AMAZING New Fast Ford Collection Secret Stash

This is Ford's new place to keep old stuff and nobody's really been to see it yet. Let's fix that. Yep, this is Ford's new Daventry home for its heritage collection which used to live in a shed in Dagenham. It's now called the Heritage and Innovation Centre and it contains about 120 odd years worth of moving things and I think it's interesting because anything old that's called Ford is generally really exciting. That's a joke about me being called Ford and being it. Yeah, okay. But this place is just full of good stuff so I took my squeaky shoes and just went to have a look at whatever caught my eye. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin at the beginning with this, the Ford Model T. Now obviously there've been cars knocking around since about 1885 and Carl and Bertha Benz's patent motor wagon and Ford had actually produced a load of Scrabble score different cars for about five years but it wasn't until 1908 and this car that Ford actually started making stuff properly and then of course Henry Ford introduced the production line in 1913 which made this the world's first mass-produced car and it feels incredibly rudimentary these days. Look, the windscreen is flat glass, the roof is basically modelled on that of a pram, there is no touchscreen, in fact there are no dials at all apart from one that measures amperes which is probably something to do with batteries, I'm not sure. The steering column juts out and looks like it'd spear me through the throat in the event of a crash and that tourer over there looks like it's got a Chesterfield sofa in the back. It is beautiful simplicity and I love it. That is a 1961 Zephyr Farnham Estate. Now the interesting thing about this was it was a police car and it was used to patrol the M1 motorway back when that was new because it could carry loads of stuff and it was pretty quick with its straight six engine. It's a good looking thing, it's like two-thirds of an American car. Here's a famous car, it's the RS200 police car they used for promotional purposes but the RS200 itself is hugely interesting because it was originally developed for Group B rallying which was massively powerful. To that end, about 600bhp in race trim, about 250 as a road car, mind you, that's still not bad considering this was just a 1.8 litre turbo BDT engine, obviously mid-engined, four-wheel drive because it was a rally car and fibreglass body panels made, interestingly, by Reliant Limited of Robin fame. Even more interesting is what's inside it. Come and have a look. There were a few different versions of the RS200. There was an S with slightly wider seats and different aircon which is a bit more road-biased, a bit more user-friendly and then there were the Evo cars. Now every time the rules changed in Group B or you wanted to significantly change a homologation car you had to produce 20 examples of it for the road which is why you ended up with a couple of the cars being Evos. I have to say though, this feels really cheap in here. It's swathes of grey plastic apart from the horrific red steering wheel. Somebody looks like they've sort of put the transmission tunnel and just covered it in grey office carpet. It's tight, it feels quite cramped, everything feels quite close to you and it's not very inspiring. It's a good job these cars performed because if you got in it you might think it was a bit cheap. This is properly amazing and it's also the vehicle that reminds you that Ford sometimes just goes a bit bonkers. It's obviously the Supervan. Now Supervans started out in about 1971 with the Supervan One which actually had a Ford DFV and Formula One engine mounted in the back driving the rear wheels. That was obviously quite scary and then they've gone through two and this is a three, right up to the electric one that was launched last year. But I've always wanted to sit in this car and I'm finally here and it's all completely cockeyed. I'm almost in the middle so the seating position is really canted towards the centre of the car but this seat is not level with the steering wheel. The steering wheel is actually off to the left and then there's a clutch one side of the steering column with the brake and the throttle the other side and it feels like the steering wheel's, it feels like it's up under my chin. It's so close. It's definitely not straight. What a weird place to be. And it's a manual. I wonder what it looks like in the back. So the Supervan One was basically a Ford GT40 with a cube chassis and a transit body plonked on top. The Supervan Two had that DF Series Formula One engine and the Supervan Three, which is this one, had various different engines and this one's ended up with a 24 valve Cosworth V6 with a supercharger in it making about 250 brake horsepower and that engine I last saw in a Scorpio. Now this is the car my dad lusted after. It's a Mark 1 Lotus Cortina or more accurately a Ford Lotus Cortina. Early 60s, came with a four-cylinder engine just under 1.6 litres, about 105 brake horsepower and it was actually tuned up by a guy that went on to Cosworth called Keith Duckworth and I think that's probably the best name in motorsport because he sounds like he should have been on Coronation Street. This was an interesting car because it was a mash-up between Lotus and Ford obviously. Ford did the bodies and took care of the marketing and Colin Chapman's outfit at Lotus took care of the mechanicals, so the engine and the suspension and it went on to be absolutely fantastic in racing but the one thing that strikes me, it's remarkably spacious. Keeping all this stuff in roadworthy condition isn't up to a team of hundreds either. Meet Len Keane, Supremo of Heritage here at the Ford lock-up. Hello my name's Len Keane and I'm the Heritage Centre Manager for Ford. Moving from the old place in very interesting. It was quite a long convoluted process. We had to move all the furniture in, which was the cars, which was a great job. Took a few months to move them in. The vehicles had been in storage over the years but it does mean that we've got the cars in place to go and show. The intention is that the fleet is drivable, that we can utilise it for magazines, for media to look at as well as hopefully doing some public drives and having some drive experiences in the vehicles. We have Chris who's our lead tech at the moment. He looks after the majority of the fleets here but we have a team of retired managers and directors who have been very instrumental on the production and the development of these vehicles over the years. They meet up once a week for a tea club but we also provide them with a vehicle on a rotational basis and they can go through and put their experience to keep in these vehicles and the whole fleet on the road. The repair on the cars is not always difficult but sometimes it's the parts supplier to keep these cars on the road. Finding parts for some of the even sought after cars or even the what were once very common cars is quite difficult to get a hold of. Ford has been in the UK market for over 100 years. There's very few people in the country that haven't been involved, driven, learnt to drive, been associated with Ford products over the years and to be now the custodian of trying to keep some of that history on the road. People tell me I've got the best job in the world and sometimes I have to sit back and think yes I believe I have. For the new heritage collection I think we've got very exciting plans. We've got to get ourselves fully engaged here and get the place looking how we want to. But we're very keen to work with local schools, with local businesses to encourage them to come and see the collection. We want to work with schools and colleges with regards to introducing the Ford heritage and the motor industry to school children. There's a lot of different areas that they can get involved in with regards to vehicle design, through motorsports, all the way through production and then also look at how we can engage the general public. Now this is a collection that we'd like to make available to as many people as possible. If I could take one car and it is a car that they would find that goes missing when I retire, it would be the car I'm sitting in, the Mk1 Lotus Cortina. I think from a classic point of view it ticks every single box for me. It's comfortable to drive, it's got enough performance of the modern roads and it looks so good. I think people sometimes forget what an absolute groundbreaking car the Sierra was back in the 80s. Bit of a jelly mold, slightly futuristic looking, but this car was always one of my favourites. I think it looks really good now. The thing is it did give birth to one of my all-time favourites and that's this, the Sierra RS Cosworth. Now imagine what this looked like back in the 80s. It was full of aero, which was amazing, including the iconic double deck whale tail rear spoiler. Imagine what that looked like when it came out. It was a renovation car for touring cars and it just looked absolutely mental. It also had the kind of performance that would outdo loads of contemporary sports cars. It contained, under the bonnet, one of the legendary engines, a YB, which is probably one of the most tuned out there. It's a turbo two litre. Now these engines only produced about 227 brake horsepower, 220, but that red cam cover, 16 valve turbo on the top, was the stuff of dreams when I was a kid. You want to know the scary thing? These cars, when they were new, were about £15,950 and that just sounds really cheap now. The thing is these cars gave birth later on to that. See? It's essentially got the same engine, a YB turbo, still about 227 brake horsepower, but this time wrapped in this, the Escort RS Cosworth. Now again, a legendary car, one of the most stolen of its day. You could basically not insure these at all because everyone wanted to nick them to have a go. Beautiful car, lots of aero. Again, it had a splitter, bonnet vents and the big double deck whale tail, which gave it actual downforce, which was quite rare back in the day. And then inside, it was basically just a nicely specced Escort. You got some nice velour kind of Recaro seats, some different dials and some more gauges, notably for turbo boost, which was always a big deal. But otherwise, it was just a normal car. There's not much of the Group A homologation bit in here, but legend has it there used to be a water injection system fake fitted under the back seats, which was necessary for homologation rules, but it didn't actually work. Other than that, it just smells so good. I do love a Mark I Escort, but this is a Mexico, so there's a weight of history behind it. 1970s simplicity at its very best and a blue collar hero. Front engine with actual carburettors, rear wheel drive, four speed manual and the simplest of simple suspension with cart springs and a live axle. The twin cams were legendary and they made amazing rally cars because they were so simple. If you've never seen one of these tail out in a Welsh forest, you haven't lived. But they look so light and airy now and so fuss free, probably because it had the crash integrity of a duvet. Thing is, something like this doesn't need 500 brake horsepower to be interesting to drive. You'd be laughing at 40. Late 60s killer race car, but also a road car, the Ford GT40, you know, Ford versus Ferrari, bit of a hoo-ha there. They originally came with a 4.7 litre V8, later enlarged to about 4.9, but the American race cars had massive 7 litre V8s, which made them fairly rapid when they were racing. Incidentally, it's called the Ford GT40 because it measures 40 inches from the ground to the top of the windscreen, which was the minimum required for racing. Also makes them a complete bugger to get in and out of, which is why they cut out doors. See? That was a mistake, I can't get out. Back in the day, I actually tested this car quite a lot. I used to put it up against things like, I don't know, contemporary Ford Focus RS, but I remember driving this and it's the only car that has ever overtaken me at over 200 miles an hour. Now, that's either because the press car was extremely healthy or that the speedo on a Ferrari overreads. I'll let you be the judge. Anyway, it's got a 5.4 litre V8, which is supercharged, that's in the back, producing about 550 brake horsepower, six-speed manual, and as I remember vividly, no traction control. And this car spawned another one, which is parked next to it, the next generation Ford GT, but I prefer this one, mainly because the interior and the drive made it feel like a road car. The later version feels like a racing car that's been made legalised. That's faster, I think this one is better. Ah, the Ford Transit, the backbone of the UK's delivery nation, and incidentally, the same car that Jordan drives, who's filming this very piece. All right? Hello, Jordan. The thing about the Transit, it has been around for a very long time. It's been through loads of generations, but would you believe it's actually been around since 1965, through all of these different versions? Well, you can believe it, because look, this is a Mark 1 1965 Ford Transit. Pretty awesome, isn't it? Now, these things replaced the Thames vans back in the day, and they've just kept going and going, but in this 1965 version, they were actually really quite high-performing, and they could carry loads of stuff. In fact, one good anecdote about the Transit. In 1972, Scotland Yard said that this was the UK's most wanted van, because it had the performance of a car, and it could carry 1.75 tonnes of loot. It was made out to be some sort of gangster's best practice to have a Transit, which is the least likely marketing phrase I think I've ever heard. Great for robberies. Which also came as a camper. This is the Transit Connect Express. It's not what it seems, because it's basically a Ford Focus RS with a Transit Connect body plonked on top, over 200 brake horsepower, and lots and lots of torque steer. It was made by engineers at Lommel when they were bored, and I remember driving it and thinking it actually rides better than the real thing. Weird. You think EV is a new thing? This is an EcoStar electric police car. They were also used by the Royal Mail back in the day. They did a load of tests on these, and they basically had quite a big sulphur battery in the middle of the car, and they did all right. They do about an average of 100 miles per charge, fully EV. The only problem is that they had a tendency to burst into flames, so when Ford discovered that, they kind of lost interest in the project. Focus RS, Focus RS. Oh, RS500, matte black, special edition, very hard to keep clean, very fast. Focus ST, working-class hero, five-cylinder engine, drinks heavily. Mark I Focus RS, getting better and better looking as time goes on. Didn't torque steer as much as people thought they did, and I think these are properly appreciating classics. The Fiesta is one of Ford's most successful cars, and it was actually born the same year as me, in 1976, and then it wandered through various generations, had some real highlights, like the Fiesta XR2, which wasn't very powerful, but was really good fun. It got ugly with this one, looks a bit like a turbot, and it goes all the way through to 2023, and the last one to roll off the production line, which makes me sad, because the Fiesta is brilliant. I literally have completely forgotten that we got a Ford Explorer in the UK before the new electric one. I'm getting old. The mundane, I mean, sorry, Mondeo LX, another Mondeo V6, oh, Mondeo ST220, extremely underrated saloon car. Now, this is obviously a Ford Mustang, and Mustangs were around in America since mid-'60s, but the interesting thing about V8s in Ford cars was that Ford actually produced the first ever cheap V8 for mass production. It was called the Model 18, I think, but everyone just called it the Ford V8, and the engine was actually called a flathead, because the cylinder head was, you know, flat. Men with beards still really dig those engines. If you're going to have a Capri, you want one like this, mainly because this is a Capri 280 Brooklands, £12,000 back in the day, which was steep, and powered by a 2.8 Cologne V6 with about 160 brake horsepower and a limited slip diff. And this one is D194UVW, the last one ever made, so it's a bit special. I mean, I may consider a tick for turbo if you forced me, but still. Anyway, I used to think Capris were just old, but they look great now, basically a British Mustang, long bonnet, tucked rear. But we didn't get V8s, more like a load of four cylinders and a Cologne V6, and engines with British names like Kent, Essex. In fact, the only one that got a V8 was in South Africa with the Windsor, and that wasn't called a Capri, it was the Piranha. I'm not going to mention the Professionals TV series, because it will annoy my father. Granada Mk1. It's a yellow Cortina with a vinyl roof. I don't think we need to say any more. This is Eddie Jordan's Ford Galaxy, which he had converted to have two mobile office seats in the back instead of the usual seven-seater. It was because Ford supplied engines for his F1 team at the time, but I actually quite dig this. This is the Escort Mk1 rally car from 1970 that won so much it began the Mexico name for various rally Escorts and Escort road cars from then on. It is insured at the moment for £1 million. This is a million pound Ford Escort. The brilliant thing about the new Ford Heritage and Innovation Centre, apart from the cars obviously, is that Ford uses this place to train new Ford techs and wants to share this heritage collection with the wider world, so it looks set to be at least partially opened up to the public. And you know what? You don't need to be a Ford geek to enjoy it. Well worth a poke around if you're in the area.