Tuesday 15 July 2014

Sapphire Cosworth Bodykits / Styling

Standard Bodykit

The sapphire cosworth's came with a colour coded bodykit consisting of a deep front bumper / with fog lights, lower splitter, side skirts, rear spoiler, and colour coded mirrors as standard.

 

 This is a standard rear spoiler        This is the standard side skirts



Standard Sapphire Cosworth with standard front splitter

Rouse Sport Bodykit

Also available when purchasing your Sapphire cosworth there was an option for an additional 4500 + vat (pounds) to have your car sent to one of the 18 dealers across the UK to receive a Rouse sport sierra cosworth either 302-r or 304-r, the last number variation depicting whether it was 4wd or 2wd.
That had a Rouse sport bodykit, with RS500-style fibreglass front splitter, extended side skirts and rear valance, larger rear boot spoiler, colour coded c-pillar mouldings, rouse sport bagdges, double edge wiper blades, and a rouse sport identification tag plate. And plaque on timing cover.
It also came with a rouse sport t25 smaller turbo which had less lag
The interior was also different with big winged recaro seats with rouse sport badges, optional wood gearknobs, mahogony dash, additional soundproofing, luggage retaining strap

 http://rsownersclub.co.uk/

Wolf Racing

Wolf Racing is a German based tuning company (also known as Walter Wolf Racing) that was similar to Rouse Motorsport that provided styling upgrades. And you were able to purchase anything from a gearknob to a full treatment. Unlike the Rouse sapphires it was not a limited series or special edition, like Brabus or Alpina The Escort Cosworth Wolf edition was almost a regular model containing various Wolf tuning parts.






Escort cosorth with Wolf rear spoiler
 http://rscosworth.it/


Escort cosworth with 18" Wolf wheels and front splitter
http://rscosworth.it/

 Thunder saloon

The British Racing and Sports Car Club Thundersaloon series offered long distance races. It ran from 1984-1995 the category offered heavily modified steel shelled saloons cars. Below are a few pictures of some Sapphires off the Passionford website.









http://passionford.com

 


Ford Motorsport

Ford Motorsport had extra styling items like steering wheels etc as well. They had a full catalogue of extra items to purchase. E.g. see pictures below:



















Note, as well as the RS logo, there is also a 3 stripe ford 'RS' accessory badge embossed onto the steering wheels.






Note on the cam cover also the three strip 'RS' accessory badge.



 



Aftermarket

-Morette headlights are a popular upgrade for the Sapphire Cosworths, they are twin headlamps and you can colour code the headlight surrounds.
-the later 4wd cosworths came with clear indicators and side repeaters and were a common upgrade, (although now the original ambers are back in fashion)
-The smoke coloured tail lights from from a non turbo sapphire and sapphire cosworth 4wd, and rear number plate surround also was a common swap / upgrade.
-The 4wd bonnets had louvres which were functional and a common upgrade on the 2wd cars. The standard non cosworth bonnets fit but flip up at the back differently at the base of the windscreen. They are common upgrades.
-Some of the later 4wd's had air con, and also electric sunroofs, which can be swapped onto the 2wd models.

Morette twin headlights

 Dress up parts

 Carbon and fibreglass etc dress up parts are also available from the likes of:
-Carbon delight
http://www.carbondelight.co.uk/
-Creative carbon
http://www.creativecarbon.com/
-X-sport racing
http://www.xsportracing.com/ford-escort-rs-cosworth.2993564.cms

Other Body Kits

There have been many body kits available over the years, other than the main four mentioned above almost all of them that I am aware of are all custom made.
One of the main well known companies to supply fibreglass reproduction panels to the Ford scene are 'Smith & Deakin' 
http://www.smithanddeakin.co.uk/F-K.htm

 An example of a custom one off body kit is shown on David Brodie's Sapphire of BBR fame.


http://www.rscosworthbreakers.co.uk/B.B.R%20Race%20Cars%20042.JPG

Below is a one off wide body, steel body kit. It was a well known demo car for turbo systems as per the face-book add inset.








This is a greece car with again another one off body kit.










You can view the car mentioned above at about 42 seconds from this you tube clip.

Body kit maintenance

 On the Sapphires the standard side skirts are fixed with plastic clips riveted to the side skirts, they are notorious for being damaged on judder bumps etc. And alloy and steel reproduction sets are available on the likes of Ebay, from CDF / Motorsport Developments etc. The original clips are available but are hard to re-install without breaking them as they are plastic.

 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CDF-Racing-Sierra-Sapphire-RS-Cosworth-Alloy-Side-Skirt-Clips/371057773173?_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850&_trkparms=aid%3D222006%26algo%3DSIC.FITP%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D22474%26meid%3D6812909013663711237%26pid%3D100011%26prg%3D9725%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D10%26sd%3D271381031114

 The other main parts that fall off / get stolen, or break easily are:

Bumper tow hook cover


Bumper strip mouldings at front and rear off the cars along the bumpers. They are self adhesive and fall off eventually


Jacking covers, along sides of side skirts. Quite often owners rivet these on to stop them falling off.


Front bumpers have bumper brackets each side and are plastic. They have quite a weight on them, and are also known for breaking when the cars are bumped. Below is the standard bracket on the left. That is fixed to the bumper. The image on the right is some aftermarket alloy reproduction ones from CDF racing.


http://www.cdfracing.co.uk/

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ford-cosworth-billet-aluminium-bumper-brackets-/370956257493?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item565eb748d5


Bumper retaining clips assist holding the front bumper brackets , front and rear are also prone to becoming brittle and breaking off. They are available off ebay and the like still.


Splitters

With the front splitters there are a few different options such as:
-Laguna style splitter which is off a Renault Laguna
-RS500 style (Ian Heron)
-Xsport Rouse one

N.B. The RS500 splitters from the 2 door sierra cosworths do not fit without modification. And the rs500 'Style' splitters are custom made to fit. 

Some examples below from rsownersclub.co.uk/


 Rs500 style splitter


Rs500 style splitter

 

 Rs500 style splitter


 RS500 style splitter (by Ian Heron)


 Renault Laguna splitter


Renault Laguna splitter

 Renault Laguna splitter


 Rouse Sport Sapphire front splitter


 Rouse Sport Sapphire bumper and splitter




3 comments:

  1. that blue wide body kit. can i buy that anywhere?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi there, the blue car is the old UK Turbo systems car nick named 'Desert Storm',and the wide body kit was made from steel I think I read somewhere. There is a smiliar shaped one currently available on a full car from EBAY http://r.ebay.com/mbawPi

      The Desert Storm car has a forum thread located here:
      http://passionford.com/forum/general-car-related-discussion/345487-turbosystems-old-desert-storm-car-in-a-sorry-state.html

      Your best option would be to contact 'Smith & Deakin' and ask if they have any leads or moulds, or post something on the Passionford website.

      Post a reply up if you make any progress would love to find out how you get on.

      Good luck CheeRS

      Delete
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