Markko Mrtin is one of the greatest rally drivers of his generation, but he admits to being unenthused by the prospect of driving some of Ford's iconic road and rally cars on an ice racing circuit.
I, on the other hand, have been bubbling with excitement for weeks. The RS200, Sierra Cosworth and Escort WRC are some of the greatest sport compact cars ever produced. They're the cars that gave me goose bumps as a kid. I even turned down an invite to the launch of the Ferrari 612 to be here.
Our playground for the day is the appropriately named Circuit de Glace in the French Alps. It's a challenging mix of hairpins and high-speed kinks and, as a venue for today's activities, it's perfect.
Heading the queue of cars is an 180-bhp 1969 Ford Capri 3.0 GXL. Europe's answer to the Mustang was a cult car of the '70s and its fastback proportions continue to inspire today's coupes. Finished in bottle green, it seems an unlikely ice maiden until you take a peek underneath. In 1973, it was tuned by Ferguson Formula Developments in the UK and it's the only automatic, four-wheel-drive Capri ever built.
Peering menacingly at its rear bumper is an RS200. Ford's pig-ugly Group B rally car was unveiled in '84 and was, by most accounts, a pig to drive fast. At its most potent, it boasted 650 bhp from its 2.1-liter turbo engine, but it had yet to reach its development potential when the formula was canned in '86. The remaining chassis were sold as road cars for a mighty 45,000 ($81,491), but the car before me was built as a special project by Ford apprentices.
The model behind it is almost as iconic. Long before the Impreza generation was old enough to twiddle its PlayStations, the Sierra Sapphire RS Cosworth 4x4 was the vehicle of choice for Europe's enthusiasts. Its 2.0-liter turbo engine kicked out 224 bhp in standard tune and it'd rocket from 0-to-60 mph in 6.2 seconds. Finished in Ford racing blue, this was the last Cossie to roll off the line in '92.
Propping up the rear is an unlikely hybrid. This car began life as a prototype for the terrible European-market Escort L of 1990, but instead of being put out of its misery, it was transformed into a rally recce car. Then it became a rally show car before it was uprated to a full, 280-bhp WRC specification in 1997.
So much for the paddock banter, it's time to take the wheel. I'd managed to convince Mrtin to teach me to drive and we scramble into the Sierra for an exploratory lap. A couple of years ago, when Mrtin was fresh out of the ex-Soviet Republic of Estonia, he was a shy learner/driver in a team led by Sainz and Colin McRae. Now he's Ford's team leader, but while promotion has brought greater confidence, he's no P.R. puppet. If he doesn't like something, he says so, sometimes with vulgar words. It's a refreshing antidote to the usual corporate bullshit.
"The responses of a road car are less immediate than a racer," he explains, "so you need to throw it into the corner more if you want to unsettle it. But the quickest way around this circuit is to be neat and tidy-slow in, fast out. It's much the same with the current WRC cars." We turn through a 90-degree corner at a surprisingly slow pace. "There's no grip," he says, "so you just can't do anything."
"In a rally car, you can play around with the diffs and make it behave how you want," he continues. "But in a road car on normal tires, there's not much I can do that a normal person can't." This sounds like nonsense, but Mrtin is anxious to prove his point so we pull into the pits and swap places.
Driving beside a genuine talent is always a humbling experience. It's like singing in the bath with Christina Aguilera but less fun. Although I've done a fair bit of ice driving before, I'm still erratic. "You're too slow to react," Mrtin says. "It's easier to feel the start of the slide than the end. If you don't feel the end of the slide then you start having another one and the car fishtails. That understanding takes practice-and talent."
The Sierra, though, is an ideal learning tool. The cabin might be a mishmash of clumsy detailing, but where it counts, the Sierra still has what it takes. The engine has a deeper, more cultured hum than an EVO or Impreza, but it still delivers the necessary wallop and the chassis is beautifully balanced. Its behavior is utterly predictable and this makes it a delight to drive hard, even if you have a tenth of Mrtin's talent. And the steering is much better weighted and more linear in response than anything offered by the Japanese. This car feels as relevant today as it did in 1990.
My time is up and I return to the pits, only to be met by some desperate news. The RS200 is behaving like a recalcitrant child and is refusing to come on boost. We can drive it, but it won't muster more than 4500 rpm in any gear. Mrtin wanders off to the Capri, so I'm left alone with the legend. I crawl out of the pits and slot to second. The gear change is astonishingly long-winded, the steering lacks feel and the roll cage looks like it was crafted from toilet paper.
The engine is clearly suffering all sorts of agonies and I can't muster any more than 50 mph, but even at these speeds, it's possible to get a vague sense of what this car was about. Whereas you can finesse the Sierra, the RS200 needs to be manhandled around the circuit. Drive it with any degree of mechanical sympathy and it responds with nothing more than understeer. Switching from four- to rear-wheel drive-achieved by pulling a handle beside the hand brake-simply exacerbates the problem, as the rear wheels push the nose toward the snowbanks. Only by hurling it toward the apex can you maintain any semblance of a normal line. Driving one of these at flat chat through a forest must have taken balls the size of pineapples. Today, in its broken state, I'm happy to hand it back.
The Escort is better and it's surprising how much safer and solid it feels. Full race harnesses and no carpet also enhance the sensations. It doesn't feel dramatically fast-280 bhp, after all, isn't that much in modern terms-but it's plenty quick enough to awaken the senses.
Through the high-speed stuff, it's possible to coax it into a four-wheel drift with an aggressive turn-in. And the steering, so direct and nicely weighted, makes it a doddle to catch. I'd expected the Escort to be fearsome, but in reality it's more of a poodle than a Rottweiler. It's an absolute hoot, but it would be even more fun if the center differential wasn't so tight. In the slow corners, even Mrtin reckons that it's impossible to get rid of the understeer without a determined yank on the hand brake.
By contrast, the Capri feels terrific everywhere. The vinyl roof, spongy seats and soft suspension are a glorious throwback to a more relaxed, carefree era, but it also drives surprisingly well.
Mrtin agrees. "The Capri's handling is unbelievably good for its age. The suspension is a bit too soft for the bumps and the engine is lacking some power, but I didn't expect it to be so driveable." The four-wheel-drive system is incredibly basic and you can't hurl the Capri around like a modern car, but by being smooth and deliberate, it's possible to carry plenty of pace. I'm feeling confident and pushing harder when I catch sight of Ford's P.R. chief looking nervous. This car is borrowed and his expression says "don't bin it." I return to the pits to stop myself from getting carried away.
Mrtin is almost smiling and is happy to discuss the morning's entertainment. He once rallied an Escort, but the reunion was not a happy one. "You have to be very aggressive to make it work," he says. His favorite car was the Sierra, which was "the nicest car here," and the one "best suited to the conditions."
I agree, but my lasting memory of the day will be of chasing a 1997 Escort WRC in a 1973 Capri. So I'll take the '70s icon, together with a pair of flares, a floral shirt and a silly perm.