Had all sorts of interesting stuff in the past, old Fords, VW's, Mini's, Hillman Imps, Yank Musclecars, last year i sold a nice 1978 Capri 3.0S (to fund this Escort), always fancied a Gartrac Escort to use on the road, ones i found for sale were either too trashed, too expensive or too far away, this car came up for sale localy as a bare shell, was still pretty expensive (recon i paid too much for it
) but at least it was local, also found out after i bought it that it's not a Gartrac, has alloy Gartrac arches but everything else has been fabricated from scratch, has been built well though (though not as pretty as a Gartrac), was built and raced in tarmac events by Ken Hall through the 90's, ran a 3.9 Rover V8 with quad side draught Webers, was quite a weapon, must have sounded glorious at full chat 
As bought it was as bare as a bare shell could be, came with a nackered pedal box, steering rack, and column, luckily a mate was breaking an RS Turbo so i got glass, door seals, locks and lights etc off him.
Shell was solid but rough, needed a new front panel as it had punted too many hay bales out of it's way
Minced about with a 2.0 Zetec for a while before scrapping that idea and going for a V8, for the amount of money it would have cost to get the Zetec in and running (with twin 45's) i could easily have a V8.
Bought this high compression 3.9 Serpentine from a Discovery.
Dropped the engine into the bay to see how it'll fit, recon headers will be tight but cheching back on old photos Ken Hall ran headers so it must be possible.
Very tight in here, considering using backwards TVR manifords.
Front end uses MK2 Escort word cup crossmember, going to fabricate mounts for the Rover to suit.
The car as it stands at the moment, wheels are 9x13 Minilights with 235/45x13 Kumho tyres though looking into 10x13's for the rear with intermediate Silverstone tyres (around 265x13), fitted a new front panel a while ago (been at this a year and a half now), wings need quite a lot of work as the filler is cracked where the alloy arches are riveted to the steel wings so it all needs dug out and replaced, about half done now though, have also spent ages welding up and filling in redundant holes in the engine bay.
Original fibreglass bonnet, going to be using these Morettes with drilled MK3 metal bumpers
Interior will be pretty raw, did initialy intend to use a full dash and door cards etc but that gradually changed to this, had to get the steering column shortened to use that Springalex wheel, recon it was worth it though, going to use turned alluminium plate on the dash and centre housing (guages on the dash, switches on the centre bit), treadplate on the floors, cage, seats, harnesses and thats about it.
