The Ford Escort Mk1 RS is back, and it costs supercar money

This is not a restored Escort

Boreham Motorworks calls its Ford Escort Mk1 RS a “Continumod”. The word may sound like marketing, but the distinction matters. The company is not hunting down donor cars, cutting up tired old bodyshells and grafting modern hardware onto them. Each car is built from scratch as a new vehicle, but under official Ford licence and with a certified chassis number.

Production is limited to 150 cars, with both left- and right-hand-drive versions offered.

That makes the project more interesting than a straightforward nostalgia build. The Escort Mk1 RS touches a very specific nerve in British and European car culture. The original Mk1 Escort was simple, light and mechanically honest, and it became a legend on rallies and circuits alike. Boreham is not placing that history behind glass. It is trying to recreate the same basic idea with modern materials, tighter engineering and far greater precision.

Two engines, two very different characters

The engine line-up is split clearly in two. The entry version uses an 1845cc naturally aspirated Twin Cam four-cylinder engine, producing 185PS, or 136kW, and revving to 8500rpm. Power goes to the rear wheels through a four-speed manual gearbox, chosen to preserve as much of the original Escort’s period character as possible.

The real highlight is the TEN-K. This 2.1-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine produces 330PS, or 243kW, according to Boreham, and revs to 10,000rpm. The engine weighs just 85kg and uses individual throttle bodies, a carbon-fibre airbox, forged connecting rods, billet-machined components, a lightweight single-mass flywheel and a twin-plate clutch.

In the range-topping version, the TEN-K sends power to the rear wheels through a five-speed dog-leg manual gearbox. Torque is about 210Nm.

Next to modern turbocharged engines, 210Nm does not sound especially dramatic, but that is not the point of this car. With a target weight of 895kg, 243kW gives the Escort a power-to-weight ratio of around 272kW per tonne. That puts this small Ford into serious sports-car territory, but with a very different flavour: less tyre width and electronic mediation, more throttle precision, revs and driver input.

Steel structure, carbon where it counts

The Escort Mk1 RS uses a new steel monocoque bodyshell, strengthened and adapted for the modern powertrain and cabin. The bonnet, boot lid and structural interior panels are made from carbon fibre. Compared with a period-correct original shell, torsional stiffness increases by 50 percent.

The dimensions remain close to the old Escort, but this is not a millimetre-perfect copy. The car is 3780mm long, 1703mm wide and 1335mm tall. The wheelbase has been extended by 30mm compared with the original geometry to improve stability at higher speeds.

That is a small but telling change. The original Escort was born in a period when speeds, tyres and grip belonged to a very different world.

Mechanical, not digital

Boreham has not fitted power steering, ABS or traction control. In 2026, that sounds almost provocative, but it is central to the car’s character. The driver does not choose modes or expect an algorithm to tidy things up at the last moment. The car asks for skill and promises direct feedback in return.

At the front, there is a MacPherson strut layout mounted on a bespoke tubular frame. At the rear, a six-link live axle uses aluminium and titanium in a design that Boreham says halves the rear unsprung mass. A mechanical torque-biasing differential helps the rear tyres find traction without an electronic filter.

The brakes are modest by modern supercar standards, but logical for the weight. The front uses 300mm two-piece ventilated discs with four-piston calipers, while the rear gets 260mm discs and two-piston calipers. Tyres are Yokohama A052s, measuring 205/50 R15 at the front and 225/50 R15 at the rear.

An everyman Escort becomes a collector-grade special

Boreham is asking from £295,000 before taxes and options for the Ford Escort Mk1 RS, or roughly €342,000.

That price finally severs the Escort from its old everyman image. The original Escort RS2000 produced about 74kW in the 1970s, weighed around 914kg and reached 0-97km/h in about nine seconds. The new Boreham Escort follows the same basic formula of low weight, rear-wheel drive and a mechanical connection with the driver, but delivers it at the price of an exclusive hand-built car.

In European market terms, this is not competing with a new Ford Mustang or any ordinary sports coupe. Its real rivals live in the world of expensive restomods, officially sanctioned limited-run specials and continuation-style machines, where buyers are not paying only for speed. They are paying for the story, the chassis number, the materials, the craftsmanship and the exclusivity.

Why this Escort matters

The Boreham Escort Mk1 RS shows that the idea of a classic car can live on without endlessly cutting up donor vehicles. Restoring old bodyshells is becoming more expensive, good source cars are increasingly scarce, and enthusiasts increasingly want something they can actually drive, not just admire in an auction catalogue.

The new Escort answers that contradiction in a wildly expensive but technically clean way.

It also raises a fair question: how much of an old car’s soul remains when every part is newly made? The answer depends on the driver. For a purist, this may be too perfect and too expensive. For a driving enthusiast, that may be exactly the appeal: old Escort proportions, rear-wheel drive and analogue feel, combined with modern stiffness, grip and reliability.