UPDATE 8/27/2022: The Ford Escort bought at public sale for the equal of $857,712 at public sale at present, which Bloomberg Information identified at present is greater than 10 occasions the worth of a 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo bought at public sale in 2021 that was “collector high quality” however didn’t have the Diana provenance.
One month earlier than the royal couple married in the summertime of 1981, Prince Charles gave Woman Diana Spencer a silver engagement current. No, not jewellery; it was a Ford Escort Ghia sedan, with the 1.6-liter engine. The automotive had 4 doorways and 79 horsepower and was in all respects fairly extraordinary and even deeply boring. In an period of austerity for a lot of British commoners, Charles’s present broadcast a message of respectability: the latest addition to the royal family would upset no teacups. However as we now know, a coming tempest was brewing, and simply 4 years later, Princess Di was approaching increase.
Silverstone Auctions
Particularly, Her Royal Highness was spooling up the increase on this little rocket, her 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo, which arising on the market at public sale on August 27. It was by no means bought on this aspect of the pond, however any fan of performance-oriented Fords may have clocked the RS designation and accurately deduced that the princess’s tastes prolonged to a fairly critical scorching hatch. Maybe even to some royal hoonery?
Silverstone Auctions
Diana’s Escorts had been third-generation automobiles, and he or she had three of them. After the rear-wheel-drive Mark I and Mark II Escorts—each nonetheless in style with collectors and classic rally racers—Ford’s European small household automotive now got here with front-wheel drive. It was a contemporary selection for a contemporary British household. It took the Escort simply two years to be topped the bestselling automotive in Britain.
In search of to fire up a bit of pleasure to fend off the likes of the Volkswagen GTI, Ford developed a tuned model of the two-door Escort hatchback known as the XR3 (later XR3i, as gasoline injection arrived). The XR3 was scrappy sufficient for its day, however the comparatively new know-how of turbocharging promised efficiency dividends.
The Escort RS Turbo was the quickest the third-generation Escort acquired. Due to an aluminum head, an uprated camshaft, and manufacturing unit turbocharging, output was 132 horsepower at 6000 rpm, with a boot of 133 pound-feet of torque at 3000 rpm. Not large figures by at present’s requirements, however pitted towards a curb weight that was barely over 2000 kilos, the RS Turbo was lots fast.
Initially, Diana changed her meekly humdrum Ghia with a bright-red convertible Escort, however the transfer upset her safety element. The droptop was just too high-profile. Messages handed backwards and forwards between the Royalty Safety Command and Ford’s PR division, and a compromise was reached. Diana would get the Escort RS Turbo she needed, painted black on the manufacturing line, the higher to fly under the radar.
Whereas virtually all different Escort RS Turbos had been white, the three black automobiles had been constructed for Diana and her safety element. She drove hers typically between 1985 and 1988 and was typically noticed driving round London, normally with the younger princes William and Harry within the again seat. A plainclothes detective rode shotgun.
One of many three, the automotive Diana herself drove, crosses the block at Silverstone Auctions on August 27. The automotive is obtainable at no reserve and is anticipated to fetch at the very least six figures, owing to its connection to a nonetheless beloved public determine.
In a time when fractures had been showing in her fairy-tale marriage, this unlikely scorching hatch represented yet another aspect of Princess Diana’s independence. The expectation was that she can be trendy however dutiful, a four-doored Individuals’s Princess. What emerged was a freer spirit, one decided to maintain her personal arms firmly on the wheel.
In her scorching little turbocharged Escort, out working round city, Diana did simply that. Revs climbing, turbo spooling torque, bodyguard nervously reaching for the grab-handle on the roof as the following sharp nook approaches. She lived her life like a cambelt within the wind.
