 1990.
Because the Cosworth's domination of Touring Car racing was so total, the governing bodies decided the only course of action was to penalise the Cossie, by insisting that their power be limited to give other manufacturers a chance (a serious case of sore losers, eh?). Since then, we've been lumbered with the two-litre 'Shopping Cart' formula, that still race today.
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The Cosworth Story 
