November, 1970. The Ford Escort MK1 Mexico born in automobile market.
and was then named because of Ford Motor Companys won in the London-Mexico world class Rally. This rally started in London UK on April 19th 1970 and finished some 10,000 kms subsequently in Mexico. Originally Ford intended to take Escorts with the Twin Cam or BDA engine, but after reconnaissance job it was decided that higher speeds and higher horsepower were less significant than dependability and simplicity of servicing; thus the Kent pushrod engine was used in the pipe bodyguard shell – and engine that was formerly praised by Stuart Turner for “Bombproof Reliability”The signature of these cars was a large bubble wing edition of the thick responsibility “Type 49” bodyshell with a comprehensive “A shape” roll cage built in. The engine was the conversant 1600cc Kent crossflow unit but bored away to 1834cc to offer about 140 BHP. This was so transferred to the route via a ZF five speed gearbox and a 4.4:1 ratio Atlas axle. In all Ford entered a squad of 7 cars and finished this grueling rally in 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th spot with Hannu Mikkola and Gunnar Palm taking the whole honours. Currently simply two of these cars are yet known to live, FEV 1H (Mikkolas automobile) is on exhibit in the Ford Heritage Centre at Dagenham and FTW 48H (the automobile that finished 8th driven by Sobieslaw Zasada) is presently undergoing rebuilt in personal hands.
