I thought I better start a separate thread on this.
The Story about this car is pretty complex, It won the Safari in 1977 it was its only event and went straight into retirement and into the Ford Heritage Collection. Later ford were sponsored by BA, and needed a publicity car, so they borrowed STW201R, re painted it in BA colours and with a Reg Plate WTW 567S, which was the BA car that won the RAC that year. So STW 201R was in effect stripped of its ID and VIN, even though the car still existed as the second WTW 567S. In 1978 ford made some new cars, but were short of Regs, so they revived STW201R using the VIN plate from the shell in the Ford Collection, this car was used by Hannu in the 1000 lakes, it did one or two more rallies before it was sold over to Dave Sutton and run in Rothmans colours for Malcolm Wilson, except Dave built a brand new car and used the reg from the boreham car. This was then sold to Clew Hughes, then to Colin Short, then sold to a rally school in Wales. Although the original car was still back in the Collection, it had no real ID, Ford lent the car to the BBC for Tif Needell to do a pre RAC show with the car, but he crashed it and it needed a new body shell, so Ford shipped it off to Dave Sutton and he re-shelled it and shipped it back to the Ford Collection . Dave Sutton then bought the damaged bodyshell off the insurance company restored it and brought it to the RS show in Donington and it was purchased by Rodney Preston.
So in short Rodney has the original Bodyshell, the running gear is in another shell in the Ford Collection, the new(dave sutton) STW 201R was in a rally school in wales until very recently, I think Alan Watkin bought it.
This is a story as told by the Guru Graham Robson.
The Story about this car is pretty complex, It won the Safari in 1977 it was its only event and went straight into retirement and into the Ford Heritage Collection. Later ford were sponsored by BA, and needed a publicity car, so they borrowed STW201R, re painted it in BA colours and with a Reg Plate WTW 567S, which was the BA car that won the RAC that year. So STW 201R was in effect stripped of its ID and VIN, even though the car still existed as the second WTW 567S. In 1978 ford made some new cars, but were short of Regs, so they revived STW201R using the VIN plate from the shell in the Ford Collection, this car was used by Hannu in the 1000 lakes, it did one or two more rallies before it was sold over to Dave Sutton and run in Rothmans colours for Malcolm Wilson, except Dave built a brand new car and used the reg from the boreham car. This was then sold to Clew Hughes, then to Colin Short, then sold to a rally school in Wales. Although the original car was still back in the Collection, it had no real ID, Ford lent the car to the BBC for Tif Needell to do a pre RAC show with the car, but he crashed it and it needed a new body shell, so Ford shipped it off to Dave Sutton and he re-shelled it and shipped it back to the Ford Collection . Dave Sutton then bought the damaged bodyshell off the insurance company restored it and brought it to the RS show in Donington and it was purchased by Rodney Preston.
So in short Rodney has the original Bodyshell, the running gear is in another shell in the Ford Collection, the new(dave sutton) STW 201R was in a rally school in wales until very recently, I think Alan Watkin bought it.
This is a story as told by the Guru Graham Robson.
