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Classic Ford - Graham Robson: Fiesta Group 2 Rally Cars
"Closing Time - Clark's Fiestas"
July 2006
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Graham Robson: Fiesta Group 2 Rally Cars




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.....Roger tried just as hard as ever, but still had the usual traction problems, which he couldn't overcome. This time there were new development problems to be faced: oil was soon leaking out of a cracked gearbox casing, and contaminating the clutch.

Although the car struggled on until the final morning, completing 27 of the 37 special stages, the clutch finally burned out completely, and the little car would go no further. Roger was not pleased.

If this project had been in Ford's future, there would have been great consternation, but only one week after the Manx, Boreham had to announce that it was closing down at the end of the 1979 season. With both the World Makes and World Drivers' Championships in the bag, the time had come to 'retire' the Escort, and start planning for the future.

Out Of Sight

Ford bravely stated that they had learned a lot from Roger's Fiesta programme, and that work would be intensified in 1980, and that this was soon seen to be hot air. With the best will in the world, surely a 1.6-litre front-wheel-drive Fiesta was not in that future?

Roger, in fact, was blunt about his prospects: "I certainly won't be with Ford next year. There's no sense in me going back to the Escort, and I certainly won't be doing another year in the Fiesta. I decided last year that this year would be my last one with Ford."

For Roger, who had been a fixture at Boreham since 1966, that statement counted as a major strop, and in fairness few could blame him. Although Boreham proposed to build him an Escort for the 1979 RAC Rally, the Fiesta entry in the last British Open Series event of the year - Ulster in mid-October - was cancelled, and nothing was likely to wipe out the memories of the awful season that he'd endured.

The Fiesta programme never recovered after these setbacks. Faberge-Fiesta Championship-winner, Guenda Eadie drove one of Roger's cars on the 1979 RAC Rally without success, and Louise Aitken (soon to be Aitken-Walker) tried her best with the same car in the 1980 RAC Rally Championship, but it was mostly in vain. Boreham soon tucked its front-wheel-drive out of sight, and would not revive it until the first of the Escort RS1600s was rallied in 1983.

Whatever happened to the two cars? Both, I think, have gone to that great scrapyard in the sky...

Faberge Fiestas

In the same year that saw Roger struggling so hard to make the Fiesta 1600 into a real rally car, Boreham also promoted the all-female Faberge Fiesta Championship, in which 15 near-identical GRP1 Fiesta 1300S models competed in their very own 12-event series - six races and six rallies - the object (in Stuart Turner's words) being to find 'a new Pat Moss'.

Although these cars weren't very fast, the Championship proved to be the springboard for a young Scottish girl called Louise Aitken to get into big-time motorsport. Ten years later she would be come the World Ladies' Rally Champion, which rather proved Turner's point...

Captions -

Middle-Left - Although the Fiests was nimble on snow and ice, it was simply not fast enough, and could not hope to keep up with the more powerful GRP4 cars.
Middle-Right - Rally cars are not quite as glamorous when they get dirty. John Taylor obviously agrees with that.
Bottom-Left - Roger's 'other' Fiesta ran throughout the Welsh and Scottish rallies in 'off-road' specification. Guenda Eadie later drove it on the 1979 RAC Rally.