Sparky had purchased the car as a completely standard 1.1-litre example. As you can probably tell, it didn’t stay factory for long. His first port of call was acquiring a donor car that he could dissect and glean the needed repair parts from. After all, the car had been sitting for a little over three years, enough time for things to begin to rot. As it happens, the X-pack arches were pretty much a fluke. One of the first donor cars just happened to have the arches already in-place, although the car itself was rotten. Bit of a result for Sparky.

With the car up and running, taxed and tested, it was time to bin that weedy 1.1-litre lump. Like a host of Mk1 and Mk2 owners, Sparky sourced a Pinto block for his ongoing project, keeping the heart and soul of the project within the family. That having been said, it wasn’t too long before he was changing his mind. He took the car to one of Santa Pod’s many Run What Ya Brung days and soon found the Pinto block struggling at the top end. He wasn’t expecting it to set any quarter-mile records in its standard guise, but just hoped for a bit more higher up the rev range. It was at this point he began to reason with himself. Should he persevere with the Pinto lump and risk experiencing reliability issues as he began fettling, or should he go for a later, more dependable engine, one with more natural and easily released top-end grunt? The thing was, Sparky was building the car on a budget, and even though he’d been carrying out the work himself, he still needed to watch the pennies. What he therefore needed was a block not too expensive, perhaps significantly younger for reliability, and one with more high-end potential. And although there were a number of different options available to Sparky, it was Surrey-based tuner, SBD Motorsport, that ultimately made his decision for him.

The block itself wasn’t too much of an issue. With a little shuffling around there was enough room for the engine. The gearbox, on the other hand, is a bit bigger than the one the Mk2 was originally designed to accommodate, so the tunnel had already been modifed to provide enough clearance. The engine mounts are directly welded to the chassis rails to keep the centre of gravity lower than if mounted to the crossmember. A RS2000 two-piece propshaft is used to translate the power down.

With some tax and ticket to its name, the mechanic was loving his reworked Escort, although by his own admission, it actually felt a touch slower than it did before. That having been said, he knew the potential of the block, and when funds became available, he soon began releasing plenty of reliable power. The majority of the additional goodies came from SBD. Fast 230 road cams, pocketed pistons and a four-branch heat-wrapped manifold were all ordered, along with twin 45 Dellorto carbs, adjustable verniers and a custom twin-box exhaust. Once set up, this all made a dramatic difference and instilled some real fire in the Ford’s belly. But sadly, other commitments meant that Sparky couldn’t invest as much time and money into his project in the coming months. Although he was unable to use it, he couldn’t bring himself to sell it, so the Escort was bubble-wrapped and stored in a barn for the next three years, before Dave managed to wrangle the keys from Sparky’s hand.

It was then back to SBD for an MBE97i engine management system. This meant that a lot of the old wiring, not to mention the tiredcoil could be binned for a more suitable, reliable and mapable setup. Although Dave hasn't had the car back on the rollers since, he's estimating the Mk2 is now good for around 210bhp, a figure we reckon is extremely realistic. What this essentially means is the running gear of this Mk2 is as fruity as its vibrant exterior. As mentioned earlier, the previous owner had already fitted the X-Pack arches after fully seam welding and strengthening the shell. But the paint had dropped a little in places and a few cracks were beginning to appear around the kit. So Dave recruited the help of a mate to give the Escort a fresh squirt of the same blue hue.

Before that could be done though, a few other cosmetic issues came to the fore as the two of them began to rub the shell down. The main issues though were the bottom of the doors. Small rust spots were beginning to bubble through and for the sake £40 a side, Dave invested in new skins. As for the paint itself, Dave didn't know the exact colour. The story goes that when it was resprayed the first time, Sparky pointed to a van in the yard, thought to be a Leyland Daf workhorse, and said that he wanted it as close to that as possible. This meant Dave had to take the car to be colour matched as he didn't have a paint code to go by. The finish is superb, which inspired him to invest in some shiny, deep-dish footwear. "I went for 8x13" Minilites with 185/60 R888s," he explained. "I wanted 13s to keep it '70s if that makes any sense?"