A Legacy Continued with the Boreham Ford Escort RS Alan Mann 68 Edition

What if I told you this little red and gold car was so good, it won every race it entered in 1968? And what if I told you this car is brand-spanking new? Would you take my word for it, or would you think I have been sniffing too many exhaust fumes? Well, I might have, but both statements are factually true. This is the wickedly cool Boreham Ford Escort RS Alan Mann 68 Edition, which is an officially Ford licensed one-to-one recreation of the legendary race car developed by Alan Mann Racing back in the late 1960s! And contrary to what you might think, this is not a restomod based on (and sacrificing) a road-going Escort. This is, in fact, built new, from the ground up!

Although most remember the Ford Escort for being the brand’s small family hatchback, the first use of the name dates back to an estate car based on the Ford Anglia from 1955. It was a more basic counterpart to the Squire, and was a 2-door estate with a split rear door. Although the Escort proved more popular than the Squire, due to the lower price, a relatively low number of 33,131 were built over six years.

The next time the name would appear on a car bearing the famous Blue Oval badge would be in 1967, when Ford introduced the MK1 Escort. It was the replacement for the successful Anglia, and proved an almost instant hit. Available in many configurations, it has been in production for over 30 years. After just six years of production, 2 million were already sold, and when production ceased, well over 4 million were put on the road! The Escort’s lifespan can basically be split into three chapters. The MK1, in production from 1967 to 1974 and the MK2, in production from 1974 to 1980, had rear-wheel drive and a ‘Coke bottle’ waistline. It also introduced the signature ‘Dog Bone’ front grille. The MK3 and MK4 introduced a much sharper and edgier design to compete with the Volkswagen Golf and Honda Civic. By 1990, it was time for another drastic redesign, as Ford introduced the softer MK5, followed by the updated MK6 in 1995. In 2002, the Escort’s run ended, as it was replaced by the Ford Focus.

One of the most stand-out models is, without a doubt, the rally-bred Ford Escort RS Cosworth. It was built to homologate the Escort for the World Rally Championship under Group A regulations. With just over 7,000 of them leaving the factory in under four years, it’s also one of the rarest. As a result, they go for big money these days! The RS Cosworth came with a turbocharged 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder engine producing 227bhp, giving it a top speed of 240kph. From the outside, it was instantly recognisable thanks to its wider bodywork, air vents in the bonnet, and of course, the ‘whale tail’ rear wing!

Alan Mann Racing & the escort

But it was far from the only high-performance Escort, and not even close to being the first! That honour goes to the Ford Escort Twin Cam, introduced shortly after the car went into production. It was purposefully designed to go rallying and racing, and complied with Group 2 regulations. It had a 1.6-litre straight-4 engine with parts built by Lotus, producing 105 horsepower. Paired with a low weight of less than 900 kilos, it was quite fast for its time! However, it wasn’t until Alan Mann was given the task of modifying an Escort to take on the British Saloon Car Championship that things started to get really interesting, and really serious!

Founded by Alan Mann, the eponymous racing team was in close ties with Ford throughout the 1960s, up until all activities ceased in late 1969. Alan Mann prepped and raced all sorts of Ford cars, including Zephyrs and Anglias, Cortina GTs and the iconic GT40, while enlisting the skills of some of the finest drivers of the era: Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, and Frank Gardner. Most of the team’s cars were finished in red and gold, making them instantly recognisable from afar. For the monumental push to win at Le Mans, Ford enlisted Alan Mann Racing to develop a special GT40 MKI with a lightweight aluminium body and Ford’s 289ci (4.7 litre) V8 engine. Five were ordered, but only two were built, which remain some of the most prolific examples of the GT40 despite not winning Le Mans outright. That was achieved with the Big Block 7-litre MKII’s, as you undoubtedly all know.

Despite the fact that the GT40 might be the ‘bigger’ name in Alan Mann Racing’s legacy, one of the team’s most successful cars was the Ford Escort RS. While it looked like a pretty close to stock Escort from the outside, underneath it was a genuinely high-level engineered race car that would blow the doors of the competition when it entered the 1968 and 1969 British Saloon Car Championship (the predecessor to the BTCC). Frank Gardner was the lead driver for the 1968 season, in which he started with a Ford Cortina GT, before switching to the newly developed Escort RS for the fourth race of the season. The result? It won every single remaining race of the season and clinched the title in the Class C competition. It can also be seen in the clip above of the 1968 European Touring Car Race at the Nürburgring.

Following the 1969 season, Alan Mann Racing ended its Ford Works competition efforts and stopped racing altogether. The name was revived in 2004 and has since been active in historic racing, race car preparation, restoration and prototype developments for other teams and manufacturers. It’s also a regular attendee of events such as the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The Boreham Escort RS

So what about that rather fast MK1 Escort? Well, the one you see here is that very car, just built brand new. Endorsed by Ford themselves, which is a big deal in this whole story, the Boreham Motorworks Ford Escort RS Alan Mann 68 Edition is not a restored vintage car, nor is it a restomod based on a rusted-out donor car. It is an exact recreation of the 968 championship-winning Escort RS! Every little detail, down to the very last nut and bolt, has been painstakingly recreated using 3D laser scans from the original car (chassis number XOO 349F), ensuring it is as close as it possibly can be. Overall, it’s a stunning tribute to one of the greatest racing cars ever built, and the devil with this one is very much in the detail!

Not only does it look the part thanks to its iconic wide wheel arches, red-and-gold colour scheme and racing roundels, underneath it all sits a finely tuned chassis and engine pairing eerily similar to the one Frank Gardner raced to glory all those years ago. The wheelbase is a tad longer than the production car for better handling, although it’s almost impossible to spot. It has a chassis that incorporates suspension components derived from the GT40, and is set up to slide around and feel alive instead of being a surgically precise instrument. The weight distribution is a perfect 50:50, and the whole car puts less than 800 kilos on the scale!

Combine that with a razor-sharp throttle response from a period-correct 1.8-litre Ford four-cylinder Twin Cam engine with double Weber 45DCOE carburettors and an output of 205 horsepower, and things start to click. The straight-cut 4-speed Ford ‘Bullet’ gearbox allows you to push the car to its very edge while still maintaining control. Stopping power comes from disc brakes all around, which were also installed on the 1968 original, but here they have been updated a touch to make things safer once again.

Even on the inside, everything is where it needs to be. Switches, lights, gauges and so on are all machined to be period correct. Motorsport-grade cooling and fueling systems keep things running safely. Even without getting behind the driver’s wheel yourself, you can tell this is an absolute riot of a car on the track, and one that ensures a pure, analogue driving experience all around. It really is a step back in time without any of the drawbacks. It’s 21st-century  precision engineering aimed at bringing out even more of something that was once designed to be the very best.

Clients who are interested in getting one of the 24 available Boreham Ford Escort RS Alan Mann 68 Editions (priced at around GBP 300,000) have the option to go down a period-correct path or take it racing in historic series regulated by the FIA. If you go for the latter, changes are needed to comply with safety standards, such as a roll cage, a fire-suppression system, a racing harness, a kill switch and so on. A part of Boreham Motorworks’ top-tier DRVN Ultra Series program, it also comes with invitations to special events, license trainings and support from the Alan Mann Racing team.

For more information, please visit BorehamMotorworks.com.

Editorial Note: The information used and images portrayed are sourced from and used with permission of Boreham Motorworks, unless stated otherwise.