Ford and M-Sport officially unveil Fiesta S2000 rally car *pics and vid*

[EJ25RUN]

Official Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFsEwVMItpk

Autoblog...

Ford Motor Company and noted rally masters M-Sport have pulled the veil off their latest collaborative rally machine, the Fiesta S2000. It's their first global rally car, and as such will be able to compete in a whole bevy of international competitions ranging from IRC to the S2000 World Cup to Aatos and Aamu's Finnish Tree Bash. Long story short, going by past history alone, this should be one bruiser of a successful rally car.

Right, so let's talk stats. The Fiesta S2000 comes with a naturally aspirated 1998cc I4 Duratec S2000 engine good for 280 horsepower and 192 lb-ft of twisting torque all the while spinning to an 8,000 rpm redline. That mill gets mated to a permanent all-wheel drive system hooked up to a sequential manual transmission with an AP clutch. Sizable Brembos are at all four corners (and like the wheels, vary in size depending on asphalt or gravel). Ready for the best part? It weighs just 2,640 pounds – and that's with the roll cage. And get this – the Fiesta S2000 is "due for homologation in January 2010."

[thepolecat]

bad ass party!

[green91]

Wow, what a good looking car! Very impressive #s from a N/A 2.0l as well. A little disappointed its not FI though.

[EJ25RUN]

Wow, what a good looking car! Very impressive #s from a N/A 2.0l as well. A little disappointed its not FI though.

My head went for a loop there thinking you said it wasn't fuel inkected but then i remembered about Force Induction.

Anyways, the 2010/2011 WRC formula is yet to be finalized and at one point there were talks of 2.0L NA racing 2.0L turbo cars with restrictions. There are also talks of going to a 1.6L limit. All of that is still being finalized. In a way, this is close to the F2 Kit Cars of the mid 90's like the Peugeot 306 Maxi and RML Vauxhall Astra F2.

Autosport....

Here's what Autosport ( A much better source than Autoblog) had to say about it.

M-Sport launched its new Ford Fiesta S2000 machine at the firm's Cumbria base on Wednesday.

The car will make its public debut on the Rally of Scotland, which gets underway from Perth on Thursday night. Matthew Wilson will drive it as course car.

Wilson's father Malcolm - the managing director of M-Sport – launched the highly-acclaimed car in the workshop where Ford's World Rally Championship cars are built and prepared.

Wilson said: "Today is a very exciting day for us. This is the first global rally car for Ford and M-Sport.

"I really believe that we have produced a fantastic rally car and this launch is a big step to seeing it out competing in rallies. It's the first time in five years that we have been able to offer a Ford rally car that can challenge for overall victory in national championships across the world.

"It is also the culmination of a huge amount of hard work not only by Christian Loriaux and his team, but by everyone who works at M-Sport. We have worked closely with Ford on this project.

"Their best-selling road car, the new Ford Fiesta, has been a perfect base car and its award-winning styling and kinematics together with M-Sport's expertise will surely make the Fiesta S2000 a huge global success."

M-Sport's technical director Christian Loriaux added: "It's a fantastic feeling today to see the car actually launched to the world after all the hard work and testing behind closed doors.

"Everyone at M-Sport has had to pull together in order to get the Fiesta S2000 finished in such a short period of time and it has been a great team effort to get to this point so quickly.

"The design team, led by Anthony Brinkman and Chris Gray, has worked incredibly hard and the fact that we have been able to deliver the car to schedule is down in no small part to the commitment of the entire M-Sport team to the success of the project.

"We have made a very promising start in testing and I am more than pleased with the performance of the car so far; it will be interesting to see how the real pace of the car compares to the competition."

[Nerdsrock22]

Definitely a handsome little car. I wonder if America will see the homologation? I saw one of the little Fiesta's running around downtown the other day (part of the little experiment), and its a dang good looking little car in person.

[EJ25RUN]

Definitely a handsome little car. I wonder if America will see the homologation? I saw one of the little Fiesta's running around downtown the other day (part of the little experiment), and its a dang good looking little car in person.

Its sucks that the post Group A era rules don't make it mandatory to make an exact production version of the rally car for the street but i guess the Focus RS is a good effort. I'd be interesting if Ford does make a Fiesta RS.

[SPOOLIN]

it seems like i heard they are going to be selling a publicly attainable version? or something? In race trim.

[EJ25RUN]

it seems like i heard they are going to be selling a publicly attainable version? or something? In race trim.

No ones ever made an S2000 spec car for the street. The closest thing right now is the brilliant Focus RS unless a Fiesta RS is in the plans.