An example of the Ford Escort, one of Britain’s most popular small family cars, has sold at auction for close to £279,000.
£2,990 plus tax would have bought a new Ford Escort RS1800 as it rolled off the Ford production line in 1976. What a contrast then at Historics’ classic car auction in Berkshire on Saturday 19th July, when the hammer came down to a cacophony of auction hall applause.
A frenzied bidding tussle over the 49-year old car escalated the sale price well beyond one quarter of a million pounds, the £278,848 paid by the new owner close to 100 times the cost of the car when new.
After fulfilling its promotional duties as a second Ford press car in 1976 (the first media loan RS1800 was crashed beyond redemption) the Escort on sale by Historics passed into one-family ownership. That was true until it came to sale last Saturday, still bearing its original number plate, ‘ONO 804P’.
After travelling 25,000 road miles, it rested gently under cover in a farm barn for decades. However, this RS Ford was twice painstakingly and professionally restored, all with the accent on originality. In fact, it is probably in a far better condition than when it left Ford’s Essex low-profile side assembly line, nearly half a century earlier.
Astonished eyes at the sale price were not just in the auction hall. Award-winning author of multiple books on the Ford marque including the 2024 title ‘Fast Fords, Up Close and Personal’, and former Ford motor sports press officer Jeremy Walton commented: “I thought this showroom Escort would sell strongly as it is so rare, as most RS1800s were radically modified for motor sports. The company assembled little over 100 showroom examples, purely as a gesture to qualifying the model for an ultra- successful competition career.
Walton continued: “The Mk.II Escort RS1800 is an icon of Ford’s World Championship motorsport history, but this blistering sale result – most surely a world record for a 1976 Ford Escort – is a spectacular endorsement of how few unmodified public road examples of these Escorts remain. Certainly, far fewer original RS1800s survive than many exotic classics, bearing more prestigious badges.”
Stewart Banks of Historics Auctioneers added: “The atmosphere in the auction hall, on the phones and online was electric. After publicising the car far and wide, we had great expressions of pre-sale interest, and bidding on the car was intense – as was to be expected as the Escort RS1800 was such a star of world rallying. However nobody could have predicted such a stunning result.
“On a broader footing”, he continued, “the sale price really underlines the continuing brio in the classic and collector car market and how exceptional cars will continue to be wonderful flag bearers, capable of attracting the gaze of new followers to enjoy great cars of the past.”
For further information and full sale results from Historics’ £3.6 million classic car auction, see www.historics.co.uk
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