Ford Escort Alan Mann 68 Edition review: ‘The full Sixties experience’

Ah, the iconic bubble-arched Alan Mann Group 5 Ford Escort from 1968!

Well yes. Sort of.

What d’you mean? It won the British Saloon Car Championship that year. Arguably the most unique Ford Escort of all time, only six were built… but, hang on a second...

Yeah, they didn’t have rollcages back then. What you’re looking at here is not a restomod though, instead it’s a nut and bolt, ground up faithful recreation of a legend. Exactly as it was in period, including four-speed gearbox, Lotus 1.8-litre twin cam engine and torsion bar suspension.

Still the work of Alan Mann Racing?

Alan’s son Henry runs the successful operation now, running cars in various historic races and championships, but AMR itself is now owned by the DRVN group – a British automotive design and engineering company. They’re responsible for the Evoluto Ferrari F355, and through another brand, Boreham Motorworks, are Ford’s official partner for restomods and recreations.

Ah, it’s coming back to me now – they’re doing a road going MkI Ford Escort.
Which will be out later this year, complete with a 2.1-litre, 296bhp four pot that revs to 10,000rpm. 150 will be built, each £295,000.

But the Alan Mann car is different?

Entirely. Only 24 of these AMR continuation cars are being built. They’re track only, designed for modern historic racing and, well, the price is so scary that no-one was prepared to tell me what they will cost.

What helps justify the presumably stratospheric price is that in the Sixties very few regulations governed Group 5 racing, so back then the team could basically redesign the regular Escort’s underpinnings from the ground up. Alan Mann was famous for doing things differently, focusing in on the details and using innovative solutions. 

Apparently this car had a fair amount in common with the GT40s AMR also campaigned.

How faithful to the original are we talking?

The very car that won the 1968 championship with Frank Gardner driving, XOO 349F, was stripped down with every component scanned to reverse engineer it exactly as it was. There have been a few subtle changes, the rollcage for one, but also new seats and a less Heath Robinson centre switch panel.

But parked side by side at Thruxton (ironically not a circuit the original ever raced at), they are commendably difficult to tell apart. Perhaps the original car’s gold paint is fractionally deeper and richer, and if so we can probably blame lead in the paint that isn’t allowed nowadays. But to all intents and purposes the new car is indistinguishable from the old.

Which means no heavily modified, cutting edge 10,000rpm four pot here, but instead a period correct 1.8-litre Lotus Twincam developing 205bhp at 8,000rpm. Which, in a car with a dry weight of 795kg (let’s call it 880kg with fluids), is enough.

Can we pause a minute to talk about the way this thing looks?

Sensational, isn’t it? Squat and low with great stance and those pneumatic (and subsequently widely copied) bubble arches. They were needed so Mann could maximise the benefits of the liberal Group 5 regs, which permitted 10-inch wide rear wheels and 8.5-inch fronts. That necessitated entirely new bodywork, and underneath, entirely new suspension design.

Similar modifications were made everywhere back in the day – even the steering column was realigned so it projected at a straighter angle. No expense was spared, no engineering solution too outlandish. As far as the Sixties had a no limits touring car category, Group 5 was it.

What’s it like on the move?

You start slowly, but the car would rather you didn’t. It might be an old design, but it’s a racing car, it’s only got one speed and it’s not ‘pitlane pootle’. The racing twin plate clutch needs revs to pull away, first can be hard to find, there’s plenty of vibration and it honestly feels like all the wheels are pulling in different directions. For the first few hundred yards I wondered at the wisdom of an exact recreation.

And thereafter I had the time of my life. As with all racing cars, it needs to be used hard, and then it just works. Get some pressure in the suspension, some load in the engine and you feel the whole car snap to attention.

As you’d hope it’s a period correct driving experience. This is not a car in which all you do is accelerate, brake and steer and it responds with ruthless precision. You’re busy the whole time, juggling the steering and throttle, rowing the gearlever, planning the next corner. Even driving in a straight line requires concentration – the AMR 68 prefers to be turning.

I expect it likes big sweeping steering inputs doesn’t it?

You’re mistaking this for a Mustang, maybe? Remember how light it is, how short the wheelbase. Every single twitch you make has an instant and marked impact on your speed and trajectory. There’s nothing lazy or languid about it and being quick in it isn’t about opposite lock and big angles, it’s about playing with the balance at the margins.

The brakes are way more potent than you might expect, but this is not a car you trail brake all the way to the apex. Instead you roll off the brakes sooner, turning in and then immediately back on the power to maintain speed and adjust your line. Which you can do with remarkable precision just by blending on and off the throttle.

I found myself using very little steering angle at all, just using it to turn in and from that point on the suspension and throttle were every bit as responsible for line and trajectory. Grip is impressive from the fat little 13-inch wheels, but initially it was a little fidgety through long, fast corners, so Henry suggested we soften the rear dampers off.

And did that make a difference?

A big and brilliant one. Through the quick corners that define Thruxton the Escort now squatted smoothly down on its outside rear wheel and just powered through, nose up, tail down, all the pressure seemingly through that one wheel. Those pictures we’ve all seen of touring cars back then four wheel drifting through corners, almost waggling the unloaded front wheel in the air? This is what it feels like and it’s utterly brilliant. The full Sixties experience.

Massively absorbing, way more entertaining than any modern fast, focused ‘n’ flat racer. This is a car that uses its suspension differently, that isn’t designed to keep the platform as level and neutral as possible at all times, but instead lets you move the pressure around, so you can use the weight to help you.

We could have done more. Playing with the set-up when a car responds so dramatically and excitingly is great fun, and I could have happily spent the afternoon fiddling with the torsion bars, tyre pressures and two-way Koni dampers.

Does it feel fast?

Feel fast? Absolutely. Whether it’s actually travelling that fast is another matter. The four cylinder barks loudly and aggressively inside, and is always eager, but 205bhp on the UKs fastest racetrack means a lot of time spent flat in fourth gear. But still, 205bhp from 1.8 litres on Weber carbs with only two valves per cylinder? That’s impressive.

Through the slower corners it’s the throttle’s instant response and its effect not only on speed but balance that is so notable. And the fact you’re forever juggling gears and trying to finesse heel ‘n’ toe downshifts via the sharp clutch and a gearlever skinnier than most column stalks.

The shift is imprecise at low speeds, a bit vague, but once up and running I never missed – or even fluffed – a shift.

And it is rapid through the mid-range in second and third, pulling really well from 4-7,000rpm, and only tailing off slightly as the 8,000rpm redline hoves into view.

Did it make you pine for the Sixties?

Not in a nostalgic way, more with the realisation of how lucky the racers were back then to have such engaging and absorbing cars to drive. And those days haven’t exactly disappeared. Historic racing is thriving and this is fully eligible to compete – you can choose to have the car either 100 per cent period correct or in modern race trim complete with FIA technical passport and the necessary safety systems (rollcage, seats, harnesses and extinguisher).

Henry Mann hopes the cars will be used to race. Likely because a car that was so quick and successful 60 years ago is likely to still be quick and successful today. They knew what they were doing back then.

This is a special car. It’s rare to drive something that’s not just period correct, but correct down to the tiniest detail, that is so emphatically authentic and true to what’s gone before. Putting on a pee-pot helmet and razzing around Thruxton put me in a time capsule. The thought of lining up alongside a bunch of other touring cars and tearing strips off each other might just be one of the most amusing things you could do in a car. It certainly looks that way when you watch the onboards from Goodwood Revival or Silverstone Classic and this has done precisely nothing to lessen that impression. It’s a wonderfully vivid and fantastically engaging car, one with genuine historic importance and a cracking back story.

I don’t know if DRVN will succeed in selling all 24 of these. Given the likely price and making the assumption that only people who know and appreciate old Escorts and the Alan Mann connection will be interested… well, look, it’s going to be cheaper than buying an actual original.