We Need To Talk About How Ford Basically Built A Backwards Nissan GT-R

Here at The Autopian, we’re suckers for weird. Locking differentials in regular sedans, the handful of rear-engined front-wheel-drive cars ever made, the insane Leyat Helica … all strange arrangements that really pique our interests. However, when it comes to Ford models, there’s one that stands proudly weirder than the rest: The homologation special RS200.

Retrospectively, Group B rallying was a bad idea with immense entertainment potential. After all, motorsport safety in the 1980s wasn’t exactly what it is today, so letting manufacturers off the leash to campaign whatever they wanted within a permissive set of rules, so long as 200 roadgoing variants were produced and sold, was a brave move. Especially brave considering 1980s rally spectators were often barely restrained, ending up on the stage after eleventeen pints or so.

The resulting five years served up some of the most dangerous and exciting racing in the history of the automobile. Audi’s gravel-crushing Quattro, Lancia’s gloriously improbably 037, Peugeot’s magnificent 205 T16. Heroes like Stig Blomqvist, Walter Röhrl, Michelle Mouton, Hannu Mikkola, and Timo Salonen battled it out over gravel, tarmac, sand and ice in the pursuit of motorsports triumph.

However, for every purpose-built rally car that brought home the bacon, there were many that didn’t. The Citroën BX 4TC was gloriously weird but ultimately uncompetitive, the MG Metro 6R4 was lovable but ultimately doomed, and then there was the Ford RS200. Let’s take a closer look at it thanks to cutaway drawings Ford’s published on its excellent Heritage Vault archive.

Ultimately assembled by Reliant of Robin three-wheeler fame, powered by a Cosworth BDT engine, and draped in surprisingly evocative coachwork, it almost arrived too late. The best it ever finished in a WRC rally was third, it only raced for one full season, and it left a trail of casualties in its wake.

Despite this, I still love the Ford RS200 because it’s completely and utterly window-licking bonkers. See, it’s a mid-engined all-wheel-drive sports car, but it wasn’t built like any other mid-engined all-wheel-drive sports car. Take the Lamborghini Diablo VT, for example. It had an engine and transaxle at the back, with a driveshaft running from the end of the transaxle to the front differential. Simple enough, right? Well, that wouldn’t do for Ford. While a mid-rear-mounted engine is great for building a car that wants to turn, the inherent rearward weight bias doesn’t always play well for grip on loose surfaces, not to mention how a balanced static weight distribution can help a car land cleaner over jumps. The solution? With the engine just in front of the rear wheels, mount the transaxle between the front wheels.

This meant that the RS200 needed a propshaft from the engine to the transaxle, then another one from the output shaft of the transaxle to the rear differential. Despite having a wheelbase of 100 inches, torque to the rear axle would need to travel nearly twice that distance. Oh, and that’s before you consider that the four-wheel-drive system was part-time. Indeed, a range selector to the right of the shifter let the driver choose between two-wheel-drive, four-wheel-drive, or four-wheel-drive with a locked center differential. It’s a ridiculous arrangement, and the only times you’ll see something similar in another production car is if you look at it in reverse.

Some 23 years after the first RS200 rolled out of the factory, Nissan cranked up production of the R35 GT-R. No longer a Skyline, Nissan sliced-and-diced-and-reconstructed the FM platform found underneath the 350Z and Infiniti G35 so comprehensively, it received a new name: Premium Midship. In addition to a potent 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V6 that didn’t quite tuck behind the strut towers but was still pushed far towards the firewall, the big development here was a six-speed dual-clutch transaxle mounted back between the front seats. A propshaft sent torque rearward to the transaxle, while another sent transferred torque forward to the front differential. Sound familiar?

In a way, it’s easy to think of the RS200 a bit like a GT-R in reverse, with two big differences: The selectable four-wheel-drive, and the fact that the RS200 was built decades before Nissan’s internet-breaking R35. It turns out, the GT-R is a bit like an RS200 built in reverse, and it’s details like these which make the RS200 one of my favorite Fords of all time.

Top graphic image: Ford