MST's latest Ford Escort restomod is a £89k homage to the Mk1 ‘Mexico'
Anyone for a H-pattern manual, 180bhp and racing stripes for days?
Skip 4 photos in the image carousel and continue reading
Turn on Javascript to see all the available pictures.
1
/
4
Got your eyes on a Mk1 Ford Escort 'Mexico' but unable to source just the right one? MST might have the solution for you with its new 'Mk1 Sports', based on the rallying hero but with a modern twist to the engineering.
Armed with a rorty 180bhp twin-cam four-pot, the Sports gets individual throttle bodies, a lightweight flywheel and a performance manifold and exhaust. Expect it to sound - and go - like the clappers.
Advertisement - Page continues below
There's a five-speed H-pattern close ratio manual for that properly old-school feel, plus adjustable suspension and dampers, and a limited slip differential wedged in amongst all this goodness.
MST's hand-built body is almost identical to an original Mexico, with a choice of six colour combinations and the iconic side and roof stripes. You'll also have the option to add extra spotlamps, because who doesn't want extra spotlamps on their road-legal rally car?
As expected, the cabin will be fairly minimal. Aside from an Alpine infotainment system, there are sports seats, a three-spoke suede steering wheel, bits of scaffolding out back and… not much else.
You're looking at a base price of £89,400 for the Mk1 Sports, which is roughly twice what an original, used Mexico ought to set you back at current rates. Reckon it's worth the extra spend?
Advertisement - Page continues below
Top Gear
Newsletter
Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox.
Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox.
Success Your Email*
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
23 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trump claims Jaguar Land Rover is in 'turmoil' after rebrand
Donald Trump has claimed Jaguar Land Rover is in 'absolute turmoil' after the company's 'totally disastrous woke ' rebrand. The US President labelled the British car maker's recent advert, which featured brightly dressed models, as a 'total disaster' and 'stupid'. Trump was scathing of Jaguar as he compared the firm's fortunes to those of clothing brand American Eagle in a rant on his social media platform Truth Social. ' Sydney Sweeney , a registered Republican, has the "HOTTEST" ad out there. It's for American Eagle, and the jeans are "flying off the shelves",' he wrote. 'Go get 'em Sydney! On the other side of the ledger, Jaguar did a stupid, and seriously WOKE advertisement, THAT IS A TOTAL DISASTER! The CEO just resigned, and the company is in absolute turmoil. 'Who wants to buy a Jaguar after looking at that disgraceful ad. Shouldn't they have learned a lesson from Bud Lite, which went Woke.' Trump ended the post by saying that 'being woke is losers'. It was announced last week that Jaguar Land Rover CEO Adrian Mardell is to retire at the end of this year. Mardell, 64, has been at the company for more than three decades including the last two years as chief executive during one of the most transformative periods in the firm's recent history. Arguably his biggest involvement has been his role in Jaguar's controversial 'woke' rebrand and shift to an electric-only premium car brand from 2026. Last month JLR said it was axing 500 management roles , which are going as part of a voluntary redundancy programme for managers in the UK. A spokesman said: 'As part of normal business practice, we regularly offer eligible employees the opportunity to leave JLR through limited voluntary redundancy programmes.' Sales of the luxury car manufacturer appear to have nose-dived following its controversial move to scrap its iconic 'growler' big cat logo in November. The firm's rebrand saw it replace the well-known badge in favour of a geometric 'J' design - which lovers of the brand raged looked like the logo on a handbag clasp. And as the firestorm surrounding the famed car maker's change continues to engulf it , sales at Jaguar Europe have plunged a staggering 97.5 per cent. But the British car marque has insisted the reason for the freefall in sales is not because of a lack of support or an image overhaul - but because it has stopped making older models as it focuses on its relaunch with an all-electric offering. Defending the news, the firm said it was 'pointless' to compare figures for 2024 and 2025, as 'Jaguar is not currently on sale in the UK' while it goes through its 'sunset period' of radical change. A spokeswoman for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) said: 'Jaguar's transformation towards a new portfolio of pure-electric vehicles was announced as part of the Reimagine strategy in 2021. JLR always envisaged a period when the current range would "no longer be on sale" before the introduction of the new Jaguar collection. 'Production of XE, XF, F-TYPE, I-PACE and E-PACE all came to an end in 2024 as part of that transition. This strategic "sunset" of the product range is going to plan and will allow Jaguar to transform and reposition the brand for the future. 'Comparing Jaguar sales to 2024 is pointless as we are no longer producing vehicles in 2025 with low levels of retail inventory available. Jaguar's rebranding is not related to a sales decline.' Jaguar has not announced an official date for when its new fleet of high-end electric motors will hit the forecourt. It stopped sales of current Jaguars on November 11 as it prepared for its next generation of luxury vehicles to arrive. Defending the campaign late last year, JLR's Managing Director Rawdon Glover told the Financial Times: 'If we play in the same way that everybody else does, we'll just get drowned out.'
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
McLaren must also deal with disappointment amid runaway success
LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - McLaren boss Zak Brown is preparing to deal with disappointment at the end of the Formula One season, even as the team enjoy one of their most dominant years and a 200th grand prix win at the weekend. As the title battle between Oscar Piastri and teammate Lando Norris heats up, the McLaren pair separated by just nine points after Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, the American conceded he was thinking also about how to handle the aftermath. Red Bull's reigning champion Max Verstappen, the McLaren drivers' closest rival, is now 97 points off the pace and told reporters at the weekend that he may not win again this year given his car's issues. Even before the weekend, both Piastri and Norris cast caution aside and called it a two-horse race. One of them will surely end the year celebrating a dream come true. The other will rue what might have been, with a new engine era next season shaking everything up again and chances potentially disappearing. Losing always hurts, doubly so when it is to a teammate with the same car, and Brown said McLaren would have to deal with the situation sensitively when -- although he still insisted on saying if -- the time came. "Eventually... we'll just sit down and actually have a conversation and go 'right, one of you is going to win and it's going to be the best day of your life. One of you is going to lose. How do you want us to handle that?'," he told a select group of reporters. "We'll actually sit down and go 'Right, you want us to jump up and down and celebrate? This guy won'. So we're fully aware and sensitive to 'how do you celebrate that situation?'." Australian Piastri has won six races to Norris's five but the Briton has momentum going into the August break, with three wins from his last four starts. The pair have had seven one-two finishes from 14 races, including the last four, and have left rivals trailing. McLaren are so far ahead in the constructors' standings -- 299 points over Ferrari -- that the crown is a given. Much has been made of the potential for a falling out between friends, for clashes on track given what is at stake, but Brown was sanguine and said the relationship was only growing stronger. When Norris ran into the back of Piastri as he challenged for the lead in Canada in June, the Briton defused the situation by immediately taking responsibility. Piastri locked up behind Norris in Hungary on Sunday, in what could have been a repeat of that Montreal accident, but no contact was made. Brown said there was no 'elephant in the room' at McLaren, with the drivers having complete transparency on strategy and how the team go about racing, and he expected more close calls in future. "There's competitiveness brewing... as the championship builds, I'm sure that tension will grow," said the boss. "We're fully anticipating them 'swapping paint' again at some point, I'm very confident it won't be deliberate, which is where you then get into the problems. "They will have racing incidents in their further time here at McLaren, we know that and they know that, so we're not afraid of that. "I'm positive they're never going to run each other off the track, and that's where you get into bad blood. So they're free to race... there are rules around our racing, which is respect your teammate, they know that."
Auto Blog
2 hours ago
- Auto Blog
Never-Before-Seen Sketches Show How Cool Volkswagen Wanted To Be
By signing up I agree to the Terms of Use and acknowledge that I have read the Privacy Policy . You may unsubscribe from email communication at anytime. A Familiar Alien If you're a hardcore Volkswagen fan, you're probably aware of and interested in cars that the German automaker sold outside your home country. For such individuals, the shape in these never-before-published sketches shared to LinkedIn looks incredibly familiar, calling to mind Brazil's Volkswagen SP2, an air-cooled coupe produced from 1972 to 1975 on the widened bones of a Karmann Ghia VW Type 14 with a Type 3 'pancake' (boxer/horizontally opposed/flat) engine. Indeed, the SP2 inspired Volkswagen designer Tibor Juhasz back in 2017, when Volkswagen was evaluating various ways of offering EVs to the public. Why The Concept Was Considered 'Back in 2017, my SP2 proposal was born from pure intuition. It envisioned an electric future powered by progress, yet deeply rooted in classic values,' explained Juhasz on LinkedIn. 'My goal was clear: build forward without losing what defines us. Emotion, energy, and vision came together to create something that still resonates today.' According to his colleague, Stepan Rehak, who shared the sketches first spotted by Top Gear, the 'sporty concept proposal' would have been built on the MEB platform, so it might have been relatively cost-effective to build. But the whole reason Volkswagen was working so fervently on all-electric vehicles at this time was to try to salvage its reputation following the immensely expensive Dieselgate scandal; the last thing VW needed was a sporty EV that would almost certainly sell in low volumes, even if it were offered globally, so it's no wonder management passed on the retro coupe. By providing your email address, you agree that it may be used pursuant to Arena Group's Privacy Policy. Just Get The Original A little over 10,000 of the original SP2 were made, so they're rare. But not necessarily expensive. According to the average value over the last five years has hovered around $24,000. Very few examples are on sale in America, but a resprayed 1975 model with around 41,000 miles is selling for $21,000 on Bring a Trailer, with four other examples on each different model years and different colors, ranging in price from $39,990 to $53,500. As an air-cooled Volkswagen from the 1970s, it'll need babying and lots of rust prevention, but I guarantee you'll draw more attention than the average Lambo. About the Author Sebastian Cenizo View Profile
