Originally Posted by Rick
I think the Japs need motorsport a lot more than ford do. Where would subaru be if it wasn;t for the rally bred impreza? Ford's cars are all curretly pretty much class leaders and sell in massive numbers - fiesta, focus - mondeo (new one out shortly)
So ford can easily do without specialist cars. They can still comptet at top level rallying with the WRC cars. If group A was around, they would have no choice but to build a turbo charged 4wd focus for the road.
Every single RS apart from the fiesta was designed to compete in motorsport. That just isn't needed now.
Don't agree, they may be class leading and sell well...but
Focus...........Golf - Dynamically similar, Golf is current car of the year and I'd rather have the Golf.
Mondeo - Yeah you got that one, but its tried to move up a class and compete against BMW and its losing. More Bee Em's were sold last year than Mondy's
I wish Ford would make a genuine Cosworth again they are fantastic cars. The ST doesn't cut it. Subaru and Mitsubishi prove that stupidly fast cars with wings the size of a small village sell in well enough numbers to warrant making them. Bring back the whaletail and the Cosworth name. Give us a car to be proud of. At the moment, IMHO, every nippy car Ford makes gets modified by its owner to make it the car they want. I think a lot of Escort Cosworths get modified, but there are still a few standard ones as people see them as genuine performance cars and good enough as they are.
Sorry for the long post, thought I'd wade in with my view.
Cheers
Matt