RS200...American?

neil1280
yeah if you look at my list i put them right under vw, yeah vw are the marquee holding company name

its like they are a seperat entity, vw, seat, skoda share engines/parts to the extreme and even the old porsche 911's were bred from beetles, and yeah i think porsche have the majority shares but keep the VW household name. I read that porsche are the most profitable manufacturer in the world and bmw the biggest when you include aftersales and parts (rip off, £800 for an ecu and £400 to setup £150 for my key)

whereas, the lambo's and bentley are completely under audi contol/design, vw let them take care of them, sort of like ford not having influence on mazda & aston. your more than likely correct about volvo but they have shared that 2.5 engine from the s60 for years now and still do in the focus rs/c30R/ x-type which is why i thought it was still ford

Im sure there are lots more but they are just the ones i could think of quickly
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Actually, Bentley has more VW influence than Audi. But then, chassis, engines and parts are shared throughout the whole VW Group range, like the VW Phaeton, Audi A8 and Bentley Continental.

In fact, the only company in the VW Group that doesn't share parts with the rest is, as you may already know, is Bugatti, although the W16 engine has already been seen before in concept cars from Bentley and Audi.
 
The Ford Focus was designed and developed at their European design and reseach facility "Dunton" on the outskirts of Basildon not too far from london. I had quite a bit of input in this range and also the Mondeo, only on the internall trim though.

How about the Range rover, Also a classic british upmarket off road car, Was that american because it started life with an american engine. NO it wasnt.

I come from the car development side of things before I retired finnaly working for a canadian company here in the Uk called Magna. Ther were in the late 90s the largest automotive conponent supplier in the world and had the ability to make their own vehicles but never did. Does that make all cars with their products in, No it doenst and you all would be very surprised who they supply to, Most if not all Manufacturers.

Just a list of Manufacturers I developed products for whilst at Magna.
Rolls Royce.
Rover.
Land Rover.
Ford.
Nissan.
Vauxhall.
Toyota.

IMO a cars nationality should be derived from where it is developed and manufactured.
 
This is the 1963 Lola MK-6, an English car... (3 years before the first GT-40)
Looks similar to the GT-40? No coincidence, Lola designed the GT-40 too.
Lola-Mk6-GT-Ford_3.jpg

lola-mk6-gt-chevrolet-01.jpg


The GT-40 was based on an English car then an English car company (Lola) developed it for Ford.
Just because a car uses a Ford engine, doesn't make it a Ford. Pagani use Mercedes engines, Lotus use Toyota and Rover engines. In F1 there are more manufacturers than engine manufacturers too! VERY few supercar manufacturers develop their own engines, one exception is koenigsegg.
Other GT cars also used Ford engines yet were not Ford cars...

The GT-40 is a Lola car powered by a Ford engine...

For those saying the GT-40 MKIV is "all American," have a look at the Lola T70 and the Mark IV next to each other. (the MKIV is also the least successful and slowest GT-40 in history because it lacked a honeycomb panel construction)

1967lm1_3.jpg

Ford MKIV

racecar_6_3.jpg

Lola T70

On another note the Penske Lola T70 MK3 finished 1-2 at the 1969 Daytona 24 beating Ford GT-40 MKIVs.
 
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The wide majority of Europe's population like sporty cars which is what the
rs200 is, but the US's population like more affordable sadans with automatic
transmissions.

Ford's reason for not selling the car in the US was because they would not get as much money as opposed to selling in Europe.
 
jscroggs9
The wide majority of Europe's population like sporty cars which is what the
rs200 is, but the US's population like more affordable sadans with automatic
transmissions.

Ford's reason for not selling the car in the US was because they would not get as much money as opposed to selling in Europe.
Click to expand...


The RS200 was designed for rallying, mostly in Europe, so there's no point in complying it with US regulations if they only had to make 200 anyway.
 
jscroggs9
The wide majority of Europe's population like sporty cars which is what the
rs200 is, but the US's population like more affordable sadans with automatic
transmissions.

Ford's reason for not selling the car in the US was because they would not get as much money as opposed to selling in Europe.
Click to expand...


No it wasnt the reason for not selling it in the USA. Only 200 were made and all where destined for rallying untill group B got banned, Ford then re-engineered the inside of the car by putting carpet, road style seats in leather and other soft trim parts so they could be sold on the open market. I know this as I did the development on the seats and oversaw the production of them. In the end not many stayed on the road as most got snapped up by rally cross drivers. The most famous one was Martin scankers that had nearly 900 bhp, his main competiter was Will Gollup in another modified group B the 6R4 also pushing around 900bhp.
 
Mark
No it wasnt the reason for not selling it in the USA. Only 200 were made and all where destined for rallying untill group B got banned, Ford then re-engineered the inside of the car by putting carpet, road style seats in leather and other soft trim parts so they could be sold on the open market. I know this as I did the development on the seats and oversaw the production of them. In the end not many stayed on the road as most got snapped up by rally cross drivers. The most famous one was Martin scankers that had nearly 900 bhp, his main competiter was Will Gollup in another modified group B the 6R4 also pushing around 900bhp.
Click to expand...

It wasn't sold in the US because:
-Emissions
-Crash tests requirements
-Cost to deport/import
-No US market demand
-Homologation. No need for expensive high volume production.
...and I'm sure there are many other reasons. Shame, really.
 
McClarenDesign
It wasn't sold in the US because:
-Emissions
-Crash tests requirements
-Cost to deport/import
-No US market demand
-Homologation. No need for expensive high volume production.
...and I'm sure there are many other reasons. Shame, really.
Click to expand...

lmao... "deport"
I think the word you are looking for is export.
 
McClarenDesign
It wasn't sold in the US because:
-Emissions
-Crash tests requirements
-Cost to deport/import
-No US market demand
-Homologation. No need for expensive high volume production.
...and I'm sure there are many other reasons. Shame, really.
Click to expand...


Your so wrong, Try doing some research on this vehicle. They made only 200 and it was conceived purely as a group B rally car and nothing else although to meet requirements it needed to pass homolagation, T release they where not meant to be commercialy available for road use. When group b was banned it cast ford millions to alter them all to sell for normall road use, and as stated previously i played quite a part in the internall changes made.
As far as im aware only 2 were ever used on public roads and that was to metropolitan police on the M25 orbital as chase cars to catch the yuppies in there porsche's. All the rest got stripped after all the hard work we did and ended up in club level rallying and rally cross, 2 entirely different disciplines.

I suppose the easiest way to explain it is the current Ford WRC rally car, you cannot buy that and drive it as a normal road car but there is a road version vastly detuned. But the RS200 was only ever made for Group B and only modded for road when banned.
 
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Mark
Your so wrong, Try doing some research on this vehicle. They made only 200 and it was conceived purely as a group B rally car and nothing else although to meet requirements it needed to pass homolagation, T release they where not meant to be commercialy available for road use. When group b was banned it cast ford millions to alter them all to sell for normall road use, and as stated previously i played quite a part in the internall changes made.
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The manufacturers have to built and sell 200 road going models to homologate the car for Group B competition, hence the Lancia Delta S4 Stradale, Audi Quattro S1, Peugeot 205 T16 and MG Metro 6R4 Clubman. Why would Ford make 200 cars beforehand for rallying if they know less than half is going to be used for rallying in a few years? Maybe spare parts, but even that only requires 10-20 cars at most. They have to be sold to the public at some point, so why not make them road-legal in the first place? And I'm pretty sure they started selling them before Group was banned in 1986. So right now I'm not sure you really played a part in the car.........
 
The RS200, Focuses and Escorts are European models.The only reason why you really see them in American events is because of the manufacturer Ford which is an American company.

Although I do wish PD would bring out a patch which would fix this as it is kind of annoying.
 
Mark
Your so wrong, Try doing some research on this vehicle. They made only 200 and it was conceived purely as a group B rally car and nothing else although to meet requirements it needed to pass homolagation, T release they where not meant to be commercialy available for road use. When group b was banned it cast ford millions to alter them all to sell for normall road use, and as stated previously i played quite a part in the internall changes made.
As far as im aware only 2 were ever used on public roads and that was to metropolitan police on the M25 orbital as chase cars to catch the yuppies in there porsche's. All the rest got stripped after all the hard work we did and ended up in club level rallying and rally cross, 2 entirely different disciplines.

I suppose the easiest way to explain it is the current Ford WRC rally car, you cannot buy that and drive it as a normal road car but there is a road version vastly detuned. But the RS200 was only ever made for Group B and only modded for road when banned.
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I thought a majority of what you mentioned was covered by my homologation statement. I'm well aware of the car's history, I just pointed out a few more reasons why it wouldn't even be considered for production in the states.

ReDxHorneT
Although I do wish PD would bring out a patch which would fix this as it is kind of annoying.
Click to expand...

The Mondeo would be a welcome addition.
 
Mark
Your so wrong, Try doing some research on this vehicle. They made only 200 and it was conceived purely as a group B rally car and nothing else although to meet requirements it needed to pass homolagation, T release they where not meant to be commercialy available for road use. When group b was banned it cast ford millions to alter them all to sell for normall road use, and as stated previously i played quite a part in the internall changes made.
As far as im aware only 2 were ever used on public roads and that was to metropolitan police on the M25 orbital as chase cars to catch the yuppies in there porsche's. All the rest got stripped after all the hard work we did and ended up in club level rallying and rally cross, 2 entirely different disciplines.
Click to expand...

My favourite car of all is the Ford RS200 and I'm not familiar with this version of events.

Group B was a production series - the cars were based on production models - and homologation requirements for production series usually include minimum sales numbers (alongside meeting the series technical regulations and whatever local road-legality requirements in the territory of sale). Homologation for Group B required two hundred roadgoing examples to be sold. The entire project was named for this number of roadgoing examples. Ford started selling them in 1985, as roadgoing cars, one year before the car was officially homologated (February 1986) and its first World-level Group B event (Sweden 1986).

Of course they hadn't actually sold 200 before they were homologated - the rules were interestingly lax in the 1980s and they were allowed to compete because they'd made about 240 bodies and were selling cars - and with an oil crisis and a recession plus a £50,000 car with no rally pedigree whatsoever once Group B was canned they were left with three quarters of a production run and no viable product. "Loads" were sold at knockdown prices and Ford lost millions.

There are two of the road cars for sale on Pistonheads right now (one 1986 model, one a later 1993 registration), another on Autotrader (1988 registered Evolution - stickered up with a lightpod) and I'm sure specialist publications carry more. I'm aware of there being over 50 registered road cars kicking about - the majority white, one yellow, two red and one blue - in the UK and the USA (find some Cars & Coffee photographs - there's usually an RS200 attending) alongside the very many rallycross competition cars you mention.
 
@ famine, my favourate all time car as well, I was very lucky to be offered a drive round the Dunton test track in a very rare E2 version around 800bhp an absolute beast and the engineer with me obviously wouldn't let me floor it on the strait but ive never driven a car/motorbike with so much acceleration. If I remember they only produced a handfull of those then scrapped the program.
 

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