Between the legendary Mk2 Escort RS1800 and the iconic Ford RS200, there is a ghost: the Ford Escort RS1700T. Eighteen prototypes were built. Most were ordered destroyed. Around six are believed to survive. It is arguably the most important Ford rally car nobody knows — and the machine that directly gave birth to the RS200.
The Problem Ford Had to Solve
When the Mk3 Escort launched in 1980 as a front-wheel-drive family hatchback, Ford’s Boreham motorsport operation faced a dilemma. The new Group B regulations offered almost unlimited scope for silhouette cars — vehicles wearing a recognisable bodyshell over an entirely bespoke competition platform. Ford needed a successor to the RS1800 that had won the 1979 World Rally Championship with Björn Waldegård.
The solution, codenamed Project Columbia, was audacious. Engineers rotated the Mk3 Escort’s transverse engine 90 degrees to a longitudinal position, fitted a Hewland transaxle via torque tube for ideal weight distribution, added fully independent MacPherson strut suspension front and rear, and widened the shell by 100mm with aggressive flared arches. John Wheeler — who had previously worked on the Porsche 924 and 928 — was central to the engineering. The result looked like an Escort. Beneath the skin it was entirely different.
The Cosworth BDT Engine
Two powerplant options were tested: a 1,778cc turbocharged Cosworth BDT — a developed version of the legendary BDA — and a 2,300cc naturally aspirated Hart 420R derived from Formula 2. Group B regulations applied a 1.4 multiplier to turbocharged displacement, so Cosworth capped the BDT at 1,778cc to remain within the 2,500cc class, despite the logical name being RS1800T. In full rally specification the BDT produced 350bhp from under 900kg. When Ari Vatanen tested the car on 1982 Rally Portugal stages, the turbocharged RS1700T ran one second per kilometre faster than the Fiat 131 Abarth that had won the event outright the previous year.
Why the Audi Quattro Killed It
The RS1700T was a compelling rear-wheel-drive machine designed for a world that the Audi Quattro had just made obsolete. By the time Ford’s Saarlouis plant in Germany was ready to begin production of the 200 homologation road cars required for Group B qualification, the Quattro’s four-wheel-drive dominance was undeniable. In 1983, newly appointed Director of European Motorsport Stuart Turner cancelled the entire programme. The road cars were never built. The prototypes were ordered crushed.
Not all were. The remaining RS1700Ts and spares were sold to Ford South Africa, where looser homologation requirements allowed them to compete. After substantial weight reduction using Kevlar and polycarbonate, the RS1700T took its only competitive victory at the 1985 Nissan Rally in South Africa — and split a pair of Quattros into second place at the Fleet Lease mountain rally. That, remarkably, is the full extent of its competitive record.
The RS1700T’s Real Legacy
None of the development work was wasted. The BDT engine family, the transaxle architecture, and the suspension knowledge were transferred almost directly into the RS200 programme — which went from concept to running prototype in just three months, partly because so much groundwork already existed. The RS1700T was the RS200’s unacknowledged parent.
Of the 18 prototypes believed built, only around six are thought to survive. One — prototype P10, the oldest and most fully developed — was rescued from South Africa after a 30-year search by British collector Brian Betteridge and has since been restored. It remains the most complete surviving RS1700T in existence and one of the most significant rally car artefacts Ford ever produced. Values for the few that exist are rarely established publicly; when they do appear, significance and documentation are everything.
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