FORD ESCORT MK1 - RALLY GIANTS SERIES

Foreword
Introduction
The car and the team
Inspiration
The Escort’s importance in rallying
Phase 2: the Escort RS1600
The Escort’s home ground
Facing up to rival cars
Homologation – meeting the rules
Engineering features
RS1600 – new wine, old bottle
Motorsport development, and improvements
Was the Escort unique?
Building and running the works cars
Personalities and star drivers
Competition story
The works Escort’s career
Past its best? Which rivals took over?
The MkI’s successor
World/major European rally wins
Victories in British international rallies
Works rally cars and when first used – Twin-Cam, 1850GT (London-Mexico) and RS1600
Index

This book describes the birth, development, and rallying career of the original Ford Escort, one of Europe’s Landmark Rally Cars in the early 1970s, providing a compact and authoritative history of where, how and why it became so important to the sport.
Features

Full detailed history of each marques rally career
- Full detailed story of concept, design, development
- Unrivalled coverage of people and influences behind the cars
- Step by step coverage of technical evolution
- Description of cars, why, how and when evolved
- Description of principal people (managers, drivers, engineers) involved
- Many many pictures, not only of cars in action, but of details and people
- Comparison with rivals
- Complete listing of important successes
- Complete listing of ‘works’ xcars
Description

This book describes the birth, development, and rallying career of the original Ford Escort, one of Europe’s Landmark Rally Cars in the early 1970s, providing a compact and authoritative history of where, how and why it became so important to the sport.
Independent Reviews

Review from Fast Ford magazine, June 2007

There's no doubting the works Mk1 Escorts were legends, and Graham Robson confirms this in his new book on the multiple rally winner. Covers the birth, development and career of the original Escort with 100 archive images.
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Review from Old Stager magazine, May 2007

I constantly struggle to see the book that I'm looking for in the bookcase. So, I for am delighted to see that the new series of Rally Giants by Graham Robson all have matching grey spines with the name of the featured car clearly marked.

Three have already been released by Veloce Publishing and feature the MkI Escort, Subaru Impreza and the Lancia Stratos.

The books each describe the birth of each 'rally giant' and the author chronicles the development, politics, successes and failures of the cars. The style and format offers an easy read and the ability to dip into each book as and when.

There are plenty of excellent photos (both mono and colour) and sections covering the personalities that shaped the various cars' development as well as the star drivers.

The best news though is that Graham Robson is working on another dozen or so books to include the Austin-Healey 3000 through to the WRC Ford Focus – I can't wait!
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Review from The Motor Cycling Club Ltd

It’s three for the price of one this time as I have been reading the Ford Escort Mk1, Subaru Impreza and Lancia Stratos in the Rally Giants series, written by Graham Robson and published by Veloce and thoroughly recommend all three volumes. Priced at £14.99, each has an interesting 8 x 8in format with about 125 pages containing lots of well chosen pictures, mostly in colour, so looks impressive enough for the coffee table, yet due to the author’s experience and attention to getting his facts right, must have a place in the serious enthusiast’s bookshelves, from whence they will frequently be taken as a source of reference.

What I really enjoyed most though is the way in which Graham has made a readable tale from what so easily could have been equally factual but totally boring. The author knew and worked in the rally world with the people and events he describes so brings out their characters and the behind the scenes action not always appreciated at the time.
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Review by Mike R for Classics Monthly, April 2007

This publications traces the history of one of the most successful rally cars ever. Ford's Escort came in RS1600, 2000 and Twin Cam models, and all are covered here with period photos of production lines and cars in competition. A useful book that contains a lot of information for the Escort's many fans.
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Review from Classic Ford magazine, March 2007

Another tome from the pen of Classic Ford’s very own contributor Graham Robson and part of Veloce's Rally Giants series, Ford Escort Mkl is a great read for any old school rally lovers.
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Review from Classic Car Mart, Spring 2007

Followers of rallying will be impressed with the latest new series of books from Veloce Publishing, going under the general moniker of Rally Giants.

The book is impressively high in quality. Fans of the MkI Escort will buy this book for its plethora of amazing photographs and illustrations – just about a hundred in all, most of them archive shots from the early Seventies and from a variety of sources. Action shots of such rallying legends as Roger Clark piloting various Escorts through some of the world’s most gruelling rallies are enough to make this book a worthwhile buy. But it’s the accompanying text that inevitably provides the biggest insight.

With Robson’s experience in the world of rallying and his own success at the wheel of numerous competition Escorts over the years, he’s able to provide a truly unique perspective into what was undoubtedly the most successful rally car of its era. From the initial plans of 1967 to replace the legendary Lotus Cortina with a modified version of the forthcoming Escort, to the eventual demise of the MkI Escort and its retirement as an official works car eight years later, this book provides a depth of knowledge that can’t fail to impress. And, as ever, it’s written in an accessible and entertaining style that helps to ensure it’s an easy read.

Of course, the subsequent MkII Escort also went on to be a fantastically successful rally machine for the second half of the Seventies. It can’t be long before Robson adds a MkII title to this promising new series …
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Review from New Zealand Classic Car, March 2007

This soft cover book has 124 pages and the whole series is authored by the knowledgeable Graham Robson.

Robson tells the full story, putting the cars in the context of the factory’s models that went before and those that came after. And it’s an honest telling, for these cars had faults and problems as well as great successes. Their homologation stories are enjoyable, both involving some imaginative counting as far as quantities and availability were concerned!

A superb selection of photos adds to the enjoyment of these books - Roger Clark’s prototype twin-cam Escort cetainly looks the part on the ’68 Alpine Rally!

At least 14 more titles are promised:if they are as good as these two (Lancia & Escort), this will be an excellent series for all rally fans.