I purchased and 1st  registered my R S Turbo on 6 February 1986, from Invicta Motor Group in Canterbury Kent for an on the road price of £8,961.39

One year later stolen, found the  next day ½ mile away less 5 wheels, parcel shelf speakers, jack and tool box. 
Alas not on bricks but on the ground. Four Yale dead locks fitted. Six weeks after getting the car repaired and back on the road…Car keys stolen car gone. This time it did 156 miles, thief caught 22.00hrs that night and all 4 rims had 
been scraped along the kerbs.

Due to so many “Hot Hatches” being stolen (despite having a maximum no claim bonus) my insurance premiums had 
started at £236 in 1986 and by 1989 had increased to£395.To combat the increase and thieves a Thatham approved immobilizer was fitted which gave me about 20% reduction in premiums
 
Disaster, January 2002 car went in for usual service and MOT. The garage owner was out testing the car when
another motorist pulled straight out and into the near side causing major damage to the car and injury (neck and back) to the driver of my car. It took 6 months to resolve and source parts/repair and get back on the road. Considering the age
of car it stood up to he impact pretty well as the pictures will show.
 
“TECH BITS”

The car remains as standard with no go faster bits added, if it did not have it when Mr Henry Ford sold it to me,
I was not going to add it later.

Mileage 135,000+, original engine, gear box & turbo. No rebuilds.

All the usual rust areas were sorted 7 years ago.

Clutch replaced at 104,000m only because the central locating bolt sheared. Shock absorbers 92,000m, front disc 
77,000m.

Interior all original.

In daily use up until 2002, at which point family needs required a large 4 door car. So unable to part with the RS an every day car was purchased and it now only comes out on sunny days!

Andrew Houghton

RSOC membership no 39332

I thought it would be fitting for me to get the ball rolling as I am asking others to contribute.

I bought this car on the 3rd April 2000. The price then was £8,995 it was one owner but  had 127,000 miles on the clock.

The high mileage didn't bother me as I was buying the car on a whim and I was desperate to get out of the Escort Estate I was driving. If you asked for my advice on buying an RS these days I would tell you NOT to do it the way I did as looking back it was madness, I saw the car in the Auto Trader Sunday morning, It was mine buy Monday afternoon.

I intially bought the car as a daily driver when I lived in Sittingbourne and worked in Aylesford, it was staight and reliable, it just had a few minor rust issues. I was lucky in this respect as running the car was strching my budget to the limit.
 
Moving on to 2002 I was living in Sheerness and was fortunaste enough to gain a job working for our favourite car maker, Ford Motor Company at thier Dagenham plant. I continued to use the cossie as a daily until around July 2004 when I purchased a second car to use on the commute  so I could concentrte on making the cossie nice again as it was starting to show its age and mileage by this time.
For some reason over the net few years the car sat around not doing alot, I  was still usung it on occasions but was not a regular at the owners club, I got a morgatge and it just seamed to be at the bottom of my priority list.

Early 2007 and something changed, I was seattled in my home, finances were becoming more secure so I decided I needed to do something abiut the old nail sitting on my driveway. I muted with the idea of scrapping the cossie and buying a replacement, using the spare parts to make one decent car out of two. When I whieghed up the pro's and cons of doing this I worked out I would be better of spending the money on a car I knew, namely my own.

I had the engine rebuilt to a 400bhp spec, once it was back from the engine builders I had to patiently wait for my bodyshop man to become available, it  eventually found its way over to Crash Corrections, Sherness where Simon & Stuart set about ridding it of its nasty rust patches and giving it a fresh coat of diamond  white. Once back from the bodyshop I sent it to have retro zebra stripes applied to go along with a set of white Team Dynamic racing alloys.

The project was complearted early 2009 which is when I first became invold in the Kent Group, my first display show was Central Day 2009. The zebra stripes didn't last long as it made the car stick out a bit much for my liking so they were removed after Central Day 2010.

The mileage has continued to climb steadily over the course of my ownership and in 2010 the cossie clocked over the 200, 000 mile marker, something I'm quite pround of as you don't see many RS's with such hard mileage, I just love to drive it.

Moving onto 2012, the car has just undergone another 'mini' refurb where I had some rusty bits done that were not apparent the first time round, I also had my roofskin replaced due to a persistant rust problem around the sunroof. The interior has gone through a major rfurbishment, I had the roof lining re trimmed, the seats where cleaned and reconolised, none of the leather has been replaced, it's all original, the pastics have been cleaned and treated.

I never intend to sell my 'old nail' and I'm really looking forward to the day I clock the 300, 000 mile mark. Happy Driving.

Nick Debnam. Chairman, RSOC Kent Group.

RSOC membership No 40404