The Ford Escort XR3

The Ford Escort XR3 made it's first appearance back in September 1980 the third generation Escort was a state-of-the-art small car. With it's front wheel drive and transverse engine, it was to be one of the best "Hot Hatchbacks" and family car's of the eighties.The XR3 was made available as soon as the new MkIII Escort went on the market, although it shared the same three door body work it was identified by several differences. The most obvious was the Cloverleaf Alloys fitted with 185/60R14 tyre's which neatly hid the ventilated front discs. A large rubber spoiler on the tailgate went well with the other body trim fitted to the front and at the front edge of the rear arches. The XR3 was nowhere near sluggish, fitted with a 1,597cc CVH engine with a twin choke DFT Weber carburettor, it produced 96bhp at 6,000rpm. This was enough to give the car a top performance of 113mph and a 0-60 time of 9.2 sec's. It was reported that some 11,000 XR3's were sold in the UK in 1981 making it one of Fords best selling cars. The XR3 was made even better in February 1982 when a new five speed synchromesh gearbox was fitted.

The XR3 was handed over to Ron Mansfield of the SVE (Special Vehicle Engineering) and that's when we got the XR3i.

The XR3i was first released back in January 1983 and was built in Saarlouis, Germany. Work began in October 1981 and took a little over a year to modify and better the cars original design. The ride and handling of the car got an overhaul and we found that the new version had been slightly lowered and new gearing was used. Ford also introduced the Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection system which then gave 105bhp at 6,000rpm, a top speed of 120mph and had lowered the 0-60 time to 8.5secs. Since then two variations of the XR3 have been built, the RS1600i and the RS Turbo were produced. These were built to satisfy the Group A regulations for racing & rallying.