YouTuber Celebrates 35 Years of Ford Sierra RS 500 Cosworth
Johnny Smith takes a trip down the memory land with two pristine Ford Sierra RS 500 Cosworths
The Blue Oval Brand enjoys quite a celebrated motorsport history. The company managed to dominate Le Mans with the original GT40, and Ford’s iconic Sierra RS 500 Cosworth became an icon in Group A racing during the late 1980s. Former Fifth Gear presenter and proud proprietor of the YouTube channel The Late Brake Show, Johnny Smith (aka CarPervert) recently met up with Rupe Kent, who is the proud owner of a Road going and a Group A racing version of the Sierra RS 500.
2021 marks the 35 years since the Ford Sierra RS 500 Cosworth was first introduced. Ford built Sierra Cosworth to meet homologation requirements, and only 500 roadgoing examples of this three-door motorsport icon were ever produced. “Press journalists drove it around Christmas 1985, and it went on sale in the summer of ‘86, and it’s still one of those cars that’s absolutely steeped in folklore,” said Smith.
Kent’s Group A Sierra RS 500 was raced by Australian racing driver Peter Brock. The car was built by Andy Rouse Engineering, and Andy himself raced Kent’s Sierra RS 500 in the 1988 British Touring Car Championship. Like the GT40, Kent’s Sierra Cosworth racer also has a Le Mans connection.
Le Mans legend, Alain Ferté won the Silverstone TT in 1988 with the help of this very Sierra RS 500 Cosworth. The road-going version was powered by a 2-liter DOHC 16-valve inline four-cylinder motor, which is mated to a Garrett T04 turbocharger. Equipped with a giant air-to-air intercooler, this powerplant produces 224 BHP of power and 207 LB ft of maximum torque. Smith also highlighted a major difference between the standard car and its racing counterpart.
“It’s hard to imagine the power that this racing version had. I mean that standard car had 225/224 horsepower going into 500 odds in a race car with very little technology really,” said Smith. Kent’s race-spec Sierra sports one of the most coveted liveries from that era. The car was last raised in the 1990s and is one of the most pristine examples of the iconic racer remaining today.
Staying true to The Late Brake Show format, Smith got to go on a drive in the standard RS 500 and almost immediately noticed the car’s low mileage that stands at just 34000 miles. “I think what I like about this is that it’s a driver’s car that’s actually very very Spartan. It hasn’t got any technology. It’s got ABS that’s probably as deep as the technology gets,” said Smith.