What was your first car? Richie
O’Mahony’s was, and still is, a Mk2 Escort. He wins at first cars.
When he bought the car it was an unarched
Rivera blue Mk2 and he wasted no time in going to town on it, although at that
point keeping it un-arched. “The first thing I did was strip it out and fit
bucket seats,” Richie explains. “I installed Gaz inserts up front and dampers
at the rear, lowered it 2”, fitted 7x13” Superlite wheels, got rid of all of
the chrome and fitted a boot spoiler. I then took the engine out to give it a
lick of paint. At this time I also re-built the carb and painted the engine bay
white.” After that he just spent the summer enjoying the car.
It
might "only" be a 1300 Crossflow, but the Kent engine is pushing out
a hearty 135bhp thanks to Scholar's wizardry. Richie wrings every last one of
those out, too!
Come the next winter, though, the
inevitable started to happen and Richie’s motorsport roots started to take
over, as he explains. “I decided to arch the car so I fitted Tarmac plus-one
arches on it and tackled any of the rust on the bodywork. At the same time I
also fitted a rear roll cage. The following winter I had a 1300 Crossflow built
by Scholar Engines in Suffolk. It’s some piece of kit. It produces 135bhp. I
sent over my original engine and gave them an idea of the spec that I was
aiming for and the budget I had. They worked their magic on the engine and I’ll
still never forget my first experience of driving the car with the new engine –
an unreal sensation. Deep down I wanted a Zetec in the car, but to keep it in
the regulations for rallying and other forms of motorsport I made the choice to
go to town on the Crossflow.”
The
weight of the car is low as the interior has been stripped back to the bare
metal. No sound deadening in there to cover up the rasp of the Cossie lump up
front and even the firewall offers little respite as it has been replaced by a
lightweight aluminium version as have the door panels, pedals, dash panel and
foot well plates.
With a screaming engine to enjoy over the
summer, it was inevitable that the following winter would bring more changes.
“The hardest part of all of this has been finding the time to do it,” Richie
explains. “Due to college for me, work for Dad, and racing taking over most of
the summer and night navigation taking over most of the winter we tried to do
as much as we could when we could. It took three years to get to where we are,
but every summer I’ve had the car driving around and it’s been different every
time.”
The next evolution would be quite a serious
one as Richie and his Dad went to town on the Mk2, as he explains: “That winter
it had a full bare-metal rebuild. It got a full Custom-cages weld-in roll cage,
chassis stiffening plates, an Atlas axle complete with Gripper LSD, a Panhard
rod, anti-tramp kit, Wilwood four-pot brakes, a rear disc conversion,
fiberglass bonnet and bootlid and we fully re-wired it with a custom wiring
loom. The most noticeable change, though, was the re-spray in Kawasaki green.”
“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”
The day prior to our photoshoot Richie
attended his first endurance rally in the Mk2, which only served to encourage
the transition of a Mk2 that, whilst it looked very rally, had only been used
for a couple of track days up to that point. “I’ve been racing since I was
eight,” says Richie. “Karting to Saloon and GT racing with a few class
championships and race wins, now I found myself wanting a new challenge and
rallying is where I am looking for it.” Fortunately enough he had a Mk2 road
car that was now looking like a very handy rally car. Though not handy enough
that Richie and his Dad wouldn’t attack it again over the winter of 2013/14.
