YKYWT: 1980 'Zakspeed' Ford Escort RS2000

How tough does this look? It's road-legal, too

We'll get the bad news out of the way first: it's possible that this car isn't in fact one of the five original Zakspeed Escorts, despite being magazine-featured as such.

The vendor is currently looking into the car's history to establish exactly what it is, but if it wasn't built by the famous German racing concern then by default it's probably one of the late Nick Whiting's (brother of F1 Race Director Charlie) cars, which still makes it a rare and desirable piece of kit.

The roof, door pillars, doors, windscreen and rear lights were the only exterior parts made by Ford. The rest of the body is a combination of aluminium and glass-fibre dropped over a steel spaceframe which results in a very light machine.

The estimated weight of around 650kg therefore seems plausible, and with a claimed 248bhp on tap from the 2.2-litre all-steel Pinto motor (a dyno run of which can be seen here) it would be a very lively car indeed.

It makes you wonder, though, what the Nick Whiting version must have been like with 430bhp of Cosworth V6 and something in the region of 600bhp/ton... There's some brief footage of it being given what-for at the end of this clip.

Whatever the Escort's true identity, it would certainly make a fast and very cool racing or track day car.

The price may seem a bit steep at £55k and could probably be negotiated more in your favour, but to build such a car from scratch would certainly demand a lot of time and effort and not a little funding.

Wouldn't you love to turn up at a circuit with it on a trailer being towed by a liveried-up one of these? Or better still just drive it there!