THIRD BASE

It may have started out as a lowly base model, but thanks to a massive injection of testosterone this Mk3 has become decidedly frisky.

Daniel Bevis

The idea of reinvention and relentless improvement sits at the very core of the Mk3 Fiesta’s sporting variants. It all started with the Fiesta S, available in either 1.4 or 1.6-litre guises, the latter essentially existing to mop up the unused engines from the Mk2 XR2. When the Mk3 XR2i arrived there was much about it to love for the hardened enthusiast, but it received a distinctly lukewarm reception from the motoring press (Autocar, for example, called it ‘harsh and thrashy’), so to claw back some sporting pedigree, Special Vehicle Engineering set about developing the RS Turbo. Contrary to popular belief, this wasn’t simply a case of dropping the Escort RS Turbo engine straight in, there were myriad differences between the two — and for many, the Fiesta RST instantly…

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Classic Ford (Digital) - 1 Issue, Spring 2025

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