Look what's on e bay!

[rx-guru]

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a…

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...MEWA:IT&ih=014

[Peter Mallett]

OK,

First, this is not going to turn into a bid on my e bay item thread, because if it does, its canned.

Second if you are going to post a link to e bay at least add something to the discussion.

This thread will be watched very closely.

[bigdick1977]

Firstly, I don't think rx-guru has one of these (unless it's a toy/model), and secondly it doesn't really need anything added to it in my opinion!
Well spotted rx-guru.

[Peter Mallett]

Fine,

I didn't think anything else.

However I've made the rules so post "please bid on my car etc." at your own risk.

[rx-guru]

My comment with the link was "Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a…" – and not "Oh Lord, won’t you sell me a…".

[Peter Mallett]

Y'know, I spotted that!

But as far as a discussion goes its not much of a conversation is it? Who does that one belong to?

[rx-guru]

I have no idea. I just found one of the 140+ still existing RS200s, for sale now. And for any RX enthusiast a RS200 is something special, that is the entire story behind my post. If you have any problems with that – delete the whole thread.

[crmalcolm]

Cracking spot. That is one fine car.

[Peter Mallett]

Yep, and not just to rallycross fans either. It was a great shame that bad timing got in the way. Ford had the C100 Grp C protoype and the RS200 going at around the same time.

[Guffy]

Any pics of the C100 Gp C Peter....? My mind is a complete blank over that Prototype....!! I remember 1700T, it might the same thing just a different name.

[banger_racer]

Heres a pic of a Zakspeed Ford C100 Guffy

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ford_C100.jpg
And another Ford C100
http://www.sportcraftcars.com/Bizarre/bz340_im.jpg

And heres a link for the Rs200 fans/owners.
http://www.rs200.org/
This site might have info on that cars history.

[rx-guru]

Originally Posted by Guffy

Any pics of the C100 Gp C Peter....? My mind is a complete blank over that Prototype....!! I remember 1700T, it might the same thing just a different name.

No, the Ford Escort RS1700T was the RWD Group B prototype, developed for about two years, but eventually aborted and replaced by the Ford RS200. Strange enough, Ford Motorsport was the first factory team who was offered the Xtrac system by Martin Schanche and Mike Endean, but the Boreham people did not want to cooperate with a lunatic from Norway and his English handicrafter for their Group B project and kept on believing that RWD was the way to go for rallying. However, Opel (with its Opel Kadett 4x4 project for Group S) was more far-sighted than Ford and within a few years that ex-Hewland gofer Endean and his company Xtrac became the transmission big-shot of the WRC as well as in Formula One.

[rx-guru]

See pics of the RS1700T here:

http://www.groupbrally.com/ford.shtml

[Chessmsport]

Will buy some lottery tickets tomorrow

[rx-guru]

To make some things easier to understand, this is a copy of the information I’ve posted in another forum on June 12:

»In 1983 Norwegian Martin "Mister Rallycross" Schanche wanted a 4WD Ford Escort Mk3 to become European Rallycross Champion again, after claiming the title already in 1978, 1979 and 1981. From 1982 the sport of Rallycross was re-opened (!) for four-wheel drive cars and Austrian Franz Wurz (father of Alexander Wurz) claimed the 1982 title with an ex-Mikkola factory Audi quattro while the 1983 title went to Swede Olle Arnesson with a "homebrew" Audi quattro. In the by then for Hewland working British engineer Mike Endean that man Schanche found somebody capable to realise his own idea, a 4WD that could be changed by hand while competing from 28:72 (front:rear) drive stepless to 50:50 by a hydraulic system. The resulting 4WD was called Xtrac (not X-Trac nor X-trac as often seen) system. The car was ready for the British Rallycross Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in December 1983, where Martin used it with an 1860cc 560bhp Zakspeed turbo engine. Mike Endean was there as well as Erich Zakowski (Mister Zakspeed) and Peter Ashcroft of Ford to witness the Norwegian. In 1984 Schanche won "his" title back and all other cars were looking like wheelbarrows against the XR3 that we used to call "Thor’s Hammer". (The Swedish mag 'Teknikens Värld' conducted a car test in 1984 to find out that the XR3 did the 0 to 100km/h [or 0 to about 61mph] sprint in 2.5 seconds.) BTW, that first Xtrac XR3 was later used for Rallycross by the Britons John Smith and Barry Squibb and is nowadays owned by Mike Endean himself. It is rebuilt to Brands Hatch 1983 specs and was used by Endean, who lives as pensioner on one of the Channel Islands, for many a year in hill-climbs.

Schanche and Endean in 1984 were trying to sell their brainchild to Ford (working on the stillborn Escort RS1700T RWD by then) or other manufacturers. While being at the Zakspeed workshops one day Schanche was visited by Rauno Aaltonen who did a test drive with the Xtrac Escort on a car park. Aaltonen was very impressed and told Opel about Schanche’s beast. Opel’s Karl-Heinz Goldstein encouraged Endean soon to work for the German factory team, while Schanche found himself somewhat out-booted. However, Endean left Hewland to set up his own company Xtrac and started to work with Opel on their Group S project, the Opel Kadett 4x4 (not a Group B car and not a Vauxhall Astra 4S or whatever). When the car was ready the drivetrain was the same as in the Schanche XR3 and when it was presented to the press the bonnet was safely locked. Why? Because there was a FORD engine underneath it, a 1860cc Zakspeed turbo mill, and it was all but in the interest of the Opel factory team that the World or even their own GM bosses should know anything about that fact.

However, when the Group S was aborted by the FIA Opel had two 4x4 Kadetts ready, equipped them with normally aspirated 2.4 litre Opel engines of the Ascona 400 and used them for Paris–Dakar, where they went into utter chaos, as Opel was not able to carry enough shock absorbers to Africa to replace the broken ones. Both these cars later went to Endean’s buddy-buddy Briton John Welch who used them in the British and European Rallycross Championships. One of these cars was later bought by Swede Tommy Kristoffersson, as an Xtrac system donor for his own Rallycross Audi Coupé S2. If the other one is now property of Vauxhall in the UK – I do not know.«

[Peter Mallett]

Good stuff.

Being a Blue Oval fan I always thought they kind of lost their way around that time. There were too many changes to international sporting regs so Ford (and others) became a bit hesitant. This was their downfall IMO and its a great shame. Certainly Rallycross opened an avenuie that Ford might have exploited with its RS200 but I think they were looking at touring cars at the time.

The loss of the C100 was a big blow because I felt with a little development that would have taken it to Porsche and Jaguar.

[Guffy]

Thanks guys for the pics of the C100, ugly looking thing wasn't it...?

[chunder]

I ahve sen the otehr car actually

UNless it was a mock up of course.

It was in Cardiff at teh finish podium for the Network Q a few years ago. But it may have been a wide arch moco up

Is the RS200 anything to do with the guy that was running the really winged RS on hillclimbs in Berg a few years back. Think his name was Dieter something?

Car looks to have some trick stuff on it, I remember Page (East coast racing) was a popular tuner for them back then, along with Minty.

[rx-guru]

@ chunder: With "the other car" do you mean the second ex-Welch 4WD Kadett/Astra?

I guess you mean the German racing tyres dealer (AVON etc.) Dieter Knüttel who used to race a Ford RS200 in German and European hillclimbs for quite some time. But AFAIR his car looked rather normal, without big wings. Don’t know what happened with his RS200, I’m sorry.

The only (lousy) pic of Knüttel’s RS200 I found in the web: http://www.berg-meisterschaft.de/dbmehre00.jpg

[Peter Mallett]

A lot of this info would go well in the History forum. There's all sorts of discussion concerning various cars including Group A etc. Why not post some of this in there?

[Graz]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Good stuff.

Being a Blue Oval fan I always thought they kind of lost their way around that time. There were too many changes to international sporting regs so Ford (and others) became a bit hesitant. This was their downfall IMO and its a great shame. Certainly Rallycross opened an avenuie that Ford might have exploited with its RS200 but I think they were looking at touring cars at the time.

The loss of the C100 was a big blow because I felt with a little development that would have taken it to Porsche and Jaguar.

Martin Birrane has a C100 in his Mondello Park Museum. I don't know much about the car but would it have been a match for the Porsches? I seem to recall reading that it only had a DFV or one of it's variants and may have lacked a bit of oomph compared to the turbo Porsches.

Have to say, I adore the RS200.

[banger_racer]

Could you move it and perhaps change its name to Rs200 history or whatever you feel it should be, as there must be plenty of interesting history with these cars.

[rx-guru]

Martin Birrane did Group C racing himself. I met him at Le Mans in 1986 where he made part of the Team Martin Schanche (N), Torgjer Kleppe (N) and Martin Birrane (IRL). But Schanche’s own Argo-Zakspeed JM19 (Group C2) retired under starter Birrane already during the first lap…

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by rx-guru

The only (lousy) pic of Knüttel’s RS200 I found in the web: http://www.berg-meisterschaft.de/dbmehre00.jpg

I have a magazine (CCC I think?) that has an article about Knuttels RS200 somewhere - I'll see if I can find it and get more details about the car from there. I'm sure that article has another RS200 as well - could be the Mach2 Pikes Peak car (got quite a few magazines with that in).

[Peter Mallett]

OK,

I'm not going to move it because its about rallycross, but I'm going to start a thread in Historic and I'd ask people top go there and discuss these cars, because they certainly deserve it. You may not realise but we have a chassis archive where any significant competition cars are being traced and logged. this one seems to fall into that category.