What was fords idea of the escort gti why gti and not their normal regular names such as s rs st

 

Insurance reasons as Rs and Xrs was cheaper to insure,and too get away from the wide boy image XR,s had all imo of course could be wrong

 

Because it isn't a RS, Sports Technologists were not around at that time, it just another name which means it's "hot".

Martin

 

The RS2000 had been dropped due to insurance etc contributing to poor sales. The GTi came along as something a fair bit more sportily styled to add a bit of hot hatch credibility without overdoing it by boosting performance over the 1.8 Si etc but making it more visually appealing.

Obviously couldn't call it RS, It was before the ST Brand was created and there was already an Si. Not really much else you could call it really.

 

The ST brand was around, first ST was the ST24, launched in 1996, the Escort GTi was not launched till 1997

 

certainly wasn't fast/special enough to be an rs. it was just the mk6 escort XR3i without that particular badge.

 

My bad forgot about that and the ST200.

Martin