trio

iTrader: (1)

Hi folks, a friend of mine has recently managed to get his hands on an original ford rs500 reshell, hes had his eye on this shell for years, a rich buinsness man has owned it since new, and it has been stored in a barn ever since, my friend worked at the farm as a teenager that the buisness man owned, and spotted the shell, along with another full rs500 in a bubble, and a mk1 escort. ive always heard storys of these car that friends have told me but never seen them for myself.

Recently my friend has talked the farm owner buisness man(who is now an old man) into letting him buy the shell from him, my friend says hes paid £1000 for it, which seems cheap for what it is, my friend says hes been offered 7-10 grand for it, now i really wouldnt have a clue what one of these reshells is worth, but 7-10 grand seems a bit farfetched, especially as my mate has a habbit of talking alot of bull****.

Anyway my friend now has plans to build up an rs500, he currently ownes a nissan s13 that apex performance built for a customer a good few years ago,he bought its as a 90% finished project, i dont know much about this s13, other than its set up as a drift car, is painted gold and black and has ksport decals down the side, and has quite a few ksport goodies fitted, forged engine, ect, ive looked around this car and its a bit of a dog tbh, radiator held on with zip ties ect, as my mate doesnt really have a clue about tuning cars and has wrecked it really, hes just a chav who raggs the **** of fast cars through our quiet village. he plans to base the rs500 on the s13, god knows what he means by this, but i fear the worst.

Ive suggested that as its a collectors car, it should really be built up as close as possible to an original rs500, my friend has other ideas mainly in the form of black paint work ,blacked out windows, massive deepdish rims, a different spolier, nos, and fully stripped out, i cant help but think that hes just going to ruin it, ive tried to talk sense into him but it just doesnt sink in.

i think this is absolute sacrilege, what do you guys think?

regards Tristan

Dave Thornton

What motivates your friend? Is it money, or owning/building a nice car, or just blasting through the neighbourhood with a loud exhaust? At this stage, try to find out what he is looking to achieve with this potentially prized asset?

Frosticles

iTrader: (1)

The RS500 wasn't a special one off build but built from standard road going 3 Door RS Cosworth's that were then shipped to Tickford for the conversion into the RS500.

Tell your mate if he ruins it the the boys will be paying him a visit!!!!!!!!! Tell him to buy a 3 door 1.6 shell and tit about with that instead!!!

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

If he's a chav sceffer, why are you mates with him?

stilover

The RS500 is the Daddy.

Chaved up Cosworths look awful, and your mate should be shot.

Bean1984

iTrader: (3)

Well thats really strange a mate of mine had excatly the same experiance and bought his rs500 from a barn at least a year ago

PaulJC

iTrader: (1)

It's only a shell, surely the farmer should be shot for harbouring an already ruined car...

Collectors item or not (And i do love a 3 door having owned one) it is still only £1k worth of shell to your mate... The expensive RS500 parts are the bumper, boot spoiler, intercooler and 8 injector intake setup of which none are obviously included...

CrisPDuk

If by 'reshell' you mean a bare original factory bodyshell there is no such thing as an RS500 shell, it's just a 3 door Sierra shell. Still nice to have but nothing particularly special. There are literally dozens of 'Cosworths' still on the road (and racing), that definitely never left Ford with 16 valves, or a turbocharger

If by 'reshell' you mean it's an original RS500 that for some reason was re-shelled by Ford and is complete, tampering with it is obviously a crime

If it's the former, depending on condition, and what other panels come with it, a grand is probably about he ight price to be honest

CrisPDuk

Not a Cossie man myself though tbh, I prefer my 3 doors with more windows

Ste RB5138

Aaah the old 2.8 XR4i, a rarer sight on the roads than a 3 dr Cossie.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

yea coz most of them have rusted away to oblivion

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

As for the ops mate, jus shoot him, he sounds a bit of a bellend to be honest, regardless of what he has or hasn't got.

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

The RS500 shell had the corner cut off of the battery tray from the factory to clear the larger inlet manifold There might be other differences but I'm not that nerdy

CrisPDuk

I don't see how that's possible Paulo

Like Frosticles said, all 500 cars that Tickford built were converted from complete 3 door cars, that had already left Ford's assembly line

Which, as an aside, begs a question that's suddenly just occurred to me;
Since an RS500 engine is a significantly different beast, which was installed complete, does someone have 500 unused original 3 door engines, with ancilliaries sat in a shed somewhere

CrisPDuk

Nah, they always were a rarer car than the cossie

Mainly because they were not as well specced as (and a chunk more expensive than) the 2.8 Capris they were intended to replace

Very few had power steering, they all had **** suspension (worse even than a Capri), they were heavier and slower, and the interiors were awful

Mine is mostly cured of all that though

trio

iTrader: (1)

To be honest I know very little about this shell, and as yet have not seen it, i dont know whether it is a original stripped rs500 shell or just a normal 3 door shell.

The farmer that sold this shell to my friend ownes one of the biggest game hatcheries in europe, and also has a love of rally cars, he has an original standard black rs500 in a bubble, has owned subarus, and other cosworths.

I have known my friend a long time, he's one of the types that talks alot of bollocks, and knows little about everything, but as he's a mate, I can't really say much other than take the ****.

I've tried to tell him if it is a original rs500 shell it need built into a minter as that is what it deserves, his plans are to build it into something out of fast and the furious, which makes me sick, I can see it now, full of chaved up tat, but it's his car and he can do as he pleases. If his other cars are anything to go by it will be a wreck!

He also thinks he's goin to build this car on a budget of 8 grand, which I laughed at, he really is that deluded, I tried to tell him a decent engine build will eat up most of that, never mind everything else the shell will need, and he thinks a specialist will do it for that money.

My suspicions is this car will never see the road anyway.

Regards Triatan

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

I didn't realise the block was different but take a look at this to see the differences between the 3 door and RS500 http://www.rs-500.com/p_RS_500_History.ikml

I thought the differences were only aero, inlet manifold, turbo, intercooler & the battery tray

wilbo

iTrader: (1)

I can relate to this as I have a mate that bought a standard Gen6 Celica GT4 (I also had a celica at the time) and he spoke of his plans to mod it based on the green mitsubushi eclipse from the original fast n furious, he even planned a lime green respray! I told him that was madness and the GT4 shouldnt be tinkered with too much (apart from the engine!). Luckily, so far he hasnt changed it too much although it does have a ripspeed tv screen in there and he has a 2 level carbon spoiler (thankfully not fitted yet!).

I agree that it seems madness to modify a RS500 based on an S13, try to show him pics of the original car and hopefully he will see it in another light, or perhaps he should join a ford forum for a poll / vote, pretty sure we all know what the majority vote would be.

CrisPDuk

I knew about most of the differences, I didn't know the front bumper was different, I always thought it was the standard bumper with an extra splitter fitted.

I knew about the rear suspension differences, the beam on my 4i has the extra brackets fitted. It's not a real RS5 one though, only a copy

Mike123

Hmm depends if you include the 4 door variants or not

3 door Cosworths - approx 5,542
3-door XR4is - approx 25,662

WRXrowdy

iTrader: (2)

I always thought (had heard somewhere) that the cossie body shell (and the 5 door XR4x4) differed from standard shells (i.e 3 door 1.6L etc) by being double skinned in areas like the suspension mounts/inner wheel arch by Fords AVO division. Could be completely wrong though.

tony de wonderful

So he's basically gonna take the motor and box out of the S13 and put it in the Sierra?

I think an CA18 or SR20 wouldn't be bad in principle but isn't the Sierra a transverse lay out?

Or just shove the Nissan motor in and not bother with AWD, just dirty RWD bodge job?

Might as well just get an old RB25 or RB26 and do that, sell the S13 for a rebuilt RB.

I'd like to see an RB'd Sierra actually.

Might be a squeeze but you can fit them in RX7's.

WRXrowdy

iTrader: (2)

No

EddScott

This, absolutely this.



I remember back in the lax bowels days there were a couple of Escort Cossies that had had V8s put in them. Owned by asians IIRC - not the fact that they were asian but I always thought it an odd choice of engine for them (hardly well known for their love of Rover V8s are they?)

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Think of a Sierra as a rebodied Cortina with independant rear suspension.

Its far too archaic to have a traverse engine...that was only reserved for the likes of advanced manufacturers like Austin.

CrisPDuk

Actually, when you peer underneath, they look like a beefed up Anglia, apart from the IRS which was probably copied from BMW

Ford have only ever updated chassis parts if they absolutely had too, it's only very recently that they stopped fitting Mk1 Escort rear brakes to Mondeos

CrisPDuk

The vast majority of 4is must have stayed in Mainland Europe then, they've never been a particularly common sight on UK roads

CrisPDuk

I own an XR4x4 and a 4i, and have broken a fair few lesser Sierras, and I can tell you the only differences are the larger 4x4 transmission tunnels, and the notches in the front inner wings to clear driveshafts.

The major difference with the XRs & Cosworths, was that the bare bodyshells didn't get left outside for weeks before being painted, as happened with all UK built Fords of that era

The only Sierra shells Boreham ever saw were the ones destined for rallying, those had plenty of extra strengthening added