Innehållsförteckning för July 2023 från Fast Ford

SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE! The Fiesta has an incredible legacy. Launched in 1976, it offered a de rigueur combination of frugality, practicality, intelligent engineering and crisp drawn-with-a-set-square design. Ford’s new baby slotted into the contemporary market perfectly, and its runaway success across the decades was attributable to its ability to evolve to cater for people’s transportation desires. There was always a cheap and affordable base model, and there were always posher spec levels for keeping up with the Joneses. The arrival of the Supersport in 1980, testing the market for the XR2, harnessed a global enthusiasm for the burgeoning hot hatch sector, and this remained a crucial string to the Fiesta’s bow (with, er, a slight dip in enthusiasm through the late-nineties, admittedly) right up to the present day. And this…

After providing the lion’s share of Mustangs at the Ford Mustang Birthday meeting at The British Motor Museum in April, Simply Mustangs UK are setting their sights on their headline meeting of 2023: the European Mustang Nationals at Santa Pod on 13th-14th July. The event brings together enthusiasts from across the UK and Europe – to meet, chat, and compete on the Santa Pod Raceway, as well as get ideas for modifications and purchase items from the many trade stands. The Nationals attract Ford Mustangs of all ages and types, from early classics to the new Mach-E. This is the largest single Mustang event of the year and provides the ability to try out your car on the famous dragstrip, and even compete for the multiple trophies available. With various…

ORGANISING A SHOW OR EVENT AND WANT IT LISTED HERE? Email us with the details – fastford.ed@kelsey. co.uk JUNE 17-18 JUNE Players Classic Goodwood Motor Circuit, West Sussex www.players-show.com/players-classic 18 JUNE Retro Show Santa Pod Raceway, Northants santapod.co.uk/retro-show.php 24 JUNE RS Combe Castle Combe, Wiltshire www.rscombe.com JULY 13-16 JULY Goodwood Festival of Speed Goodwood Motor Circuit, West Sussex www.goodwood.com/motorsport/ festival-of-speed 16 JULY The Ford Show Santa Pod Raceway, Northants santapod.co.uk/the-ford-show.php 21-23 JULY Modified Nationals Lincolnshire Showground www.modifiednationals.co.uk AUGUST 4-6 AUGUST Ultimate Street Car Santa Pod Raceway, Northants ultimatestreetcar.co.uk 13 AUGUST Ford Fair 2023 Silverstone Circuit, Northants events.fastcar.co.uk/ford-fair 19 AUGUST RSOC National Day Donington Park, Derby www.rsownersclub.co.uk/rsoc-nationalday 25-27 AUGUST The Classic Silverstone Circuit, Northants www.silverstone.co.uk/events/the-classic 25-27 AUGUST Car Fest Laverstoke Park Farm, Hants carfest.org 26-27 AUGUST Gravity NEC, Birmingham gravityshow.co.uk SEPTEMBER…

“It all started with wanting a bit more horsepower.” Yep, heard that one before. The path leading up to this Fiesta’s current 355bhp guise has been one of tricky but rewarding stepping stones, all with the aim of creating something that’s as capable of delivering breath-taking performance as it is of scooping silverware on the showground. Now, you may remember seeing this RS Turbo featured in our February 2018 issue. You may question why it’s being featured again, and given the coveted cover slot too. But the transformation since that late-2017 shoot has been so in-depth, so seismic, so disruptive, that the car’s morphed into a whole other entity. This is, quite simply, one of the very best Fiestas in the UK today, and Adam Pope’s devotion to its evolution…

Springtime and show season is just around the corner; with the Fiesta ST being prepped last month I made a decision that with the current state of our roads and the mileage I cover, the Fiesta wasn’t the ideal daily. So, on the lookout for something practical, comfortable and still stylish, what did I end up with after trawling the Auto Trader app? As it turns out, a Puma. The car was an accidental purchase – it turned up at Barretts Honda, a dealership I cover work for, as a part-exchange. In Desert Island Blue Metallic and ST-Line spec it looked smart, and with only 11,000 miles on the clock it was too good to turn down. This isn’t really a fast Ford, but it does get me to jobs in…

The perfect weekend for Ash Sutton saw him get his BTCC campaign back on track at Brands Hatch in May, after gaining three consecutive podiums in his NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus ST. Sutton leaves Brands Hatch having achieved his biggest points haul ever in his career with two wins, a second place and three fastest laps. After his success at Donington Park, Dan Cammish returned to form as he produced one of the best laps of his career storming to pole position in the final seconds of qualifying. Treacherous conditions on Saturday saw a very wet and slippery track for the first part of quali creating plenty of drama and several red flag stoppages. With the chequered flag in sight the 10 fastest drivers got through to the second…

Motorsport, by its very nature, is a rough-and-tumble sort of affair – ahot, smoky, greasy playground necessarily studded with sizzling fluids, bits of grit, and spatters of blood from scraped knuckles. It’s just the nature of the beast. So as a rule of thumb, you can assume that competition-oriented cars will take function over form; sure, it’s in their interest to be reasonably presentable in order for the sponsors’ livery to be seen by the paying public in the best light, and top-flight builds will have been honed in obsessively clean workshops by eggheads in white coats, but when it comes to rubbing shoulders with your fiercest rivals out there on the tarmac or through the forests… hey, it’s every person for themselves, and if you need to gaffer tape…

One of the more engaging elements of the Ford scene is that everyone’s working from a blank canvas. Sure, there’s only a finite number of different models, variants and trim levels that rolled off the production lines over the decades, but that does nothing to quell diversity in the scene today. For any Ford you care to name, you can never be entirely sure what to expect until you see the car in the metal – and when, for example, someone says that they’ve engine-swapped a Mk2 Fiesta, you shouldn’t immediately assume they’ve dropped a turbo CVH or an ST170 in there. Just ask Stefan Matthews. He wanted to engine-swap this 1.1 L from the outset, and there was no way he’d be using a Zetec – it had to…

Atacellular level, humans are paranoid and self-destructive creatures. You may remember the phrase ‘programmed cell death’ from your high-school biology lessons – the basic principle is this: when your cells are no longer deemed necessary they quietly disassemble themselves, but what’s most interesting is that every individual cell in your body is ready to destroy itself at a moment’s notice unless it receives constant instructions from other cells to stay alive. This, essentially, acts as a pointed metaphor for the modern car modifying scene. There’s a significant number of people out there who build cars solely to impress other people. These are the folks you see sat immobile inside their cars at shows, rather than getting out to see what else is going on and shoot the breeze with a…

Steeda has unveiled its first fully EU homologated V8 Mustangs. The Q767 Mach 1, derived from the Mach 1 V8 Mustang, and the Q500 Enforcer, based on the hardtop GT, take the Ford package to new heights of handling and performance. Developed on Steeda’s test track in Georgia, the Q767 takes Ford’s Magneride shock system and adds cuttingedge Dual Rate springs; these suspension fundamentals are backed up by thicker front and rear adjustable anti-roll bars with solid billet ends and mounts, a strut tower brace and lower front brace stiffen up the chassis for added front end grip, stability and feel, while Steeda’s IRS upgraded bushes and braces tie together the rear. The result is a lowered stance (19mm) designed to offer the comfort of the factory car with improved…

BARRACUDA RACING WHEELS ULTRALIGHT PROJECT 2.0 WHEELS £POA The team at Barracuda Racing Wheels have developed a wheel design in a custom finish for the S550 Mustang GT. Part of their Ultralight Series, these Project 2.0 wheels are available in 9x21” (front) and 10.5x21” (rear) sizes, and thanks to the weight-saving flow-form production technique, they only weigh around 12kg apiece. The colour is a bit special too, the Flash Gold laid over the base of Hi-gloss Brushed Black to create a unique finish. Further info can be found on the website: www.barracuda-europe.de/en/ TAKONA HOODIE £54.99 Takona is a company whose ethos we’re very much on board with. Taglined ‘Driving Mental Health Awareness’, this is a small brand with a big goal – to bridge the gap between talking about cars…

The MK4 Fiesta has, for a lot of Ford fans, always sat in a bit of a weird hinterland. This model, along with its New Edge facelift that we generally know as the Mk5, was in danger of becoming a footnote in Fast Ford history, owing to the fact that there was never really a sporty one from the factory. Whereas the Mk1 had the SuperSport followed by the XR2, the Mk2 built on the XR2 concept, and the Mk3 brought us the XR2i, the RS Turbo and the RS1800, the spiciest Mk4/5 we ever got was the Zetec-S. The fortunes of this generation of Fiesta, however, are shifting. It’s long been established that swapping in the Yamaha-developed 1.7-litre engine from the Puma is the way to create the hot…

We have been extremely busy and achieved an awful lot with Project 2000 in a short space of time. The car has been stripped by Kev at MRM Speedshop, and I cannot speak more highly of his work and attention to detail, the man really is a genius and what he doesn’t know about Mk6 Escorts and the F2 Maxi probably isn’t worth knowing. The car was stripped to a shell with the removal of the interior and not-so Mountune engine – this will be rebuilt to a higher standard using modern technology and Kev’s vast experience. The main focus now has been on the bodywork, and finer details of bringing this legend back to its former glory - starting with the front bumper. Gone is the awful period fibreglass…

QUICK SPEC Focus ST-3 ■ Direnza MVT intercooler and hard pipes ■ Gravity sports cat and exhaust ■ Peron/AET Motorsport stage one remap ■ Steeda cold air inlet system ■ Turbosmart dump valve ■ Steeda short-shifter ■ H&R 25mm lowering springs ■ H&R 20mm wheel spacers ■ Powerflex Handling Pack■ Focus RS Brembo callipers ■ EBC Bluestuff front/Yellowstuff rear pads ■ EBCbraided brake lines ■ ST Mk4 19in alloys ■ Direnza Vortex scoop Rust was a well-known failing of Ford cars throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Nicknames like Dagenham Dustbin still linger today, despite it being two decades years since any cars were built at the plant. You’d’ve thought Ford would have learned. But no. Here we are in 2023, with recurring corrosion problems – to the…

Strategy is an important element of the ‘500’ and this year’s race was no exception. Some fell off the track, others fell foul of penalties, but in the end just keeping things clean turned out to be the best strategy of all. There were simultaneous red flags during Saturday’s qualifying, both for the BTCC cars at Brands Hatch and the BGTs at Silverstone. Eventually heavy rain washed out qualifying for the GT Championship’s flagship event. The starting grid order had to be derived using the times from the early afternoon practice session results, specifically the combination of each driver’s fastest lap. So variable were conditions during that period, the result turned out to depend on the conditions precisely when any particular driver attacked for his fastest lap. Academy Motorsport Team…

On a sunny spring morning, the doors of Hyper-Tune were open to the West Sussex Group of the RS Owners Club. Owner Shane had been in talks with Colin and Serena who have run the club for a few years now about an exclusive event for the group. The cars that turned up were from the mid-seventies right through to the present day; these included Mk1 Escorts, Mk1 Focus RSs, an Escort estate (Daniel Lateu’s feature car in Fast Ford a few months back), Transit MS-RTs, and of course a large selection of the latter Focus RS models in all different shades of colours. It was also the first time that Colin and Serena’s Mk2 and Mk3 Focus RSs were shown to the group. Hyper-Tune are based in Petworth, West…

Scramblers, the official membership club of Bicester Heritage, marked the start of the race season with a sold-out competition-themed gathering featuring hundreds of cars despite the inclement weather. The Motorsport Assembly brought together genuine World Rally Championship cars, brilliant homages, plus homologation specials and race-inspired road cars with a capacity attendance. All sorts of motorsportthemed cars lined the damp Bicester Heritage avenues, from modern supercars to club race and rally cars. These events are growing in popularity, and generally sell out in advance – keep an eye on scramblers. bicesterheritage.co.uk/shop for information on future events; tickets cost £5 per person, with free passes for Merlin and Pegasus members.…

Most kids pick their noses and like to play with their bogies, that’s a simple fact, but most grow out of that phase. Reed Onli, however, has clearly not grown out of it, though the green thing he’s playing with these days is his delightfully named ‘Snotrocket’ Mk6 Fiesta Zetec-S Celebration Edition. And while it might have mucusy connotations, it’s certainly no snotter… “I’ve been modifying cars for almost three decades, starting with a Ford Fiesta XR2 back in 1995,” Reed tells us, so it’s not that surprising to see him in another Fiesta, and his love of boost goes back a fair way too. “Since 2005, I’ve had a big interest in turbocharging and engine calibration work, and have experience with a variety of OEM and standalone engine control…

We all love a rags-to-riches story when it comes to cars, but rarely do they come with as much success and glory as the tale of this humble little Fiesta. Having started life as base-spec model, it was never destined for much greatness and was certainly unlikely to ever become a drag car world record holder, but that’s exactly what it is. Thanks to a 536bhp ST180 engine and some choice modifications, ingenious owner Connor Devine has built the quickest Mk7 Fiesta over the quarter-mile ever created. It helps that Connor happens to own and run Devine Autotech in Scotland, which has become a force within the Fiesta tuning scene in recent times. Although he already had a dedicated track car when this Mk7 came along in a very sorry…

12 months on from the fire that engulfed Dan Cammish’s 2022 title hopes, tables have well and truly turned as he produced a race winning double at the opening rounds of the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship in late-April. Making his debut for NAPA Racing UK, Dan Rowbottom sailed to pole position in qualifying. All drivers took part in the normal 30-minute qualifying session before the 10 fastest competitors took part in the new tenminute pole position shootout. Rowbottom put in a stellar lap to go P1, while Sutton’s initial lap time was removed for track limits, plunging him down the order. With a few minutes left of qualifying, Sutton had it all to do and after setting a purple sector, he eventually qualified in P2, making it a…

Building on a successful 2022 season, Modified Fords 2023 got underway at the Silverstone GP circuit in March. Having been one of the latest success stories in the BRSCC portfolio, pre-race excitement had led to an entry list of 47 Fords of various models and ages. With the front-running Escort Cosworth of Dave Cockell absent from the entry list, only time would tell who would come out on top… Simon Light put his spectacular V8 Capri on pole for race 1, alongside the Sierra Cosworth RS500 of Stephen Scott-Dunwoodie. With a rolling start, it was the Sierra that took an early lead with Kester Cook’s EcoBoost Fiesta ST150 coming through to second place having started in fourth. The sublime Mk2 Cortina of Josh Payton dropped a place as the race…

The Mk1 Focus was a bit of a turning point for Ford; before its arrival in 1998, Blue Oval hatchbacks were something of a handful when the road got twisty. Yes, they were fast. And yes, they could be exciting. But when the control blade-equipped Focus arrived, it showed Ford fans what they had been missing. Previous fast Fords – even including the mighty Cosworth range – had always been a bit antiquated when it came to chassis design and suspension setup. And the Mk1 Focus put that right. It was the genesis of the playful handling traits that have characterised fast Fords since – the Fiesta STs,Focus ST, and Focus RS generations all built on the success of the Mk1 Focus platform. The only thing was the original versions…

24 .7 CONCEPT In January 2000 we were all breathing a sigh of relief that the Millennium Bug hadn’t actually caused all the world’s computers to crash and the planes to fall from the sky. And in Ford’s ever-fertile design hub, there was no time to dilly-dally or rest on any laurels; they were right onto the next big thing and, somewhat improbably, they managed to predict the existence of apps a full seven years before smartphones arrived. The vessel for that impressive prediction was the car you see here, the radical 24.7 concept. There was an interesting and ambitious aim underpinning this car, and that was to help its owners to manage their time more effectively – something which perhaps sounded a little peculiar at the time, but makes…