Group A Ford Sierra RS500

[PAUL S]

Originally Posted by Tim Wilkinson

Can you let us know how sure you are of it being the Donovan car, and why? I'm interested in the post-TDR path of the cars, and this would help. Thanks.

Confirmed to me by Oakfields before it was sold, and verified by the current owner on another forum .

Here is a link to the cars restoration thread

http://www.classic-ford.org/cfp/tm.aspx?m=44186

[KA]

Hi Paul- thanks for that.

Oakfields originally seemed to be advertising it as the ex-Tim Harvey/Mike O'Brien car, subsequently used in rallycross by Kenneth Hansen (where it was far more successful than it ever was as a touring car...). Their advert outlined the race history for that car, rather than Donovan's 'Blue Hawk' car...

http://www.oakfields.com/html/showro...0072&dlr=10001

Their website also currently lists a second Terry Drury Sierra, described as a 1988 car in white (same advert as the Brodie car that appears in the pics).

So had they originally just managed to get the histories of the two TDR cars crossed up in their ads, and it was actually the Donovan car that became Hansen's rallycross car?
Any idea of the identity of this second TDR car Oakfields are advertising, Pinkney's or the Harvey/O'Brien car?

http://www.oakfields.com/html/showro...0059&dlr=10001

Hansen at Lydden 1991/2


http://www.flickr.com/photos/7502634...in/photostream

[PAUL S]

My understanding is that initially they thought it was the Tim Harvey car but Ian did more investigation and then found it to have been the Donovan car instead. The adverts all relate to the same car, I dont believe they have any other race RS500s now apart from the white restored one, listed as ex Brodie.

Then again they are always unearthing them, so the chaps could have a few more stashed away. I am aware of about 6 or 7 for sale around the world.

[KA]

Originally Posted by PAUL S

My understanding is that initially they thought it was the Tim Harvey car but Ian did more investigation and then found it to have been the Donovan car instead. The adverts all relate to the same car, I dont believe they have any other race RS500s now apart from the white restored one, listed as ex Brodie.

Then again they are always unearthing them, so the chaps could have a few more stashed away. I am aware of about 6 or 7 for sale around the world.

Thanks Paul, that's what I suspected, but hoped you'd confirm it- especially as the ad for the Brodie car mentioned them having a TDR Sierra in stock as well- I'd been wondering if another of the three had turned up.
(IIRC Tim established a while back that Nigel Mustill's Thundersaloon was one of the TDR trio, but I don't think we know which one?)

Good to know that the Donovan car is being restored (although as a rallycross as well as touring car fan who saw that car race in both guises back then, I'm almost tempted to wish it was being restored as Hansen's car in BP green, which is how it was most successful- Probably not a lot of call for Group A rallycross cars in Australia though, compared to Group A tourers, and probably a fair difference in value!)

Anyway, we've now got pics of all three TDR cars in 1989

#17 O'Brien
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/07...rs/bob6001.jpg

#18 Donovan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard...57627283400681

#19 Pinkney
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard...57627283400681

[KA]

Some more RS500s from Dan Morgan on Flickr- this time 1989 Nurburgring 24 hours with the Eggenberger cars in a white/blue Ford Motorsport colourscheme- I know we've seen pics of Eggenberger cars in the famous black Texaco livery and the Bastos colours from Spa, but is it the first time we've seen them in this colourscheme in the thread?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendama...57627433803200
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendama...in/photostream

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by KA

Some more RS500s from Dan Morgan on Flickr- this time 1989 Nurburgring 24 hours with the Eggenberger cars in a white/blue Ford Motorsport colourscheme- I know we've seen pics of Eggenberger cars in the famous black Texaco livery and the Bastos colours from Spa, but is it the first time we've seen them in this colourscheme in the thread?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendama...57627433803200
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendama...in/photostream

Nice find!

Decent livery as well on the whole, were these the same cars that went to Spa later that year resprayed in Bastos colours, I wonder.

Also of note, isn't that the great lump of an AMG 5.0 Merc in amongst the M3's in the second image you've linked?

That must also be one of the 2 that entered Spa?

[PAUL S]

The 89 Spa winning Bastos RS500 was the Texaco one that crashed out in the 88 race and was then rebuilt for the 89 race, and is now for sale in Switzerland with a huge spares package, and the Texaco one that came second in 88 went to Japan for 89 and stayed there until it came back to the UK a few years back and is now in Aus.

I was told that egmo only apparently built about 7 cars but that does not make any sense as so many appeared in a variety of schemes over 88/89/90

[r2d2]

is there anyone who knows about eggenberger sierra`s chassis id is known?

[Spen Again]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

The second picture (Brands Hatch) also appears to show the damaged RS500 of Andy Middlehurst, behind, who was driving Mike Newman's Listerine car at this meeting (and Mr Ferrari ended up not finishing the race after a(nother?) contact with this car?)

Yep. Middlehust tipped him off at Clearways. 7:40 in on the 1990 vid. Middlehurst spun out later after Cleland passed him in the Cavalier.
http://youtu.be/U4elyNc4fO4
Thanks for the info on the BTCC Sierra's, very interesting stuff! Thanks for the link to the Castle Combe page as well, has reminded me who drove the Sierra with the blue & White stripes (Stuart Donnan) and I didn't imagine the Escat, it was real. I remeber it doing two laps of practice at the Doni Thundersaloons in '93 before making a big expensive crunchy sound accelerating out of the Old Hairpin and failing to appear again.
Anyway, back to Sierra's, was the Geoff Farmer/Rob Cox "Black Thunder" an ex-BTCC car? The Sean Walker Sierra was doing Thundersallon races in 1992 without many mods, i was always a programme addition! Link here to Black Thunder, Mustill and ex_Walker Sierra's in Thundersaloons at Mallory.
http://youtu.be/ghvG4u-St38

[KA]

Originally Posted by Spen Again

Anyway, back to Sierra's, was the Geoff Farmer/Rob Cox "Black Thunder" an ex-BTCC car? The Sean Walker Sierra was doing Thundersallon races in 1992 without many mods, i was always a programme addition! Link here to Black Thunder, Mustill and ex_Walker Sierra's in Thundersaloons at Mallory.
http://youtu.be/ghvG4u-St38

AFAIK 'Black Thunder' was always a purpose-built Thundersaloon- apparently it started life as the Terry Nicholls/Rod Birley Gartrac Sierra-Porsche in 1989
http://www.rodbirley.com/Sierra.htm

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by KA

AFAIK 'Black Thunder' was always a purpose-built Thundersaloon- apparently it started life as the Terry Nicholls/Rod Birley Gartrac Sierra-Porsche in 1989
http://www.rodbirley.com/Sierra.htm

Could that have in itself started out as the GAA engined Sierra Rod ran for a while a bit further back than that?

I think that wa sbased on an XR4 shell, and I'm sure I remember the Black Thunder also had the rear window split post for a time?

[KA]

Haven't got a clue- As you said, the GAA Sierra used an XR4 shell with the divided side window.
http://www.rodbirley.com/images/GAA%...ham%20Hill.JPG
From vague memory, did Andy Rouse have some involvement with it- IIRC he shared it with Rod occasionally in Thundersaloons, but I've got a vague memory that he'd had some involvement with either building or running it?

The other Sierra that comes to mind was Mike Quaife's 4x4 Cosworth BDT(?)-engined car. I won't swear to this, but I might have read in one of the various threads on Thundersaloons here and elsewhere, that the Quaife car used the shell from the ex-Birley GAA car.

[KA]

Another pic of Rod Birley's GAA Sierra Thundersaloon- note the Andy Rouse Engineering sticker on the front bumper..
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...stlecombe.jpg/

Just been looking back through a Thundersaloon thread on the Autosport Nostalgia forum, which suggests that the Birley Sierra became the Quaife 4x4 Sierra- and then went on to become a rallycross car with Warwick Barnes, so looks as if the Nicholls/Birley Sierra-Porsche and Rob Cox's 'Black Thunder' were a different chassis to the Birley GAA car

[KA]

Just been looking at some video clips on Youtube over breakfast (the joys of an early start to the day!) and found something interesting from the early days of the British GT championship- a 20 minute season review of the 1994 season.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgacRQioEy0

What's GT racing got to do with RS500s? One or two Thundersaloon Sierras appeared in some of the early British GT races, and so far I can spot three on the video, all ex-Group A cars:

• Brian Chatfield with what looks like the ex-Laurence Bristow Labatt's car, in the distinctive blue/yellow/red paintjob it had at one point after it got converted for Thundersaloons (right at the start of the video, then several times after that)
• Nigel Mustill's black ex-TDR car at Thruxton, most clearly seen at about 12m25)
• and the white car of Stuart Jackson (ex-Sean Walker/FAI Rouse car IIRC?) at Silverstone, visible several times from about 13m20

I was particularly interested to see Chatfield in the Bristow car- I'd seen a mention of him appearing in a Sierra in some of the early British GT races when I'd been looking at British GT pics on Racingsportscars.com, but no pics, so I had no idea which car it was- he raced a remarkable variety of different cars in the 80's/90's, and a lot of ex-BTCC machinery seems to have passed through his hands in Modsaloons, Thundersaloons and his occasional BTCC appearances.

[JAG]

Did RS500's run 17in rims in '89/'90, while I'm asking did DTM E30's and 190's run 18's?

[Jesper OH]

I'm fairly surtain that the 1989 DTM RS500s ran 17" rims, at a time when BMW tried 18" rims with indifferent results. With the 1989 Evo 1, Mercedes-Benz used 18" inches as would BMW with the 1990 Sport Evolution.

Jesper

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by JAG

Did RS500's run 17in rims in '89/'90, while I'm asking did DTM E30's and 190's run 18's?

Yes they did, suitable 18" tyres weren't available at that time.

[PAUL S]

A few teams did use a combination of 17" fronts and 18" rears and 18s all round in the later years. They actually started on 16".

The BBS centres remained the same for the 16/17/18" wheels, they just used different outer barrels to increase the diameter.

At 18" the magnesium centres struggled to cope with the increased loadings and cracked in the webs so BBS then stopped supplying the larger barrels.

[PAUL S]

came across some rare macau footage so thought I would post it up for everyone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgND9...layer_embedded#!

[KA]

That's a great find!

Haven't tried to identify all of the Sierras yet, apart from the obvious ones- I did notice this one though, the Gio Fan car which went head-on into the barriers at 5:22.

I think this is the ex-Guy Edwards Kaliber car which Rouse had driven at Macau the previous year, having sold it to Hong Kong hotelier and Macau regular Adrian Fu. According to what was posted earlier in the thread, Fu raced under the pseudonym 'Gio Fan'

http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....&postcount=328

[KA]

Another nice find- more Richard G. Hilsden pics (we saw some of Richard's BTCC pics a couple of pages back, featuring the 3 Drury cars)

I really like these- 1987 TT pit garage pics
Wolf Racing- Winkelhock/Allam
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard...in/photostream

Andy Rouse, Rouse/Tassin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard...in/photostream

Eggenberger crew at work
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard...in/photostream

Hopefully more to follow!

[Graham Clayton]

Footage of Klaus Ludwig setting the pole time for the 1987 Bathurst round of the WTCC:

http://youtu.be/7N3JeiWwYo4

And some great in-car footage of Andy Rouse in the ANZ-sponsored Sierra:

http://youtu.be/vfP2KNy_ERo

[KA]

Richard Hilsden's Flickr collection continues to come up with the goods! This is a car that's briefly come up in the thread before, but I think this is the first pic I've ever seen of the only time I ever saw it of it- the Dutch car of Evert Bolderheij/Allard Kalff at the 1987 TT

According to the 1987 Dutch championship results posted on Frank de Jong's site, the Bolderheij Sierra was built from Rouse parts , and debuted in the Dutch series in June 87. Looking at the pic, is it still in Cosworth, rather than RS500 spec? It certainly seems to lack the additional bootlid spoiler normally seen on RS500s
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard...in/photostream

We've talked about this car a while back, and Viva confirmed it was a Rouse car- however, a lot of discussion referred to it as the Marlboro car raced by Bolderheij and Jeroen Hin, rather than the plain white car in the TT pic.
http://www.bmwe21.net/temp/Hin.jpg

Now although Hin had a Group N Cosworth in 1987, his Group A mount in the Dutch series that year was a VL Commodore (the 'Playboy' car that was leased by Vic Covey/Andrew Jeffrey for the TT), so are the white Bolderheij car from the TT and Hin's Marlboro/Playboy car one and the same, or are we looking at two Dutch Group A Sierras?

[Richard G Hilsden]

Glad I am keeping you all interested. I think I got everyone of the cars listed on Frank de Jongs page(Except the Q racing Alfa) either in the pits or on the track, on race day.
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jong/Races/1987%20Silverstone.html

Most of the photos on show are of reasonable quality owing to the weather conditions on the day. They were taken on Fuji slide film.

[Spen Again]

KA & Chunterer - thanks for the excellent info on those Sierra, and the link for the British GT review, thanks guys!