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Heroes for everyday life - Ford Escort RS Cosworth meets Toyota Celica GT-Four

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Created in 2013

Text:

Roland Scharf

Photos:

Robert May

72

Ford Motor Company

2

Toyota / Werk

1

Robert May

72

Ford Motor Company

2

Toyota / Werk

1

Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Bulky versus reserved

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - One goal, two realizations

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - One goal, two realizations

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Escort looks towards the Celica

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Here you can see how angular the Ford is compared to the Celica

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Two rally cars, not a single title

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - mass phenomenon and rarity

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Excess in two languages

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Two homologation monsters of different natures

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Both look at home on gravel

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Unsuccessful on the race track, but fantastic on the road

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Dragging clouds of dust behind them

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - round versus angular

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Japan versus England

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Created to topple Lancia from the throne

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - off the beaten track

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - The differences at the rear are huge.

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - The Escort's wing makes almost every other rear spoiler look small

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) & Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Conventional spoiler versus the mutant wing

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - The GT-Four lettering

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Tiny spoiler compared to the Escort

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - The interior looks more luxurious than the Ford

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - The engine with twin-entry turbo

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - The golden rims are a distinguishing feature of the GT-Four

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - The front is characterized by four large glubschers

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Only around 300 units made it to Europe

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Air intake on the hood

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - kicks up dust

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - On the road, as befits a rally homologation model

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - On gravel

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - An (almost) real rally car

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Raising dust

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - With mud flaps

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - With mud flaps

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Looks almost cheerful from the front

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - flat on the bend

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - on the powerslide

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Driving as it should be driven

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - Drags a cloud of dust behind it

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - The Celica seems to feel at home on the gravel

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Toyota Celica GT-Four (1994) - The Celica seems to feel at home on the gravel

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - The mighty rear spoiler

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - With rumpus bar

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - One of the most striking rear spoilers

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - form follows function

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - It also looks strong from the front

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - massive

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - shows its rally genes from all sides

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Looks almost too strong to be moved

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Became a mass phenomenon

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Designed by Frank Stephenson

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - The engine with a massive air filter

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Thanks to the air intakes on the hood, you can always keep an eye on the weather from under the hood too

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - The massive air filter

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Cross strut in body color

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - The engine looks like pure racing sport

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - A work of art

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Purist interior

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - The interior is more functional than that of the Toyota

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Beauty comes in many forms

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - The air intake

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - ironing board and spoiler in one

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Should originally still have an element in the middle

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - On the move

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - On the road like a rally car

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - The wing is likely to polarize

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - On the shortened platform of the Sierra Cosworth 4x4

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - bristling with power

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Looks fast, is fast

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Despite all his efforts and investments, he was never able to win a title

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1992) - Untitled legend

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Ford Escort RS Cosworth (1995) - François Delecour at the 1995 Rally Sweden

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Ford Escort WRC (1997) - Carlos Sainz wins the 1997 Acropolis Rally, the Cosworth had been converted into a World Rally Car

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Toyota Celica GT Four (1997) - Grönholm at the 1997 Sweden Rally

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Summary

Those who sent road cars onto the rally warpath 20 years ago souped up bourgeois men with steroids and created homologated mutants from mass-produced cars. The Ford Escort RS Cosworth and Toyota Celica GT-Four represent a time when rallying still stood for brand identity. This article compares the two homologation vehicles and shows them in many pictures.

This article contains the following chapters

Ford Escort RS Cosworth
Toyota Celica GT-Four
Facts, figures and data
The competition
In war paint
Rally review
And today?

Estimated reading time: 9min

Preview (beginning of the article)

When it's always the same guy winning in sport and the underdogs simply don't stand a chance, it quickly becomes boring and the audience zaps away. The rally scene serves as a tragic example: from 1987 to 1993, there was simply no way around the Lancia Delta Integrale and its evolutions. It may have been impressive, but it didn't do the sport any good. In any case, two manufacturers saw their big chance of winning the title after the Italians withdrew and came up with new equipment: Toyota and Ford were old hands in rallying, but their homologation equipment at the time was still something special. The Group A regulations forced the car companies to build extra-hot versions of normal mass-produced cars that they would never have built otherwise. Boxes that stood like mutated relatives next to the well-behaved variants in the showroom defined the high point of the turbo/all-wheel-drive era that infected the corporations at the time. And whose mix of sport and enthusiasm gave rise to the kind of lunacy that makes a car legendary - regardless of horsepower, size or lettering.

Welcome to Zwischengas!

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