Table of Contents

Foreword Introduction & acknowledgements 1. Early inspiration 2. National Service and club racing - Garage life 3. Training, racing and special building 4. Facing reality and change 5. Engineering at Vauxhall 6. Ford product development 7. AVO evolution and creation - Escort RS1600 - Escort Mexico Mk I - Capri RS2600 - GT 70 8. Rallye Sport, AVO, and survival - Escort RS1600 - 3.0-litre Cortina - Frua-bodied Escort Mexico - Escort 1300E - Escort RS2000 Mk I - Capri RS3100 - Vignale - Granada RS2800 - Granada Coupe for the UK - Off-road Marshal - Pantera for AVO - Personalities 9. AVO goes out fighting - Escort RS2000 Mark II - Escort Mexico Mark II - Capri RS2800 - AVO closes - Some temporary reprieve - Escort RS1800 10. Times for change 11. Motorsport, Escorts RS1700T & RS1600I 12. New generation Rallye Sport - Escort RS Turbo - Sierra RS Cosworth 13. RS200 international rally car 14. Sierra RS500 Cosworth race car 15. Motorsport - where next? 16. Something different 17. Life after Ford Index

About the Author

Born in Birmingham, Mike studied at Wrekin College, Shropshire, going on to National Service for the Army Infantry Commission in Korea, Kenya and Japan, acquiring a taste for speed and danger along the way. A Rootes-qualified mechanical engineer, and always interested in cars, Mike ran the family dealership, plus built and club raced an MG TA and two quick Specials. Mike worked as a design/development engineer for Vauxhall in Luton before spending 23 years with Ford, where he was involved in engineering, product planning, marketing and motorsport. It was during his time there that he project-managed and planned the Ford Rallye Sport cars in the 70s and 80s, and was first inspired by his boss, Stuart Turner, to write this book. Mike has also worked for TWR/JaguarSport, where he was project manager for the Jaguar XJ220 and acted as operations director for Aston Martin. Mike is now Managing Director of KBD Design. In his spare time he is designing/renovating an old house in France, where he moved in 2002.

Reviews

totalkitcar.com, February 2008
To 'Blue Oval' fans there's nothing more evocative then an RS-badged Ford. This book, by authority on the subject (he worked for Stuart Turner at AVO), Mike Moreton, covers the inside story of Ford's Rallye Sport models in the seventies and eighties. The cars were hugely popular with enthusiasts and essential for 'works' teams and private entrants to compete in motorsport, and these affordable performance cars achieved phenomenal success in rallying and circuit racing. Charting the progress of AVO (Advanced Vehicle Operations) and Ford Motorsport, this book covers the celebrated production car-based models from the Escort RS1600 to Sierra RS Cosworth-inspired RS500. Also detailed are the models that never quite made it, such as the RS200 rally car. Here, Moreton relates the real story behind the Rallye Sport cars, from dream to reality, how and why they happened, the behind-the-scenes arguments, the failures and the resounding successes. An interesting

Classic & Sports Car, June 2008
At first, this looks like more Veloce cannon fodder, with our usual moans: unimaginative design, ads in the back and apparently no input from a sub-editor. That said, without the publisher's support, stories such as former Ford AVO and Motorsport man Moreton's might remain untold. And it's an interesting tale, a mixture between an autobiography and a marque history as he adds a personal spin to the story of Ford's AVO and RS competition models and their roadgoing relations. Moreton even went on to project manage the XJ220 for TWR and JaguarSport, which you suspect might be his next book project. Chuck in some fascinating archive - ever seen a Granada RS2 800 or the bewinged Sierra Sapphire rally car prototype? - and this is a must for fans of the Blue Oval's hottest offerings.
Review from Ford News, June 2008
Former motorsport project manager Mike Moreton has penned the 160-page inside story of Rallye Sport Fords. The Boreham-based engineer until 1989 charts the development of over 20 Rallye Sport cars - all offering performance derivations of high volume production Fords. Sandwiched between the opening and closing chapters on Mike's pre- and post-Ford influences and motorsport's future are a mix of people and product stories. The book covers the creation of Advanced Vehicle Operations (AVO) before activities were suspended by the mid-seventies Oil Crisis. They resumed with a second wave of competition-inspired Rallye Sport cars, including the Escort RS Turbo, Sierra RS Cosworth and its RS500 race car.
-Review from Track & Race Cars magazine, June 2008
Mike Morton was heavily involved in the success of Ford's RS cars and here he describes how Ford created Rallye Sport. With his inside knowledge, this gives for a well-informed and detailed account of the RS cars. Tracking back to how he became involved in racing himself and with Ford, you get a real first person view of how things developed. Some unpublished photos and a well-written account of the Ford Motorsport over the years. With its success's in the '70s and '80s this is a real story of progression, innovation and leading the way in motorsport. 4* stars - TRC recommends

Havoc, February 2008
If you are interested in PS Fords then this is a must-have book for you. It is a very well illustrated book with many pictures I'd never seen before. Born in Birmingham Mike Moreton was destined to be connected to the motor trade, his father owned a Morris dealership where he worked during the school holidays. He was a keen motorsport fan and visited many racing circuits in the South of England watching the likes of Fangio, Moss, Hawthorn, Ascari etc. After his National Service he went back to the family garage where he remained for a short time before he began his formal framing when he joined Rootes as trainee mechanical engineer. I found this part of his life fascinating, the way he built his own special racing cars, which were very competitive alongside much more expensive machinery, his driving exploits both on and off the public highway make very entertaining reading. After serving his time at Rootes, he was off to Vauxhall as a designer where he was heavily involved in the design of the Viva and Cresta suspension set up. These next few years also taught him about the politics in the motor industry and this was to prove invaluable when he joined Ford in 1966 because to be honest, with all the internal back-biting, I'm surprised he stayed there! But stay there he did, for 23 years, and after several years in the more mundane areas of the Ford machine, he was invited to work for Stuart Turner at AVO. As a fully paid up AVO nut this part of the book was my favorite. The inside stories are fascinating and I was quite surprised to learn about some of them. For example, it is fair to say that were it not for the Escort 1300E, AVO could have closed in 1972, the year before the RS2000 project began. It seems Stuart Turner and his gang had to beg, borrow and steal work from anywhere they could just to keep the plant going. After AVO closed its production in January 1975, a skeleton design team stayed on to produce such goodies as the Mk2 RS1800 and that was the end of the AVO part ... He moved to Boreham (Motorsport) and spent some time on the Mk2 Escort RSs, the Stillborn RS1700T, PS1600i, Fiestas (and even some trucks), but Mike's biggest project was the RS200, I guess this was one of his favorite cars too, as he spends almost 50 pages on this particular chapter in his career. There are plenty of detailed design drawings and photographs to keep the RS200 fans amongst you very happy indeed ... What do you get when you cross a Reliant with an Aston Martin - you've got it The best looking Group B car of them all ... What a shame they were banned just as the RS had got going. After the banning of Group B his next big project was the Sierra Cosworth 500 face car, another very successful motorsport car - some say so successful, the FIA cancelled the championship as the Sierra was winning too easily. Mike has had a life many petrolheads would give their back teeth for. This book nicely depicts his life and details the Ford RS section of it in a very interesting way. To be honest, there are one or two mistakes, but only an anorak will notice them, it's worth buying for the pictures alone.