The Ford Escort RS2000 Is A Mini Muscle Car! (1979 2.1 Litre Custom Review)

Fitting a 2.0-litre Cortina engine into a humble Escort yielded EPIC results - a mini muscle car that dominated rallying and still has the power and excitement to make Paul smile 50 years later!
Thanks to Dave for loan of his stunning RS2000.

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Chapters
0:00 Fast Ford Family - Focus ST170
0:40 The Escort RS2000
1:09 Restoration
2:28 Tuned Engine
3:09 A Baby Muscle Car
3:45 Driving Impressions
4:22 Still Feels Special

[mauriceperry]

Absolutely beautiful. Loved them since growing up watching things like the professionals late 70s / early 80s.

[TheGov]

A proper car from a great era, i miss the way things used to be. Thank you for sharing this 😊😊😊

[bat.]

Hardly a mini muscle car, that was more the 3.0L Capri or the 3.1L RS Capri until the later 2.8i came along. Escorts went around corners where a capri would understeer.
RS2000 was just so chuckable, I owned a couple of Mk2 Mexico's with 2L pinto dropped in place of the under powered 1.6L full road rally build which only allowed a single carb it was putting 128bhp at the wheels, kent RL2 cam, gas flowed head, bottom end built with stock parts but lightened and balanced including flywheel, 4-2-1 manifold with 2" exhaust, revved to 7k but limiter set to 6.5k as they were not the strongest bottom end unless all steel billet, 5 speed sierra box with straight cut gears and quick shift linkage, decambered rear springs, LSD, bilsteins, quick rack, world cup x member, anti dive kit, vented front discs, sumpguard, full roll cage, a pair of spotlights and off you went on a Saturday night, Sunday morning down the lanes with a rally on somewhere in the country almost every weekend in the mid 80's when I competed. Great fun times

[leeforeman]

Beautiful car well restored. I remember back in the early to mid-90s, you could pick them up in the auto trader's for less than 2 grand.

[pgilb]

Had a 2 door mk1 cortina with 2 litre pinto in Oz-was actually lots of fun and quick for the day.

[sydnorth]

"Created in 1973 by Ford simply dropping the Cortina 2 litre engine into the small, lightweight body of the Mk2 Escort". But the Mk2 Escort wasn't introduced until 1975!

[danielball]

I would love a Mk2 RS2000. It's top of my list of classic Fords I want to own. 😍👍

[simonhodgetts]

Lovely to see a restored car only modified where it matters - the oily bits!

[fasthracing]

Back in the day these were the absolute dogs.

[giulianomarco]

Red Rocket. Nice! And with a badge to match a Custom Transit! 😋👍

[joenewman]

I was born 72, when I was a kid in the 80s we all wanted one when we was older, never got one wish I had, cost a few bob now.

[allanwilson]

Yes great car I had one PRN640T where is she now long gone by now 😢

[chessie]

Looks exactly like mine in 87. Still mad at myself to sell it due to private issues. If i could drive one today i would be the happiest chap. 😊

[martyn]

All credit to thw owner, a stunning example

[craigsibley]

Thought the first RS2000 was the mk1 escort...

[Micky]

On first glance thought that was my old one but no, mine was WOM 621 T, only 9 apart though

[rob]

He's done some serious modification, fair play to him. Can you imagine B.L. managing to produce a single, yet effective product like this, no wonder they went bust. That was a nicely done feature, very interesting. I'll be honest I don't really understand things like handling or steering feel and superior brakes. I can do servicing and simple repairs etc though. Unless there's something bady wrong with a car thrn they're all Perry much the same to me, sorry lol.

[MrAaronb]

I respect people driving old stuff like this but id have to take an opel kadett c gte over one of these. A few were rhd converted in the uk.

[betterlookingthanyouravera]

Awesome with yb cosworth running gear 👍🏻

[briansaiditsoitmustbetrue]

The RS2000 is a really nice car... Would have preferred to have the engine factory bog standard... Yes, I know it only had around 110 BHP factory standard ..But that was the standard back in the 1970s. Remember it is a historic car almost 50 Years old... If you want a fast powerful car ..Then just buy a fast and powerful car. Sometimes less is more.