What was your first car? Richie
O’Mahony’s was, and still is, a Mk2 Escort. He wins at first cars.
Assuming your first car was a Ford, it’s
quite possible to guess at what it was dependent on when you passed your test.
As a generalisation, we reckon that if you got your driving licence in the
1970s it’s likely that your first car might have been an Anglia or possibly a
Cortina handed down by a family member. If you passed your test in the 1980s,
you would have been rocking a second-hand Mk1 Escort, or maybe a Mk2 Escort if
you had “cash on the hip”. An early 1990s driver would have been in a Mk3
Escort or Mk1 Fiesta and a late 1990s driver would have been a Mk4 Escort/Orion
or Mk2 Fiesta. And so it continues. Most will have met their fate on a country
lane – either in a ditch or around a tree.
“Having
been brought up around motorsport, especially in Ireland, you soon learn that
there is only one car to have and that’s a mk2 escort”
These days, though, it’s all very
different. Late Fiestas, from Mk5 to current, or a Focus of some kind would be
a sweeping generalisation, but it is far less easy to narrow down. The last
thing you’d expect is a 17-year-old lad being able to afford a Mk2 Escort as a
first car. However, Richie O’Mahony had one, and four years down the line, he’s
still got it despite trying as hard as he can to throw it up a tree on the
rally stage.
Richie is in his third year studying
Mechanical Engineering and has cars and motorsport running through his blood.
“I’ve been involved with the preparation of rally and racing cars with our
family-run team O’Mahony Motorsport/OME Racing,” he explains. “Having been
brought up around motorsport, especially in Ireland, you soon learn that there
is only one car to have and that’s a Mk2 Escort.” That’s all well and good, but
they aren’t exactly the cheapest of chariots these days, which is something
that prices many people out of the market.
Richie was on a tight budget, though, and
found it hard trying to locate a car that fitted into his price range. “I was
looking at RS2000s in the UK, but by the time I’d have paid to get it home and
insure it, it was just impossible,” recalls Richie. “So I kept an eye on
websites and one popped up in Donegal. Luckily the owner worked in Dublin so I
gave him a deposit to ensure that the car was mine.”
More
widespread Rallye Sport production was initiated with the RS2000 of 1976 which
substituted the diva-ish Cosworth unit for a sturdier two-litre Pinto
powerhouse.
Getting the car wasn’t straightforward for
Richie as it snowed very heavily for two weeks, but on New Year’s Eve Richie
and his Dad took the gamble, along with a Jeep and trailer, to collect the car.
“The snow and ice was that bad I only got to see the right hand side of the
car, I simply couldn’t get around to see the left,” he laughs. “Dad had a good
look at it and gave me the thumbs up, so I took the gamble and went for it. It
wasn’t until we got to a petrol station closer to home that I got to see the
car in its full.” The good news was that his 1980 1300L was actually alright.
The majority of the corrosion was cosmetic with the structure of the car
needing little or no work.
The
Toyota Corolla 1300 is a 2 door saloon (sedan)-bodied car with a front
positioned engine supplying power to the rear wheels. Its engine is a naturally
aspirated petrol, 1.3 litre, overhead valve 4 cylinder with 2 valves per
cylinder.
Being Irish, and part of a family that is
heavily involved in motorsport, it’s not hard to work out that Richie had big
plans for his Mk2 from the outset. “The day that I went to get the car I knew
in my head that I wanted a rally car theme, but keep it as a road car,” he
recalls. “I never really intended to go this far with it to be honest.”
