This 1992 Ford Escort RS Cosworth was originally shipped to Jeremy Clarkson, it was featured in both Top Gear magazine and the TV series Clarkson’s Car Years before being given away as part of a competition, and it’s now being offered for sale out of England.
This car’s other claim to fame is that it is one of the three hand-built, pre-production prototypes. Each of the three cars was estimated to have cost £250,000 to build back in 1992, the equivalent to £535,410 today, or approximately $687,506 USD.
Fast Facts – The Ford Escort RS Cosworth
- This 1992 Ford Escort RS Cosworth is one of only three pre-production prototypes, each estimated to have cost £250,000 to build at the time (equivalent to about $687,506 USD today). As a hand-built prototype, it represents a unique piece of Ford’s engineering history and the early stages of the RS Cosworth’s development.
- Jeremy Clarkson, renowned automotive journalist and TV presenter, was assigned this car by Ford UK for a year. He drove it extensively during this period, developing deep affection for the vehicle. Clarkson later described it as “one of my all time favorite cars,” a significant endorsement given his vast experience with cars of all shapes and sizes.
- The car gained additional fame through its media appearances. It was featured in Top Gear magazine as a competition prize, offering one lucky reader the chance to own the vehicle along with a year of free insurance. Later, in 2000, Clarkson reunited with the car for his TV series “Clarkson’s Car Years,” driving it over Buttertubs Pass in North Yorkshire.
- Now offered for sale in England, this historic Escort RS Cosworth comes with a price guide of £65,000 – £75,000 (approximately $81,250 – $93,750 USD). This represents a rare opportunity for collectors to acquire a pre-production prototype with a celebrity connection and significant media history, making it a standout example even among other RS Cosworths.
History Speedrun: The Ford Escort RS Cosworth
The Ford Escort RS Cosworth was an homologation special developed to allow Ford to compete with their Group A version of the car in the World Rally Championship between 1993 and 1998. The Group A car would win eight races, and the later version would win two World Rally Championship events.
Above Video: This episode of “How I Designed…” with Frank Stephenson discusses his original design of the Ford Escort RS Cosworth. Amazingly this was his first design after graduating from college.
Interestingly, the Ford Escort RS Cosworth would be trialled as a safety car during the French and Formula One British Grands Prix in 1992. The concept would be a success, and from the 1993 F1 season onwards the safety car would be a permanent fixture, continuing right the way through to the current day.
The Escort wasn’t the first safety car, that honor goes to the Porsche 914 back at the 1973 Canadian Grand Prix, however it caused so much confusion that the idea was shelved until many years later.
The Ford Escort RS Cosworth is powered by a longitudinally-mounted Cosworth YBT inline-four with a Garrett T3/T04B Hybrid turbocharger, an air/water intercooler, and a water injection system.
Power output was rated at 224 bhp at 6,250 rpm and 224 lb ft of torque at 3,500 rpm, good enough for a top speed of 232 km/h (144 mph) and a 0-62 mph time of 5.7 seconds – all highly-respectable by the standards of the early 1990s.
The engine fed its power back through a 5-speed Ferguson MT-75 manual transmission to all four wheels with a 34/66% front/rear split. Some aftermarket tuning companies have increased the performance further, up to as much as 1,000 bhp.
This is the Cosworth YBT inline-four with a Garrett T3/T04B Hybrid turbocharger and its air/water intercooler. It also had a water-injection system, and it’s total output in street-tune was 224 bhp at 6,250 rpm and 224 lb ft of torque at 3,500 rpm.
7,145 examples of the Ford Escort RS Cosworth were produced and they’re now among the most highly-coveted British sports cars from the era, with values pushing upwards towards the low six figures and well-above many of the great vehicles of its time.
The 1992 Ford Escort RS Cosworth Shown Here
As noted further up, this 1992 Ford Escort RS Cosworth is one of the three pre-production examples. It was assigned to Jeremy Clarkson by Ford UK and he would keep it for a year, driving it regularly, and falling in love with it.
Clarkson would later describe it as “one of my all time favorite cars,” which is quite the accolade given how many of the world’s greatest cars he’s driven over the course of a career that spans from 1988 to the current day.
After a year of having the car in his garage, it would be offered as a competition prize in Top Gear magazine – the prize included free insurance for a 12 month period, which would likely otherwise have bankrupted the winner.
Above Video: This is the clip from the TV series “Clarkson’s Car Years” about this very Ford Escort RS Cosworth, as you can see, he’s a big fan of it.
Clarkson’s time with the car wasn’t quite over however, he would get his hands on it once again in the year 2000 while filming the TV series Clarkson’s Car Years, where he was filmed driving it over “Buttertubs Pass” in North Yorkshire.
The car is now being offered for sale out of England with a price guide of £65,000 – £75,000 or approximately $81,250 – $93,750 USD. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Iconic Auctioneers
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
