Neil Fletcher Racing

REV 119 K

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Click on any of the images below for a larger photo.

	REV 119 K was built in 1971 and registered by Ford on the 11th January 1972. Ford used it for 3 events before selling it to Mark Birley in July of that year. On it's first event, The Monte, Jean-Francois Piot with Jean Todt drove it to 5th place, Robin Hillyar / Mark Birley went one better and finished 4th on The Safari. Hannu Mikkola with "Motor" journalist Hamish Cardno took it to it's best result, 1st on The Scottish.
	Now let's take a closer look at the car and some of the bits fitted to it. Notice the early type grille with the centre bonnet catch, all the Works cars used this arrangement so the service crew didn't need to scramble under the dash to open the bonnet.
	On most of the Works cars Cibie Bi-ode headlights were used. These had two bulbs, one for main-beam and one for dipped beam. They had no provision for sidelights. To overcome this problem they removed the normal Escort indicator unit and fitted a combined sidelight/indicator unit from a Hillman Imp.
	For night stages they still needed to fit four extra spot lamps. Once again these were usually Cibie Oscars or even Super Oscars fitted to fully strengthened brackets.
	The engine speaks for itself as they say. Cosworth's 16 Valve BDA, one of the family of motorsport engines built for Ford. This engine ran on 45 DCOE Webers, notice the small pulley driven off the front of the exhaust camshaft, on Fuel Injected cars this drove the injection but here a cable comes off the back to drive the mechanical rev-counter.
	In one front corner of the engine bay sits one of the two servos and squeezed in beside the radiator is the windscreen washer bottle with an electric pump on top.

	At the other side you have the remote oil filter for the dry sump system. The small pipe coming out of the top goes to both the oil pressure switch and oil pressure gauge.
	Moving to the interior, each car was slightly different as each driver had their own preference for the layout of the gauges and switches.
	The centre console would have included an ammeter and switches for lights, Haldas, screen washers fuel pumps etc. Just visible above this is the early type curved heater control panel.
	The bottom part of the centre console held some of the fuse boxes and an electrical master switch. The small panel below the switch lists what each fuse is for.

	The navigator also had a few things to play with. This Halda is the single readout "Tripmaster". On the Works cars they were driven by a cable from the front wheel.
	The other end of the cable passed through a hole drilled up the centre of the front stub axle and was attached to the dust cap by a small grub screw brazed in place.
	The cable is just visible at the back of the strut, that's it going up between the track control arm and the track rod. Notice the bit of rubber pipe slid over the end of the track rod to protect the threaded part.
	As well as the Halda the navigator also had a pair of Heuer clocks, usually a "Mastertime" (for time of day) and a "Montecarlo" (a stopwatch). You can also see the little aircraft style instrument pea lights above both Halda and Heuers.

	A very nice bit of strengthening around the ignition switch. Once again the ignition switch is another item that was kept on from the early cars. It would not have had a steering lock, you wouldn't want the steering lock to jam halfway down a stage.
	The works type adjustable bias pedal box featured three master cylinders. One for the clutch, one for the rear brakes and one for the front brakes.
	A quick release panel was fitted to the kick panel under the dash and this held another fuse box along with relays for lights etc.
	See how the wires going to each relay are held in the correct order by going through holes drilled in a bit of plastic. You could quickly change a relay without wasting time trying to work out where each wire went.

	Now let's take a closer look at what's in the boot. The first thing you notice is the large capacity fuel tank, this could have been anything from a 12 to 18 gallon tank depending on the particular event a car was built for.
	The spare wheel lay on the boot floor held in place by a post bolted to the floor, normally it would also have elastic bungee straps to hold it down.
	The battery sits to the left of the spare wheel. The earth strap is connected to another master switch just below the rear light.
	At the other side of the boot is the dry sump tank, twin Bendix fuel pumps, fuel filter etc.

	The works cars used a Fispa fuel filter instead of the more common Filter King.
	The oil pipes pass through this panel in the firewall on their way over the wheel arch towards the engine.
	This may not look like much but it's the proper ZF Gearbox mount, it's a slightly different shape to the normal one and very rare. You can also see the alloy spacer blocks and the bottom end of the selector tie rod.
	Moving to the back axle I always thought these alloy diff covers were a nice item, the large alloy axle brace hides most of the Atlas axle.

	Here we see the brake caliper (one for both foot and hand brake), the turreted Bilstein which mounts in front of the axle and the end of the top link of the 4-link kit.
	Taking a closer look at the brake caliper, which comes from a Lotus Elan, you can see the mechanical handbrake mechanism and pads which are attached to the bottom of the hydraulic footbrake caliper.

Finally on display on the AVO Owners Club stand at the NEC Birmingham in 1997. REV is flanked by two other ex-works cars, PVX 400 K and LVX 942 J.

I hope you find these photos and information as interesting as I did, if I come across any more I shall include them.

Go To REV 119 K - Part 2

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