Back from this crazy holiday, time for some sort of write up.
Somehow we managed to "finish" the Escort in time for the trip. We had to give it a very rushed "chalkboard" paint job. It'll get something better soon, as will the grille.
This is at the first service station, which was genuinely the first test run for the Escort. Couldn't cut it any finer than that. In hindsight I'm not sure what we were thinking taking this untested thing to the nurburgring! The seats are huge because the other guys needed the XL size.
Interior is a work in progress:
It is extremely loud and unpleasant to drive. We had no heater, and there's gaps everywhere, fumes galore. The throttle is basically on or off and the clutch biting point is very high - good fun in traffic. Plenty to sort out later, but it was running quite well and had enough poke to have fun. It being left hand drive gave me even more to think about.
With having a temporary chalkboard paint job it wasn't long before we sketched all over it. You can also see the other cars we went with - a stripped out Civic and a Megane rs thingy.
We made it to Belgium, then the inevitable happened. A passer-by asked "is it fast?", so the driver at the time cleverly decided to launch it, but succeeded only in shearing a half-shaft. Needless to say we didn't take any spares beyond a spare tyre and fuses.
At this point it was still relatively early in the day, so we found a wi-fi source and started looking for spares in Belgium. We found this guy who builds rally cars, primarily Escorts, only about 1 hour away (in the wrong direction though). We called him up and said we'd probably arrive after normal working hours (on a Saturday night) - he said he was used to having to do this sort of thing so it's no bother - what a hero!
The only way to get the car there was to call up our breakdown service and ask if they could take it to this specialist. Eventually a truck arrives, but the driver wasn't willing to go beyond his normal range, plus the language barrier made it even more awkward. We end up getting taken to his depo, where he got us to call up our insurance/breakdown cover to get them to confirm that they will pay this driver to go the full distance.
This turns into a massive nightmare. The insurance weren't getting back to us, we kept calling up and getting different people with different answers, blah blah blah. Several hours go past - not even kidding. The Escort eventually got loaded onto a truck at something like 9 or 10pm. We had been keeping in touch with the specialist rally guy to say how late we were running - he was still cool with it! We felt pretty bad about hassling him at this time on a Saturday night but having made it this far we really didn't want to give up.
This became a common sight, 4 different recovery trucks in 3 days:
Turned up at this guy's shop somewhere around 10 or 11pm. It was amazing. We felt pretty lucky to be standing in a place like this, and to find a guy as brilliant as this! The panoramic photos seem to have terrible quality.
Angelo the hero sold us a diff and a half-shaft and helped us fit them in record time.
Whilst underneath the Escort we noticed it had broken the mounts on the axle for one of the stabilizer bars (or whatever they're called). It still drove ok on the road so we thought bugger it, lets just get going. We still had to make it to a hotel near the nurburgring which we did but at 4am on Sunday - race day. And that's after driving through the night on the previous night as well. Not a pleasant experience in that thing.
That left us with a few hours sleep before making some last-minute repairs to stop a fuel leak and then head to the ring.
We made it, and much to our surprise some far nicer Fords decided to park beside us:
First time one of the guys tried to go out on the track we were told it needed some things sorting out first. Quick-release steering wheels are not allowed, and the bonnet catches had to be taped down, easy. Second attempt, the guy who basically paid for this car goes out and things start to go very wrong. The other stabiliser bar thingy must've broken because the rear end apparently felt a bit wobbly after a few corners, and then the engine stopped running properly. It was apparently crackling like mad, possibly fuel burning in the carb due to the heat. It couldn't continue so they had to stop on track. Recovery from the track cost 300 Euros! Game over - no point trying to fix things now. The ring was insanely busy and kept getting closed minutes after each time it was re-opened! Don't go at this time of year.
Another friend who had turned up that day towed the Escort back to the hotel for us. Once again the madness of calling up insurance/breakdown began. We were hoping it could be "repatriated" back to the UK whilst we continued on our holiday in the backup Astra diesel. Insurance wanted to confirm that it couldn't be fixed, so the breakdown truck took us to a local garage who sort of looked at it and went "nope" then onwards to their depo. A few more hours were spent at the depo sorting all this out, but eventually it was agreed that the Escort would be recovered all the way back to the UK. WIN! Service like that makes our high insurance cost feel a lot more reasonable.
That's pretty much it. We then headed to Berlin in the Astra where we rented scooters and drank lots of beer in the sun for 6 days. Excellent holiday and despite the disappointment it was probably quite an achievement getting that thing to the nurburgring without any prior testing.
