This Ford Escort RS2000 garage find was one of two wonderfully dusty old Fords that immediately caught our attention at Silverstone this weekend.
Yesterday, while wandering around the Classic Car Auctions sale at CarFest, we found it sitting alongside an equally dusty 1986 Ford Capri 2.8 Injection.
Neither looked as though somebody had spent Friday night attacking it with polish.
Quite the opposite.
They still looked like cars that had recently emerged from their garages – and we loved them for it.
The Capri went under the hammer earlier today and achieved £20,000.
Then it was the RS2000’s turn.
Classic Car Auctions, part of Iconic Auctioneers, had brought plenty of beautifully presented machinery to its CarFest sale at Silverstone.
But naturally, we were drawn to the dusty stuff.
This 1978 Ford Escort RS2000 had exactly the sort of appearance that makes you stop for a closer look.
Dust across the paintwork.
Grime accumulated during years of storage.
And that unmistakable Mk2 Escort shape underneath it all.
There’s something incredibly appealing about seeing an old car presented this way.
Rather than somebody else having already made all the decisions, you’re looking at a car that’s waiting to be uncovered.
Of course, what’s underneath the dust matters rather a lot here.
This isn’t an ordinary Mk2 Escort.
It’s a 1978 Ford Escort RS2000, one of the most desirable road-going Escorts of its era and a car whose values have changed enormously since these were simply used fast Fords.
The RS2000 combined Ford’s 2.0-litre Pinto engine with the relatively light Mk2 Escort shell, while that distinctive polyurethane ‘droop snoot’ front gave it an identity all of its own.
Today, the RS2000 sits firmly among the classic Fords that enthusiasts actively hunt for.
Finding one is interesting.
Finding one that’s been tucked away and still looks as though it’s waiting to be woken up is considerably more so.
We spend a lot of time around cars that have been sitting in barns, garages and sheds.
And one of the things we’ve learned is that you can never judge the whole story from a layer of dust.
Sometimes the car underneath is considerably better than expected.
Sometimes it isn’t.
But that uncertainty is part of what makes a genuine garage find so fascinating.
With a restored car, most of the discovery has already happened.
With something like this RS2000, the next owner gets to do some of that discovering themselves.
What will it look like after its first careful wash?
What survives underneath?
And how much of the car can be preserved rather than restored?
There’s always a funny reaction when a dusty barn or garage find appears for sale.
Half the audience desperately wants somebody to wash it.
The other half shouts:
Don’t touch the dust!
We’re somewhere in between.
The dust is fantastic for telling the story, but eventually somebody needs to find out what’s underneath it.
And with an RS2000, we’d much rather see a careful clean and thorough assessment before anyone starts talking about stripping it down for restoration.
Originality that’s survived decades can only be original once.
Seeing the RS2000 sitting alongside the Capri yesterday made for a particularly good pairing.
Both were desirable classic Fords.
Both had that unmistakable just-out-of-storage appearance.
But they appealed in rather different ways.
The Capri was a late 2.8 Injection – a big-engined, fuel-injected survivor from the final chapter of the Capri story.
The Escort represented another side of Ford enthusiasm entirely.
A Mk2 RS2000.
Few badges have quite the same effect on classic Ford enthusiasts as those two letters:
RS.
So after watching the Capri achieve a £20,000 hammer price, we were very interested to see what bidders would make of its dusty neighbour.
Eventually, it was time.
The RS2000 crossed the block at the Classic Car Auctions sale at CarFest.
There was no shiny restoration to distract anybody.
No attempt to disguise the fact that this was an old Ford emerging from long-term storage.
Bidders had to judge the car, its potential and the desirability of having a genuine RS2000 sitting in their garage.
And somebody clearly wanted the opportunity.
When the bidding finally stopped, the hammer came down at:
£17,500.
That’s £2,500 less than the dusty Capri sitting alongside it achieved earlier in the sale.
And we suspect that comparison will generate almost as much discussion as the RS2000 result itself.
Because if we’d stood between the two cars yesterday and asked which would make more money, how many people would have picked the Capri?
It’s an interesting little snapshot of the classic Ford market.
We regularly see huge enthusiasm for Mk2 Escorts, and RS models in particular.
Yet on this occasion, the dusty Capri 2.8 Injection brought the higher hammer price.
Of course, auction results aren’t a scientific comparison.
Condition, history, originality, specification and the bidders present on the day can make an enormous difference.
Two determined people can completely change the result of an auction.
But that’s precisely why watching these cars sell is so interesting.
The market ultimately decides what each individual car is worth at that particular moment.
This weekend, the answer was £20,000 for the Capri and £17,500 for the Escort.
Yesterday we photographed these two dusty Fords sitting side by side at Silverstone.
Now both have new auction results attached to them.
The Capri: £20,000 hammer.
The RS2000: £17,500 hammer.
Given the choice, we’re not sure it’s an easy decision.
Would you take the V6 Capri 2.8 Injection?
Or would that RS badge pull you towards the Mk2 Escort?
More importantly, whichever one you bought, wouldn’t you want to be there for the first wash?
You can see the original RS2000 auction listing and photographs on the Iconic Auctioneers website:
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