--MAGAZINE  ARTICLES-- THE Escort had been completed for  barely six months when Street Machine Magazine photographed it for a full five-page article in their July 2003 issue. IT was a pre-season test at the RS owners club day at Santa Pod Raceway that was chosen for the setting of this piece. THE car looked beautiful, the early spring sunlight glinting off its fresh black paintwork, but the flattering words held a guilty secret..........
WE were running in a freshly-built 428ci Ford FE V8, but during the day the engine lost power until, by the time the photo's were taken it didn't run at all! IT seems the crankshaft radii had been machined too large which forced the con-rods together and eventually welded them that way!
IT was the last straw as far as the FE engine was concerned, and we soon  swapped it for a 385 series 460ci engine. WE were justifiably proud of the article, and the car looked truly stunning. The photographer captured the details of the body, the interior, the engine, and the best shot - the rear axle and tyres!
	WE just shrugged off the problem and laughed at the 'Curse of the camera'. We had revealed 'KissMyRS' to an unsuspecting world and it couldn't possibly happen again....Could it? FAST-FORWARD to 2007, and Classic Ford Magazine met us at a VERY cold Shakespeare County Raceway to photograph the car for their September issue (below).
THIS was a joint drag-racing article that the Escort shared with John Atkinson's Mk1 Cortina Estate. It was a superb feature that had the car on the front cover, 4 pages inside, and the 'cool column' (below) in the front of the magazine. THE car looked absolutely superb in the photo's, and even the team had matching jackets!
	BUT the curse of the camera struck again! We were pre-season testing like before, we had a brand new engine like before (only this time it had grown to 512ci), and we managed only one burnout before the engine failed like before !!! THIS time  it was a piston that decided to exit through one of the cylinder bores. "Oh Dear!" we said (or words to that effect) and started again from scratch...
IT took about 18 months from that catastrophic test to get the new engine saved for and built (with massive help from our sponsors). WE didn't run the car in anger in 2008, but we have run it in the NSCC in 2009. A good placing resulted in a seriously fried gearbox!! The 2008 clippings (right) are from Classic Cars Magazine and the Aldershot News newspaper. They show how much people love to take photo's of this car!