Back in Black 70's V8 escort race car

[squadge78]

this is my mates race car. and this is the history of the car,as told by my mate,

 

The Escort was built by Maurice Lyon and myself Barry Costello as a joint venture to go special saloon car racing. We met serving our apprenticeship at Eaton Ltd a company making heavy duty gearboxes for the American market. Maurice was an electrician and I worked in the gear cutting department I was single but Maurice was married to Janet they had a son Simon. On 26th March 2006 Maurice died suddenly he will be sadly missed by family and friends. This is the history of our Escort .

The Car was bought from Kim Mather around 1978. We arrived a couple of weeks too late and Kim had stripped the car down to the basic shell, as he dealt in buying and selling race cars. He told us the car was an ex Walter Robertson race car. After close examination we presumed this to be a Nick Whiting car but we never got this confirmed. We had built and raced a H.B Viva with a Ford 1500 G.T. engine we had an aluminium blocked B.D.A. engine ready to go in. Kim was keen to do a deal with the engine so he swapped us for the Escort shell. It was trailored to Maurice and Janet’s house in Westhoughton Bolton, Maurice had a garage at the back of the house where the shell started its rebuild.

We had decided on the aluminum blocked Rover V8 power unit as this was light and also cheap to buy. We got a coupe engine from a scrapyard and fitted it into the shell cutting the bulkhead away to get it as far back as possible and then panelled around it. A 3 litre Ford axle was purchased from another scrapyard. watts linkage, locating rods and brackets were made, rose joints were bought to bolt it to the car. A Rover four speed gearbox was purchased from out of the Motoring News. Rover cast manifolds, again from a scrapyard and new Rover front exhaust pipes were altered so they came out on each side of the sill. Front adjustable platform struts were aquired with new Leda springs, the rear had secondhand adjustable spax telescopics fitted. We bought second hand 13’’dia x 10’’ Minilites and managed to get hold of some slick tyres . We heard about four Dellortos with an inlet manifold that was for sale in Salford this guy had them on his Rover SD1 but couldn’t afford the 8 mile a gallon he was getting so we tracked him down and bought them. The hydraulic lifters where brazed up to stop the lifters pumping up at higher revs and adjustable pushrods were also made.

Completed around 1980 we trialed the car at Oulton Park but oil surge and a flat spot on the engine at 4000 rpm brought the day to an early conclusion.

We had been given a dry sump oil pump that required some attention. We bought a metal oil tank and modified the sump and that was the end of the surge problem. The rev problem was a different matter and we took the car to Bob Jones in Trafford Park to put on his rolling road, Bob was a protégé of Harry Ratcliffe who ran Britsh Vita. Bob sorted the revving problem by changing the air correction jets and we never had any trouble after that.

We raced the car at various tracks Oulton Park Ingliston and Donington in the GT Championship. At Ingliston a couple of rocker arms broke so we could not race and had gone all that way only to practice. The Donington GT Championship was a good series you got £100 for finishing and that paid for a lot of our costs for the day so it was worth doing but the car was out paced and we decided we needed to spaceframe the backend to make the car lighter and handle better so came the 2nd rebuild.

By this time around 1983 we had met Dennis Aldred an ex Chevron turning dept. foreman, Derek Bennet had been killed in a hand gliding accident. Chevron had shut and Dennis had moved on to Maurer Racing Cars in Westhoughton. Maurer eventually shut up shop and went back to Germany and Dennis decided to rent part of an old mill in Bolton and opened Motorsport Components. George Holt also an ex Chevron and Maurer sheetmetal fabricator came to work with Dennis. Dennis let us base the car at Motorsport Components as we came after our regular jobs around 6:00pm until 10:30pm and all day weekends as he regarded us as security when he wasn’t there. There was plenty of room for the car so space framing the rear became a priority as they had guillotines bending and welding machines that Dennis let us use. We burnt the rear floor away then made beams and arms to locate the axle once again and then panelled the rear compartment George made us a new ally fuel and oil tank while Dennis was busy making a lightweight ally flywheel and centre locking bells to take the B.B.S. Formula 2 split rims that we had bought from a Maurer mechanic. George rolled us the rear arches and we fitted them onto the existing body. An aerofoil was designed for the bootlid. Four pot calipers with vented discs were fitted all round, again purchased from a Maurer mechanic. We fitted plastic trunking to direct air onto the brakes to cool them. We sprayed the car black with an inch wide red and silver stripe along the side and front of the body. The trailer had to be altered to take the very wide rear track of the car. It had new varnished boards fitted and the steel frame was painted red. Black silver and red became the team colours and later a Transit V6 ambulance was purchased and fitted out with beds cooker and sink and was sprayed just as the car.

In1985 the car toured the tracks once more but we were missing a limited slip diff as we were losing a lot of time spinning wheels. We managed to buy an L.S.D. from a friend of Dennis’s, this knocked seconds off our laptimes and it showed how much time we had lost in the corners. We raced the car until the middle of 1988 when we advertised it for sale in the Motoring News. The car was bought by Chris Maries and John Roberts who raced it at Oulton and Donington to my knowledge but re-advertised it for sale in November of 1989. Barry Costello

 

 

the car should be at classic ford show this year.

[Col-ashtonmobile]

i remember this car well , it used to race at lydden hill when i raced there, they used to remove the rear wings to load it in the trailer , stunning car and sounded awesome

[Matt.C]

that is a cool escort. looks really mean with those arches.

[leecostello]

 

thanks well am hoping to be out in this machine soon i just love it

i remember it when iwas 4 it scared me it was soo loud my dad never wanted too sell it he couldnt afford to get the money too buy out maurice plus he had no garage but he hated getting rid of it all through my life since we spoken about it every day we had pictures of it round the family home we always spoken of it always an 2003 we saw it in classic ford lucky it ended up with the great peter thurston an david polard sponser of peter called D.J. INVICTA IN KENT he is ace there both ace they loved it like we do he is a gifted an special engineer the car was produced on with his skills an daves love for it with out them it may not have been kept alive but now i think am the luckist man in the world

[GT_lenny]

what a great story of evolution, luck forward to seeing it ion the flesh - hope its a classic ford

[Trevmk3]

 

loving the colour coded camper

 

should be good to see if it is at CF

[Billy_smith]

i watched the video story on you tube you should put the link up mate

[leecostello]

go on you tube type in

 

NW GT 88

 

its on that video with the great maurice lyon racing it my dads race partner theres iam also on Retards Club always updating it it i started my own group on the development of the car i have 44 people already hahah

[D-FENS]

This car looks fantastic .I saw it at Goodwood Festival Of Speed a few years back .Please put the link to you tube on here .

[squadge78]

his Retards Club page is 'lee costello racing' for anyone interested in seeing more pics of this awesome car.

[leecostello]

go on you tube write my name lee costello youll see the car an watch it its a mok up not finished too but its ok

[filicapri]

awesome machine

[leecostello]

haha i tried getting it on i was talkding to tony hazlewood last night with the daf v8 he wishes me well in the racing career what a top bloke

[squadge78]

is it going down the strip at classic ford lee?

[LEONMEX]

what a brilliant read & some precious history there

Quality escort

[popeye]

very nice will be good to see it at the ford show

[leecostello]

am going to go in it every thance i get hahah

ill try an get it ready 4 then

[sambo]

 

Awesome mate, its really good to hear that you are re-united with the car.

It has always been one of the special cars on the CF scene and i always would have loved this beast in my garage!

 

Nice one mate, i look forward to hearing and seeing the car about.

[leecostello]

there are so many decent supporting people of the escort its great too see people liking the car its made my day well year

 

ispent a full day wet flatting it the preparation b4 hand i went sick on it i welded the rear end an brazed the panels because there was a feeling of too much perfection like teaching your child giving support to her or him all my life i have wanted to work on this mental piece of machinery

but?

ive done max power cars revs even a few classic ford ones even them stupid old mercs classics coming out of my ass

loads jus lost count i have done everything when i got into the car i was faffing like norris off corantion street stutters?

 

then i realised?

 

i have been body work on cars for gone ten years now

 

TREAT IT LIKE A NORMAL JOB

 

after doing that i realised my skills where put into practice only thing i have left is the windscreen scuttle panel an the great peter thurston desgined sr 71 blackbird wings on the side after that ill be lookin at youre cars not mine at classic ford iam not there too show off mine

just to be in the place where see better classic ford day

[morcheen]

found the feature on the car in classic ford from jan 03

[pinto48s]

hi lee

its good to see this car has gone to a good home.

i used to work for peter thurston and saw the car every day!

did peter give you the pics of it when he crashed it?

If you sand right through the paint on the rear 1/4's you can see every colour it was painted through the years, there's quite a few!

what a history that car has, if only it could talk!

cheers geoff

[leecostello]

iam tracing down the histroy now there lots of it it may be a ex nick whiting car or not but possibilites its broadspeed car zakspeed it was walter robertsons thats for sure my dad bought it in them colours it had a nerbergring sticker in the rear window at the passinger side am not sure where or what possibly its german import or maybe someone stuck it there theres history all over ill soon be filling in them gaps hahah

 

ill be out soon as well