Fiesta Rallye Concept
The Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept has been realised through an intensely close collaboration between Ford Team RS, the performance car and motorsport experts in Ford Europe and Ford Design Europe, the creative team responsible for the new three-door Fiesta on which the Fiesta Rallye Concept is based.
“This project represents a fundamental change in how we approach motorsport vehicles,” said Chris Bird, Ford of Europe Design Director. “This collaboration has unleashed tremendous energy, demonstrating what we can achieve by working closely together with the motorsport engineering team to make competition vehicles a natural extension of the product range. The Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept shows that a performance vehicle can be both uncompromising and clearly coherent with the original design.”
Engineering Validation Next
Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept’s marriage of the motorsport engineer’s objective for performance functionality with the eye for detail of the designer has been so effective that Ford has committed to an engineering development programme to bring a Fiesta-based rally car to reality. Aiming for FIA homologation at the beginning of 2004, Ford Team RS is hoping that it will become Ford’s next success story in the Junior World Rally Championship.
As with the development of any car destined for competition use, the key to its success will be in its performance, but within this framework Bird’s team of designers and the Ford Team RS have created a car that is visually stimulating and entirely functional but is still faithful to the design thinking of the production vehicle.
Design with Credibility
Featuring extensive use of production-quality exterior accents and superbly executed interior features designed especially for the driver and co-driver, the Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept is not simply a design exercise. Its capabilities are clearly visible evidence that the “need for speed” need not translate to design compromise.
Powered by a high-performance version of Fiesta’s 1.6-litre Duratec 16V engine and fitted with a full range of rally safety equipment – including an integral roll cage, competition harnesses, Sparco racing seats and the mandatory built-in fire- extinguishing system – the Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept still retains clear links to its road-car counterpart.
Designed to Compete
The Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept’s purposeful, aerodynamically honed exterior design signals its clear intent to be a serious motorsport competitor. It features bold wheel arches, an aggressive looking front grille, special intake ducts in the bonnet and roof, a lustrous Machine Silver paint scheme with unique Ford ‘Blue Dimension’ graphic treatment and body accent features in a complementary matte Magnum Grey finish.
Subtle touches of bright color, including Print Blue exterior mirrors to match the Sparco seats, and bright red tow hooks front and rear, punctuate the engaging paint and graphic statement. A uniquely shaped rear spoiler adds further purpose to the Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept’s shape.
Wider and lower, featured in road-hugging tarmac specification at the Birmingham debut, it stands poised and confident on quasi-slick, 18-inch Pirelli P-Zero performance tyres mounted to 15-spoke magnesium wheels. Its massive brake discs, ceramic-effect Alcon calipers and specially machined suspension elements are visible details of the joint effort to achieve competition excellence and design coherence.
Inside – Function with Style
Fiesta’s spacious interior was ideal for development into the concept. Fiesta’s interior designers and the production-car team’s dedicated ergonomist were directly involved in adapting the car’s interior package especially for the rally application.
Bright blue, custom Sparco racing seats, a robust integral roll cage, special rally instrumentation and unique controls mark the interior of the vehicle as that of a purpose-built competitor. A rally-bred sequential gear shifter, custom-engineered for the Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept, and a hydraulic handbrake – complete with integral master cylinder – dominate the lower centre console. These controls are engineered from machined aluminium, and the shifter’s direct gearbox linkage is a jewel-like detail with its brushed aluminium bezel.
This is a car for serious competition drivers by design.
Inside and out, the Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept is clearly a purposeful and special competition vehicle, yet its Fiesta lineage is clear. Down to the smallest detail, the Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept is evidence that the designer’s maxim – form follows function – has true meaning.
Winning by Taking a Different Path
Its development has taken a different path from that of other production-based rally cars, in which performance specialists work to adapt a road car for the rigours of motorsport long after the original designers have finished their work. With a single-minded bent on winning, race teams and rally teams have been known to make modifications that radically change the character of the original car.
The Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept has made a believer of Team RS's man in charge of the engineering side of the collaboration, Ford Team RS Engineering Manager Philip Dunabin.
“I have to admit that I was sceptical going into this project,” said Dunabin, a veteran of world-class rallying, “but this has proven that a joint approach really works and the car looks right. Our work as motorsport engineers is usually strictly functional. For us, it either works or it doesn’t. That means we don’t normally apply the same consistency and design coherence as we’ve achieved with the Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept. Working hand-in-hand with the designers has really made a difference.”
Dunabin’s counterpart, chief exterior designer Chris Clements, said the team had fulfilled a long-term desire to realise the synergies between artful engineering and good design.
“There’s a real beauty to the engineering of this car,” Clements said. “We’ve worked together to achieve the engineering robustness for motorsport but with an eye toward design coherence. It’s a rally car, clearly, but it’s also very much a Fiesta not only in terms of the car underneath but also in the thinking that has gone into every incremental feature of the car and every additional detail.”
Competition-Driven Specification
Under the skin, Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept features an array of performance equipment.
Its 1.6-litre Duratec 16V engine features an aluminium head, block and sump, and is targeted to deliver high-revving output exceeding over 210 ps. The engine is mated to a Hewland six-speed, close ratio, front-wheel-drive, sequential gearbox.
Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept’s suspension is custom designed for competition, with extensive use of machined aluminium elements, including suspension arms and uprights. The MacPherson strut front suspension also features a unique fabricated front cross member and a rocker-arm anti-rollbar.
At the rear, Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept features a twist-beam suspension set-up. Dampers by Dynamic, with external reservoirs and specially engineered, machined aluminium top mounts, are featured front and rear.
Combined with power-assisted rack-and-pinion steering, the suspension system is designed to maximise Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept’s grip and handling.
Stopping power is equally impressive. In tarmac specification, Ford Fiesta Rallye Concept is fitted with 355 mm ventilated front discs with four-piston Alcon calipers in a ceramic-effect finish. At the rear, 265 mm slotted discs and two-piston Alcon calipers are fitted.
A high-flow Arvin Meritor stainless steel exhaust, with a four-to-two-to-one exhaust manifold design, is also featured in the concept vehicle. Its outlet tip also features the ceramic-effect finish used on the brake calipers.
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