The Escort RS Cosworth is many things to many people. A trailblazer by all accounts, the most distinctive feature of the hot hatchback is the spoiler.
Frank Stephenson penned the double spoiler almost three decades ago, and he refers to it as “the very first project out of college that I had to tackle.” The American automotive designer was particularly inspired by the Fokker DR-1 triplane, arguably the most famous fighter plane from WWI, made famous by none other than the Red Baron.
Photoshop meister Abimelec Arellano took inspiration from the Escort RS Cosworth to create a digital composition of a car that never existed. As you already know by now, the whale tail has been attached to a Mustang. This rendering started out as a question: “What if Ford wanted to bring a little bit of Cosworth to American soil?”
Arellano makes a case for the Merkur XR4Ti as the closest thing the United States got to the Escort RS Cosworth, but that fellow didn’t have a British engine. According to the pixel wizard, “I imagined the SN95 Mustang with the same YBT four-cylinder turbo engine as the Escort to continue the SVO line, but in a more extreme fashion.”
What comes as extremely curious about this design study is, of course, the SN95 generation. The first major redesign of the pony car in 15 years wasn’t received all that well by the target market, especially if you were looking to trade in your Fox-body ‘Stang. Forgive me for saying it, but the styling was vanilla even by 1990s standards.
Turning our attention back to the rendering, Arellano has even fashioned a promotional flyer of the damn thing. From the said piece of advertising, we learn that 224 boosted horsepower are hiding under the hood. The question is, does that output hold a candle to the 302-cu. in. V8 marketed as the 5.0 although it displaces 4.94 liters?
It may be nine horsepower down on the Cosworth YBT, but torque favors the free-breathing motor thanks to 285 pound-feet (386 Nm) at 3,400 rpm versus 224 pound-feet (304 Nm) at 3,500 rpm. There is, however, a bigger problem with this design study. More to the point, how do you open the trunk now?
New “What-If”! And this one is a bit special because I made a video of how its done! You can check that out here:...
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News