Princess Diana’s Turbo Escort Sells for $850,000 at U.K. Auction

A person month prior to the royal couple married in the summer of 1981, Prince Charles gave Girl Diana Spencer a silver engagement present. No, not jewellery it was a Ford Escort Ghia sedan, with the 1.6-liter engine. The vehicle experienced four doorways and 79 horsepower and was in all respects quite regular and even deeply uninteresting. In an era of austerity for quite a few British commoners, Charles’s present broadcast a message of respectability: the latest addition to the royal residence would upset no teacups. But as we now know, a coming tempest was brewing, and just 4 several years later on, Princess Di was coming on boost.

Particularly, Her Royal Highness was spooling up the improve on this tiny rocket, her 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo, which is coming up for sale at auction on August 27. It was by no means offered on this side of the pond, but any lover of general performance-oriented Fords will have clocked the RS designation and effectively deduced that the princess’s tastes extended to a very critical incredibly hot hatch. Probably even to some royal hoonery?

Diana’s Escorts were 3rd-era cars, and she experienced a few of them. Soon after the rear-wheel-push Mark I and Mark II Escorts—both nevertheless well known with collectors and classic rally racers—Ford’s European modest family members automobile now came with entrance-wheel generate. It was a modern day preference for a contemporary British household. It took the Escort just two years to be topped the bestselling car or truck in Britain.

In search of to stir up a small excitement to fend off the likes of the Volkswagen GTI, Ford made a tuned variation of the two-doorway Escort hatchback known as the XR3 (later XR3i, as gasoline injection arrived). The XR3 was scrappy plenty of for its working day, but the somewhat new technology of turbocharging promised functionality dividends.

The Escort RS Turbo was the speediest the third-era Escort obtained. Thanks to an aluminum head, an uprated camshaft, and factory turbocharging, output was 132 horsepower at 6000 rpm, with a boot of 133 pound-toes of torque at 3000 rpm. Not massive figures by today’s standards, but pitted versus a suppress pounds that was barely about 2000 pounds, the RS Turbo was a great deal fast.

To begin with, Diana replaced her meekly humdrum Ghia with a dazzling-pink convertible Escort, but the shift upset her protection detail. The droptop was merely also large-profile. Messages passed back again and forth between the Royalty Safety Command and Ford’s PR division, and a compromise was reached. Diana would get the Escort RS Turbo she required, painted black on the production line, the much better to fly beneath the radar.

When pretty much all other Escort RS Turbos ended up white, the three black cars and trucks had been constructed for Diana and her safety element. She drove hers usually between 1985 and 1988 and was normally spotted driving about London, generally with the younger princes William and Harry in the again seat. A plainclothes detective rode shotgun.

One of the 3, the auto Diana herself drove, crosses the block at Silverstone Auctions on August 27. The car or truck is offered at no reserve and is anticipated to fetch at least six figures, owing to its connection to a continue to beloved public determine.

In a time when fractures had been appearing in her fairy-tale marriage, this not likely hot hatch represented one much more aspect of Princess Diana’s independence. The expectation was that she would be fashionable but dutiful, a four-doored People’s Princess. What emerged was a freer spirit, a single identified to preserve her individual hands firmly on the wheel.

In her incredibly hot small turbocharged Escort, out working all over town, Diana did just that. Revs climbing, turbo spooling torque, bodyguard nervously achieving for the grab-tackle on the roof as the subsequent sharp corner methods. She lived her lifetime like a cambelt in the wind.