1970 was a very important year for the Ford Motor Company of GB. This was the year in which the Ford Advanced Vehicle Operations (AVO), and the Ford Rallye Sport (RS) dealer network were setup: AVO to build performance versions of the Ford range of cars and manufacture tuning equipment. The Rallye Sport dealer network to merchandise the AVO products to the public. 1970 was also the year of the Daily Mirror World Cup Rally - won by Hannu Mikkola driving a Ford Escort. In fact Escort took not only 1st but 3rd, 5th, 6th positions.


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The RS1600 was announced 1970, this car was the next development step from the Escort twin cam. The RS1600 was fitted with a 1600cc BDA 16 valve engine.

1599cc, 16 valve, double over head cam, BDA 

120bhp (road), 160bhp (works) 

Top speed 113mph (road) 

During the RS1600's life the works cars started out with 1600cc BDA, 160 bhp engine, 4 speed gearbox and finished with 240 bhp 2000cc BDA engines, five speed ZF gearbox's. 




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The cars that won the World Cup Rally were RS1600's fitted with 1860 pushrod engines (X-flows) instead of the BDA unit. The reason behind this was the pushrod engine was built proof and was Ideal for a long distance event. With the success of the World Cup Rally gave us the MEXICO.

4 Cylinder in-line, OHV, 1598 CC (road) 

86 Bhp / 92 lb ft (Road) 

The Escort Mexico was a RS1600 with a Pushrod (X-Flow) engine. These two cars shared the same AVO strengthened Type 49 body shell.