We’ve enjoyed the whole rollercoaster of the Ford Escort RS Cosworth experience in Europe. The novelty, the thrill of competition, the lows of rampant car theft, the dubious modifications, and the steady rise into collector car status pushing values well beyond the Cosworth’s original purchase price.
But in the United States, the Cosworth experience only started in 2017, when the earliest 1992 examples became eligible for import thanks to the country’s “25 year rule” banning imports of cars younger than a quarter-century.
Predictably, more than a few have made their way over to the US in the last few years, and it’s one of those that Magnus Walker managed to get his hands on for the latest in Hagerty’s The Next Big Thing video series.
The “Escort Cossie”, as it’s popularly known, already sells for strong money out in the States, buoyed by the attention of enthusiasts who’ve been denied the car up until recently. But as it’s still to hit the mainstream, there’s a pretty good case for it being The Next Big Thing, decades after it was categorically a Big Thing in its own market.
As for the Maserati Shamal that also appears in the video? That may have to work a little harder for attention, despite Marcello Gandini-designed lines and a twin-turbocharged V8.
Related to the 1990s Ghibli and with a hint of the unloved Biturbo under the skin, the Shamal packs all the attitude of the Escort Cossie without resorting to prominent aero addenda. It’s rarer, more powerful, and doesn’t have the Escort’s competition history, but like the Ford it never made it to the US officially, so has forbidden fruit appeal on its side.
And both, as Walker points out, are hooligan cars – just aimed at slightly different sorts of hooligan. For a certain breed of American car enthusiast, that will be enough to differentiate either from anything else on the road.
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