The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth, offered from 1986 to 1992, was the undisputed head honcho of the whole 1982-1994 Sierra series. Developed by Ford Motorsport Europe in cooperation with Cosworth, the high-performance engineering company from the UK.
The 1986-1989 RS Cosworths were rear wheel drive, with a 5-speed Borg Warner T5 transmission. The later ones were four wheel drive and had a Ford MT75 4×4 transmission.
In 1986 and 1987 it had a 3-door hatchback body, from 1988 onwards the Sierra RS Cosworth was offered as a 4-door sedan.
At its introduction King Sierra was equipped with a 204 hp Cosworth YB-series 4-cylinder 1,993 cc DOHC-16v engine with a Garrett T3 turbocharger. Mind you, it was based on the good ol’ Pinto engine block.
A factory 1986 Sierra RS Cosworth did 0-60 mph in 6.5 seconds and had a top speed of 149 mph.
Given its color this would be a Cosworth YBT engine as used in the Ford Escort RS Cosworth, introduced in 1992. Originally the RWD Sierra RS Cosworth had the YBB engine with a red cam cover. As said, with 204 factory hp.
The blue YBT was good for 230 hp in standard trim. But these engines were highly tunable, hundreds of extra horses could be unleashed. I’ve no idea how many of them are stabled under the hood of the 1986 Sierra RS Cosworth I came upon last month. Never mind, having the pleasure to see a 30 years old Ford legend in a good eat-my-dust condition was enough.
Damn! Want!
V-8’s are SO unnecessary.
But they are fun, in its own way the South African Ford Sierra XR8 with its Mustang GT 5.0 drivetrain was every bit as wild a ride as the RS500.
20 years ago, my uncle had a Merkur XR4Ti rotting away at my grandmother’s house. He refused to sell, because it “would be worth something someday” (it ultimately was hauled to the scrap yard not too long ago). I often dreamed of what I would do to it if he were to sell it to me.
What you see right here is what I wanted to do with it. Sierra RS Cosworth clone. These cars look so amazing!
Really neat cars, the magazines drooled over them, and of course we didn’t get that engine here in the States. Sigh…
I didn’t know one could get color-coordinated engine hoses! Goes to show that not merely fashionistas are into color-matching.
Was the lateral strut-brace standard? And is there evidence the Sierra’s IRS inspired the MN-12’s, or was it NIH again?
Here’s the engine compartment of a 1986 Sierra RS Cosworth (YBB engine with a red cam cover).
Thanks for the pic. In hindsight, the Stateside Merkur was neither fish nor fowl: Not sophisticated or pedigreed enough for Teutonophiles, but not cheap or simple enough to attract red-blooded hot-car fans. The 302 might’ve helped; it’s been installed before. “There ain’t nothin’ wrong with this car that a small-block won’t solve.”
If I’m not mistaken, South Africa got a 5.0 version of the Sierra. They may have been the only ones.
Yes the V8 was only in South Africa. They have form for this sort of thing of course, eg Capri Perana and the Chevrolet Can Am.
The blue hoses will be modern silicone replacements, you can get them in other colours (inc. black) but blue are pretty common.
I had a 1987 Ford Sierra when I was stationed in Germany. It wasn’t a cosworth model.
Just a base one, It was a beater I picked up cheap. I got it squeaked through the inspection. It leaked every fluid but never seemed to need any and the exhaust rusted through. I got rid of it when I found a 1984 Granada Wagon in better shape, It was cheaper to buy the wagon than fix the Sierra. It was a good running car that was a blast to drive. I really wish they had been sold here as a Ford. I think it would have done better.
We rented a Sierra in England for a week or so and came away with a similar opinion. Really nice car to drive and a pleasant surprise all around.
It seems a very curious decision to take the car from the 3-door hatch to the 4-door trunked sedan body for ’88. Was it stiffer, or is that an early example of the move away from coupes and 3-door hatches? It also appears to have lost the outrageous wing in the process…
Maybe the 3 door was being discontinued generally? They were always like hen’s teeth and I don’t recall seeing any post-facelift.
The non-XR4 style 3 door hatch was only sold briefly in the UK with fairly basic trim levels, so it was certainly a surprise here. There’s a local garage with a ‘Cossie’ undergoing long-term rebuilding but it has the later 4 door body.
First picture on Sierra wiki is a post-facelift 3 door, so shows what I know. They must have discontinued them in the UK after nobody bought the 1st gen.
The Sierra RS Cosworth sedan certainly looked less outrageous overall.
On the other hand, in 1992 it was superseded by this monster, the four wheel drive Ford Escort RS Cosworth. As mentioned in the article, with the 230 hp blue Cosworth YBT engine. A very brutal (power, handling and looks) 3-door C-segment hatchback.
The Escort Cosworth was essentially still a Sierra underneath the skin, with the longitudinal engine layout and most mechanical components carried over. The body was made to resemble an Escort, but that’s about it.
The Escort Cossie is indeed a very interesting car. It is as you say basically a Sierra Cosworth chassis underneath with a heavily modified Escort body on top of it. It’s a stretch, but I’d say that’s one of the few instances in modern times where a car has been transformed from transverse engine fwd to longitudinal engine rwd. The Sierra chassis is dynamically a rwd chassis converted to four wheel drive, but as I said, it’s a stretch. Very interesting, nonetheless.
And the Rover 75 V8 is another, even more bizarre example, swapping its polite transverse V6 for a full Mustang drivetrain.
Because the RS Cosworth was an homologation car to qualify the car for Group A, they only had to build 5000 copies, plus 500 of the RS500 ‘evolution’ model. The fact that they didn’t build more suggests that they may have been losing money on them.
I don’t know why they moved to the sedan body for later versions, perhaps they sold better. The four-door cars were used in rallying, so the rear wing was not as important.
Fantastic car.
Too bad they never made it to the USA
Though not sold in Aussie the Sierra Cosworths were inported to race in the local touring car series with lots of success the local Falcon had no V8 engine available so the rules were changed to allow turbo rockets to compete Sierras and the legendary Nissan Skylines showed up and left the local V8 powered cars in their wake except the first time they competed at Bathurst after winning they were disqualified for being some 2mm overwidth and the trophy changed from the Eggenburger Sierra team into Holden pilot Peter Brocks hands, one of the Eggie cars is in NZ I posted photos on the cohort several years ago.
The Eggenburger one’s on Trade Me at the moment – NZ$645,000!
Cool car I found it in the Ford agents showroom in Paihiatua one night stopped to check the load deliberately right outside around 2am.
On our honeymoon in the Spring of 1988, we were driving around in England in a rental car, and found ourselves tangled up at a crowded roundabout with what must have been a road stage of a big-time rally. The rally cars simply used the grassy shoulders of the road to pass all the jammed up traffic, and the rally cars I remember best were the three door Cosworth RS’s. They were in a hurry, and the slightly muffled engines made all sorts of glorious sounds as they bounced by at a fairly high rate of speed for the conditions. On top of the speed and sounds, the air dams, the louvered bonnets, and the big wing structures on the tails made them look like fighter planes sharing space as if the rest of us were in Cessnas. I have always had a soft spot for the Merkurs here in the U.S., but they really aren’t the same thing at all. Those RS’s were the “real deal”.
Very nice Johannes! These Mk1 Sierras were such a pure design around the front, easily my favourite 80s aero-Ford.
New Zealand got the Cossie hatch and the later 2WD and 4WD sedans new – they were Ford NZ’s flagship vehicle, listing at NZ$95K (from memory) in 1990, and a surprising number were sold here – many more have arrived ex-UK since too. We also got the Escort Cossie new, although it didn’t sell as well as the Sierra. My Mk2 wagon shares the Cossie sedan’s 4WD system and the MT75, and is very nice to drive – very sure-footed and capable. It has the 2.9 Cologne with 150hp, so isn’t anywhere near as quick as a Cossie, but the V6 sounds much nicer at speed!
I believe that the Mk2 Cosworth changed to the sedan body due to much higher rigidity. It also helped that the sedan was produced in vast numbers in LHD and RHD compared with the MK2 3-door hatch which was LHD-only and didn’t sell that well. Given that there was no Mk1 sedan, making the Mk2 Cossie a sedan was an instant way to publicise the new bodyshape too.
Aussie Ford fans after Dick Johnson and others raced these with success,moaned about the fact that you could buy these in NZ and not Australia some did cross the ditch used but they were very expensive once the import duty was paid.