Lucky Bugger. How would you like to be paid to drive new cars as fast as you could to discover which parts wear out first. Me, pick me! This is what 30-year-old Graham Millar does for his day job as a senior durability test engineer at Millbrook proving ground, where he helps to condense a car's entire life into just a few months. So he should be well-suited to building his own rally Escort and having a professional insight into which areas are weak links.

Although this Escort is the first Ford that Graham has actually owned, he's been into Fords and rally in particular for ages, and has a soft spot for the Tour of Mull, which takes place on closed public roads on a island on the west coast of Scotland. "A few years ao the local postman entered the rally in a MkII with a normally aspirated Cosworth engine and was beating Evos adn Metro 6R4s - so on tarmac it proves just how competitve an Escort can still be" says Graham. "Having seen how much fun they are to drive, I hust had to have one."

He bought a £500 rot box abandoned project from a friend, which had been stripped to a shell and left in the garage for five years. It had no engine, gearbox, interior or glass but did come with a set of brand-new wings, something that's about as easy to get hold of as the Pope's mobile number. Graham collected the car, and I use the word in the loosest sense, on a trailer and stuffed all the parts inside the rusty shell. As the only original bits remaining are the roof, the boot floor, chassis rails, front panel, rear bumper and windscreen wipers I think you can guess that it was no overnight resto. In fact, it took the best part of four years with Graham doing most of it himself. "I didn't realise how long it would take to sort the body," he admits. If he ever has to weld again it will be too soon. Avenue Panels supplied most of the missing parts, though the bonnet and the oot are fibreglass, to save wieght. He spent £800 on a Custom Cage and then £300 paying Richard at Prepfab Motorsport (01777 228004) to fit it. By then he' done more welding than any sane man could take.

The cage itself it welded to all the suspension ponts, so the rear turrets are both fully braced for rigidity. He then decided to paint the car himself in Citroen Saxo Mango. It's the first car he's painted but he likes a challenge. The two-pack paint only cost £150 (plus £280 for the compressor), all the extra cost for the spay job goes into the labour. OK, so it took him a couple of months, but what the hell. To make the process easier, he even fabricated his own spit and that's now available to hire to his mates (at a good price) shold they decide to spray their own cars! If you recall, the car didn't have an engien but that wasn't a problem for Graham. He'd already done his research and decided what was going to supply his RS2000 with power and reliabilty. Diehard Classic Ford readers might want to skip the next sentence, as Graham turned his back ona trusty Pinto or even Costworth power in favour of a 2-litre,16-valve Vauxhall Astra GTE. Dirty words to some readers, but it would be boring if everyone did the same conversions, wouldn't it?

TECH SPEC

Body

Shot-blasted restored shell with new sills, floors, wheelarches and front end, Gartrac alloy front spoiler, GPP bonnet and boot, seamed-welded, gussetted and reinforced to Group 4 spec, full respray in two-pack paint, carbon fibre mirrors, roof vent.

Engine

2-litre Vauxhall Astra SBD Motorsport conversion, overbored to 86.5, standard crank, polished, lightened and balanced flywheel, standard rods, Kent/SBD cams, Kent verniers, Omega High compression pistons, heavy-duty big end rods, titanium valve caps, unported head with hydraulic followers, double valve springs, SBD tapered throttle bodies, MBE engine management, closed loop Lambda control, modified Vauxhall 8-valve sump, RadFab alloy radiator, DIY heater, ITG foam air filter, exhaust by Design Custom Exhausts, chassis mounted engine, braided pipes and hoses, competition fuel pump and tank, 235 bhp.

Transmission

Sprung paddle clutch on uprated cover, lightened and balanced flywheel, special SBD Ford/Vauxhall alloy bellhousing, Ford Type-9 five-speed gearbox with Quaife Pro straight-cut internals, single-piece shortened and balanced Reco prop, plate LSD, five-linked casing, Rally Design quick shift.

Suspension

Front: Adjustable Bilstein dampers, anti-roll bar, Rose-jointed adjustable TCAs.

Rear: AVO adjustables, five-linked rear axle, upprated bushes.

Brakes

Modifiedpedal box, twin-master cylinders, adjustable brake bias.

Front: Princess four-pot callipers, 285mm cross-drilled vented discs, Pagid ceramic brake pads

Rear: Cosworth rear calliper, hydraulic handbrake, MkII Escort discs, Pagid RS14 ceramic brake pads.

Wheel and Tyres

6 x 13 RS alloys with Yokohama 185/60 x 13 A008R tyres.

Interior

Stripped out interior, full roll cage, safety/competition equipment, Cobra seats, DIY dash and door trims, TSR five-point harnesses, co-driver footrest equipment, OMP steering wheel, alloy pedals, Stack and VDO instruments, Perspex windows

The engine feeds a Ford Sierra, Type-9 five-speed gearbox fitted with Quafe internals and connected up with an adaptor kit which made it all straightforward. However, while Graham is confident that the gearbox can cope with the power, he thinks the wark like in the set-up might be the half-shafts. To deduce tha trisk, he'll stick with standard wheels in the hope they will break traction before he breaks a shaft - fingered crossed.

The wheels are the ones that came in the spares box when he bought the car, although they were tatty so have shot-blasted, powder-coated and painted black - matching Mango wheels were thought to have been a bit much. The 13 inch RS wheel are prevented from turning by the Princess four-pot callipers on the front, combined with 285mm cross-drilled discs from Rally Design. Escort Cosworth callipers and MkII Escort discs take care of the rear, plus the car is fitted with an in-car adjustable brake bias.

Obviously it has been built for competition, sprints, hillclimbs and tarmac rallying. For the latter he'll need a co-driver and despite winning every of his hillclimb championship so far this season, he's yet to convice a willing victim tosit alongise him. Grahm says that half the fun is building it and the other half is driving. If he could just get to compete on Mull then he'd die happy.