matt_jagger

I've got to say

Photo's were great

Seeing the first breed and evolution even better

Hearing a guys life story not so good.

Interesting as that guy was, in what he's done through his life, and how he grafted to afford these two icons of the second best era of touring car racing ever. But my god it went on and on and the last few paragraphs were about the cars.

There's little information about these cars I understand, however is this was a group A RS500 we'd be into the engineering behind it, the specs, spec list, where some magnisium bits came from, who got around this and developed that.

These two mondeo's won't be back in the magazine again for a very long time, and all we really have, again, is a few brief words on where they raced, who raced them, and blah blah.

I'm sorry if I sound a bit sour, but I would have loved some in depth knowlege on the production, the engineering, the specs etc.

Nothing, not even about the engine being a mazda unit, sounding the way it does because it fires odd, it needed reducing in cc to meet regulations, the shell had how many man hours? has composite what? is running what suspension, wheels, brakes exhaust is this or that etc?? you get the picture.

Maybe it's because the magazine couldn't turn up enough info on the cars, and so filled the write up with a this is your life bumf to fill out the pages with the great pictures on.

Again, the guy sounds great, really happy it all worked out for him, life generally has been great for this hard working skilled driver. But really, the mondeo's were a filler and the topic should have been the gent who owns them, as apposed to the normal one picture of the owner and his trials and tribulations of snapped rods and under fueling problems while beuilding a monster spec car etc.

I just want to know more about the cars and thier specs!! wahhhh!! :-(

axelriet

I know someone who actually has a Mondeo. I was told Ford stopped the production chain to use thinner steel to make the touring car shells, so the shells are considerably lighter than the normal production shells. This says a lot about the manufacturer’s commitment and makes these cars very special.

I actually saw the car once, everything is a low as technically possible, even the wiper motor is on the floor, next to the driver’s feet, and the engine management system is a Pectel T10 ECU, that about all I know (I was not particularly interested in this car, nor in the all-carbon-fiber DTM Mercedes sitting next to it, I was there for the Escort WRC and Sierra Cosworth GrA he also owns).

lacey

I know that I machined the oil pumps for the prodrive btc Mondeo back in 1999/2000 then watch the cars a snet door the night racing , that was good

wibbler

The Supertouring cars are pretty interesting when you start to dig into them, not just the clever engineering within the regs but all the subtle (and not so subtle) cheating that was going on.

So you have things like the Volvo heads which were hugely expensive to do things within the letter of the regs while managing to completely ignore the intent.

Or the bodyshells which were 'production' shells but actually quite different, not just gauge of the steel but also sometimes built to different dimensions so they looked OK but actually were actually a different car! Thinner gauge steel (to the minimum tolerance in the regs) is normal enough as per the Focus WRC shells but at least those came off the production spec presses.

The bits that get really interesting is when you start to look at some of the block & head castings, on the Audi cars the only standard bit was the part number on the casting, shame that when you put them next to the actual production part you realised the design and material wasn't the same...

axelriet

Yeah, only slightly different from the production cars... On the Mondeo the engine is mounted so LOW the driveshafts goes inside the "V", I'm not sure how to explain this: they tilted the (transversal V6) engine towards the front and moved it back a lot, and managed to mount it with one cylinder bank under the front shafts, this has to be seen to be believed. I believe the transmission was made by Xtrac.

I did not find any pics of the Mondeo, but below are a few snaps of the Mercedes I took with my cell phone. Sorry for the low quality, those images are old already. Look how incredibly low the engine is on that car, too: if you stand next to the car, the top of the engine is well below the level of your knees.







..all in an innocent looking "street car"