Innehållsförteckning för January 2024 från Fast Ford

To soothe the brows of the simmering purists, we should point out right from the off that we bloody love the Fiesta ST150. It’s a brilliant little car, so much fun to drive and with bags of potential, both mechanically and aesthetically. Indeed, it really feels like the Mk6’s time has arrived on the modding scene (and we’re planning a dedicated Mk6 Fiesta issue of the mag in the springtime) – and the core of the ST150’s appeal has always been its fabulously entertaining 2.0-litre Duratec motor. If you’re careful to keep an eye on the oil level – because they do like a drink – they can be pretty robust, and they’ve got a whole lot of heart. You don’t have to tell this to Fraser Skene. The owner…

'Ambition is critical.’ The phrase embedded in the pavement outside Swansea station, and made famous by the movie Twin Town, has an all-encompassing poignancy. Whatever you do in life, you have to have ambition to drive you forward, goals to achieve, things to aspire to, it’s what makes us human. Wasn’t it Descartes who was always saying ‘Reach for the stars! Climb every mountain higher…’ Wait, no, it was S Club 7. But still, the point stands. We need to dream. We don’t all get to realise our dreams, but Pete Bold serves as inspiration that such a thing is possible. Ever since he bought a Mk1 Escort 1300 as his first car, he’s dabbled with modifying and honing and optimising and refining… and if his teenage self back then…

See what’s been going on with our projects this month… This is an article I never wanted to write. Yes, I have been an idiot. And no, I didn’t listen to my own advice! Over the years owning and being around countless tuned cars, especially turbo ones, I have always preached how mapping is crucially important. The best engine in the world cannot sustain the heat and strains of running lean for any real length of time and it’s a massive false economy to even try to avoid the mapping stage. My car was live-mapped expertly years ago to run perfectly and create maximum power for its custom specced engine. After a few of years of use I cracked the head by using anti-lag on a water-cooled turbo while drifting…

FORDS IN MOTORSPORT Astunning season on track for NAPA Racing UK ended on the highest of highs after the team successfully wrapped up no fewer than three Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship titles on Finals Day at Brands Hatch. Ash Sutton became only the third driver in series history to secure the Drivers’ Championship for a fourth time, and the first driver to claim the title in both RWD and FWD machinery, while the Alliance Racing-run team ended BMW’s seven-year stint on top of the Manufacturers’ / Constructors’ standings. That marked the first time a Ford team had secured the title since 2000, with NAPA Racing UK also lifting the Teams’ Trophy for the second successive season. QUALIFYING Sutton went into the weekend with a 45-point lead over 2022…

EVENT REPORT SQUIRES END-OF-SEASON FORDMEET WHERE SQUIRES CAFÉ, SOUTH MILFORD WHEN SEPTEMBER 24TH With the exception of May and June, you’d probably noticed 2023 has produced far more rain than we’ve been accustomed to and consequently this has had a negative impact on outdoor events. Leading up to the well-established Squires End-ofSeason Fordmeet at South Milford near Leeds, as usual, the forecast didn’t look too inviting which resulted in a few glass-halfempty folk giving it a miss. Fortunately, many Ford enthusiasts stem from the glass-half-full establishment and by taking a punt that the forecast may be wrong, they made the right choice. Although down in numbers compared to previous recent meets, over 500 cars still made the trip and the bone dry show field thanks to improved drainage was jam-packed…

Lambo doors. They were everywhere on the show scene in the late-1990s and early2000s – and we’re telling you, they’re coming back. Their presence on this Mk2 Focus is all part of a fusion of retro styles and attitudes that takes the turn-of-the-millennium ethos and reframes it for the mid-2020s. If there was one cultural snapshot that influenced the tuning scene of the 2000s more than any other, it was The Fast and the Furious. That movie came out in 2001, and immediately captured the hearts of a modding generation. Yes, it was largely absurd in quite a lot of its details (who has time to check a laptop that’s flashing ‘DANGER TO MANIFOLD’ while they’re street-racing? Why would your passenger floor fall out just because you’re driving really fast?…

Throughout its ten-year production run, Ford were always keen to offer a performance-based flagship model of their big-selling Sierra. First out of the blocks came the three-door XR4i with its matte black bodykit, bi-plane rear wing and pepperpot alloys. Despite those purposeful, individual looks, the XR4i arrived to a lukewarm reception and achieved limited success as far as sales were concerned. Under the skin lurked an already familiar fuel-injected 2.8-litre V6, also available in the Capri and Granada, and we’re sure many XR4i owners would agree that the handling wasn’t overly inspiring either. Within a few years, the more discreet five-door XR4x4 with all-wheel-drive would take its place, and South African fans were offered the XR6 with its Essex 3.0-litre V6 powerplant. Of course, the 2.0-litre turbocharged 16v YB Cosworth…

FAST FLEET DALE MASTERMAN RANGER KING CAB It’s often said that ‘wheels maketh the car’ and, well, that’s just as true for trucks. However, there’s an additional dimension to consider here, because trucks are quite big aren’t they? And since we’re going for a full-on show truck look here, we definitely want to strike a pleasing balance of lows and wheels that don’t look too small on a pickup. Now that the body and pickup bed are sitting sweet on the chassis, it’s time to size up the wheels, and I’ve been down at The Install Company with Phil trying out a few different dimension combinations. We’ve been playing around with various 18” and 19” wheels to see which would suit the stance, the style and the truck overall best. It’s…

Apeak power figure of 240bhp is not to be sniffed at when it comes to torque-rich usable thrust – and hey, that’s just the Transit. Colin and Serena Stone’s track Focus packs a full-fat 350bhp, and it’s been built solely for circuit thrills. Although interestingly, in its first guise, this Mk2 was actually intended to be a rally car… well, sort of. “We chose the Mk2 Focus as a track car as they are easy to modify, and I just love the sound of the five-pot motor up front, after owning a couple of Mk2 FRSs,” says Colin. “I stumbled across this car as a friend of ours was selling it pretty much ready to go; we later found out that another pal of ours up in Scotland had built…

DRIVEN – RS200 You join us at 1,000rpm. The BDT sits at a buzzy idle, twitching up to 1,500rpm as lungfuls of chilled Dagenham air massage the unit into perky alertness, ushering in a ready-for-action attitude tinged with a metallic edge of malice. 2,000rpm. Your right leg is at full stretch as you try – and fail – to smoothly feed in the revs with the stiffly-sprung accelerator; your feet seem clownishly oversized in the tiddly footwell as you try not to engage all three pedals at once. Letting out the clutch is an exercise in measured input that, frankly, you won’t get on the first go. You kangaroo away like a learner in a dual-control Corsa. But this is where the tricksy racer-for-the-road complexity ebbs away, leaving you to…

WHAT'S NEW BLACKPOOL FORD DAY Held in mid-September on Blackpool’s northern promenade and now in its 22nd year, the annual Ford Day attracted a wide variety of Blue Ovals from the ’60s and ’70s, through the ’80s and ’90s right up to modern-era models. Clubs and groups were well represented, including the Derbyshire RSOC, Northern XROC and Oval Owners, along with a huge number of individual Ford owners from many areas of the country – proving once again that the show has massively grown in popularity. The seafront provides an attractive and unique setting, and with the weather helping to increase numbers there was general agreement that it was one of the best shows yet, and that many attendees would be returning for next year’s event. Huge thanks must go…

WHAT'S NEW It’s a scale issue, really. European roads have to be smaller by necessity, because we’ve got all this history lying about the place. Tight lanes wind through quaint little villages, parking spaces are squeezed together as a hangover from an age when people daily-drove classic Minis, and country roads are hemmed in by historic hedgerows. By contrast, the infrastructure of the United States was built around cars; they have vast, sprawling expanses of tarmac, read to amply accommodate the girthiest of vehicles and, combined with historically cheaper fuel prices, they’ve built up a culture around bigger-is-better. The pickup truck is also a linchpin of American culture, and has been for generations – it’s not just a utilitarian runabout, it’s a lifestyle. For all of these reasons and more,…

EVENT REPORT SEMA 2023 WHERE LAS VEGAS CONVENTION CENTRE WHEN OCTOBER 31ST – NOVEMBER 3RD American car culture is in a state of flux. This is plainly evident when you walk down the street – it seems that the two most common new cars on the road are the Dodge Charger and the Tesla Model 3, highlighting the polarised approach to modern motoring: brawny V8s on one hand, whisper-quiet EVs on the other. Eye-watering pace ties the two together, and it’s the fusion of all these ingredients that we found at this year’s SEMA. Held annually since 1967, the SEMA show is a colossal extravaganza of tuning and modified car culture. The sprawling halls of the Las Vegas convention centre are stuffed to bursting with astonishing builds, and all angles…

Picture yourself being a 23-year-old car enthusiast living in Wales, the endless possibilities of idyllic B-roads, twisty lanes and former tarmac rally stages situated in what could be considered the prettiest part of the world. Naturally your go-to car is something agile and fun that can encapsulate an automotive paradise worthy of a Forza Horizon instalment. To Josh Morris, the car to suit this calling would be a Mk8 Fiesta ST. The path to driving the car was one us Ford enthusiasts can relate to, sat down after work browsing the internet with our dinner getting colder by the second. The algorithm in all its wisdom shows us something that we instantaneously become infatuated with. For Josh, this was the latest iteration of the hot hatchback staple that is the…

FAST FLEET GRANT BUTLER FORD COLLECTION It’s been a relatively slow month with the cars this month. The ‘Monster RS’ is about 80% complete and I don’t want to spoil that big TA-DAAA moment when I show you all the new colour. I’ve been up to my elbows in wiring though, on the BriVan project; every wire is out of the donor van from the front end and the dash and has been implanted into Brian’s van. There are still some gremlins which I think are hidden in a faulty alternator and a sticky starter, so it looks like I’ll have to strip them from the donor van too, as I know they work spot-on. Hopefully by the next issue I’ll be able to show you the van with a fresh…

FORDS IN MOTORSPORT Despite their successes in Portugal and at Brands Hatch, Academy Motorsport entered the final round of the British GT Championship as mathematical contenders who were going to have to run a perfect race. This was also to be the last race for the outgoing S550-based GT4 Mustang. Despite scoring many wins and fastest laps since 2019, the overall championship had eluded Multimatic and Academy. However, this final race delivered a pleasing symmetry for those who remember Seb Priaulx and Scott Maxwell’s win at Oulton Park back in 2019, at the GT4 Mustang’s very first British race appearance. In qualifying, conditions had been mixed and resulted in a jumbled order for the GT3 cars. Things were different for the GT4 runners, with the track only getting faster with…

THE FORD VAULT WORLD RALLY TRANSIT Back at the turn of the millennium, Ford had a new Transit to promote – and what better way to do so than by turning one into a rally weapon? This was way more than a set of rims and a fancy wrap too. Based on a high-roof 138” turbo-diesel Tranny, the 2.4-litre Duratorq motor was tweaked to an impressive 165bhp, with a claimed 130mph top speed. So it was quick enough to keep up with a Mondeo ST200 all the way to the end-stop on the speedo – and the van was fully road-legal too. Those special wheels were custom made by OZ Racing – pukka rally rims in 8×18”. And the cabin was a full-on assault of sporty focus; indeed, the instruments…