I believe it was the only prototype to be Right Hand Drive, a Road version and was, after testing, so much of a mess it was destroyed by FORD. #006 is mentioned as being used by Trevor Hopkins in the May/June 1989 issue of the RS Owners Club Magazine.
In the 7th newsletter from Graham Robson dated Jan 1990 he states "Car No.6 - Used as a rallycross development car, and soon to be destroyed by FORD"
Using some public available data sources I can see the car bore the chassis number SFACXXBJ2CFM00006, the FM shows the car to have a build date of March 1985 and it goes on to say:-
Make: FORD
Model: RS 200 4WD
Transmission & fuel type: PETROL
Body type: SPORTS
Engine no. FM00006
Colour: White
First Registered: 25/3/1985
Year of Manufacture: 1985
It also states, "There are no plate change or colour change records associated with this car. This car is still registered to its first keeper." so at least we know that she is still FORD's if anyones !
What is interesting though is that on the back of the image below was written "Proto 3 Beujolais Run '85" which appears to be wrong.
"The Portuguese Diabolica Team bought prototype 006 and car 072 from Ford as a spare. 006 was comprehensively written off fair early in it’s rally life. The mechanicals were then transferred to 072 which then went on to have another accident as shown in your picture in which a spectator was killed. The car was then rebuilt using another shell from Ford and upgraded to Evo specifications based upon parts supplied by Ford. This car is now fully restored and lives in Portugal."
And in 2007 some more...
Justin,
"I drove the 006 from Boreham to the Amsterdam Novotel to show it during the sponsoring congress I organised there for the Dutch Ford importer. The car was there during the presentation of Stuart Turner who was involved in the rallyprogram of Stig Andervang and me at that time. I had to temporarily import the car as prototypes were not allowed on the road in Holland. Trying to arrive in Amsterdam I got cooperation of the motorway police who loved the car. One sergeant sat next to me passing all traffic not realising that the indicator light were missing and the brake lights were manually handled! The car was driven back to Boreham next evening. Just for your record. I codrove Stig Andervang in the 1986 Himalayan Rally of India after he gained the Dutch Rallytitle. We went OTL caused by a broken engine."
And then the most interesting bit...
"chassis 6 had 2 big acidents. The first one that killed all that people, and a second one , that destroyed the shell.It was being replaced at Reliant when Gb.B was banned, so we decided to put a road look, but with all rally mechanics under the body.So it looks like a road car but it's a proper rally car.It has 272 Kms on the clock."
"The picture of the crash, it from the second one. As you may see it's in real poor condition.In that rally we put the plates of chassis 72, as chassis 6 was being transferred to Portuguese plates, so it was not allowed to be on the road meanwhile."
He then went on to send me images of the registrations documents for both cars along with Ford documents from the time so, whilst we thought the crash was of 072 it was 006 bearing 072's plates as 072 was off the road already.
To finish the story (so far) I am aware that there is an RS200 still in Portugal that is said to be car 006. I am hoping one day to be invited to see it.
If you find out anything else about this car please drop me an email and I'll update the cars entry !
justin.smith@rs200.org
Images