"You wot, mate? Are you 'aving a giggle? Bash your 'ead in – I swear on me mum."

Snapping and snarling, a couple of council house delinquents circle each other warily, sizing up thirty years worth of differences and similarities. Turbochargers and handbrake turns. Late night speed runs. Bit of the old hooliganism, innit? That's the Ford RS.

The silvery geezer's a bit of an original gangster, a 1986 Sierra RS Cosworth in Moonstone Blue. Three decades on, it's still capable of handing out a bloody good hiding, putting out a healthy 200hp from its turbocharged 2.0L Cossie four-pot–and that's usually just for starters. It's rare to find one of these in factory trim.

Brendan McAleer

Next to it, Ford's newest upstart gleams in Nitrous Blue. The 2016 RS has a bright new tracksuit and new trainers on, but it's from the same graffiti-strewn estate. It's the dog's bollocks, bruv–drift mode, innit? Bangin'.

For a country that grew up associating Fast Fords with rally stripes and Texas chicken farmers, the RS is doing its part to teach America the cockney rhyming slang of speed. It's no accident that the current kingpin of the hot hatchback segment wears a Blue Oval–Ford's been hustling B-road speed for donkey's years. You never clocked it, mate? Here's the history of RS.

1970 Ford Escort RS1600

Ford

Not the first Ford to wear an RS badge, but certainly the first true RS, the Escort RS1600 arrived in 1970 with a Cosworth-tuned 1.6L four-cylinder making 120hp. It was little, lightweight, and rear-drive; an Essex boy born to run.

Ford's Advanced Vehicle Operations (AVO) was based out of Aveley, Essex, and commenced operations in 1970. The first of these little scrappers was driven off the line by mustachioed Formula One champion Graham Hill, a man all too familiar with what a Cosworth engine was capable of.

Ford's plan was to pair AVO's output, which included an RS-badged version of the V6-powered Capri, with Rallye Sport accredited dealerships. Across the pond, the muscle car boom had already begun to fade, but Ford's European sporting efforts were already based around small, light machines. And actually, America got one too: a single Capri RS2600 was imported for Edsel Ford II to drive to college.

There would be several RS-designation Escorts that followed, but the RS1600 would become the lasting legend. A US audience may be most familiar with the bright blue fender-flared Escort that Paul Walker flew over a concrete divider to rescue Tyrese Gibson from getting crushed by a tank. Not, it has to be said, particularly realistic.

However, the racing exploits of the tiny, flared-out Escort with the unbelievably loud side-draft-carb'd Cossie BDA were all too real. The rallying wins piled up. So did the skid marks around abandoned industrial complexes at night. RS had arrived.

1984 Ford RS200 Evolution

Ford

From the beginning of RS, we flip almost immediately to its most-insane creation. While the intervening years saw numerous models that would be of great interest to any fan of Ford's European rallying exploits–the RS1800, the RS2000, the turbocharged RS1700T–the RS200 is so unbelievably crazy it overshadows them all.

Built as an entry in Group B racing, the RS200 was homologated to just 200 units. Power came from a turbocharged 1.8L Cosworth engine, which made around 250hp in roadgoing trim and was mounted amidships. The fibreglass-composite body was designed by Ghia, and the space frame featured details like twin dampers and double wishbone suspension at all four corners.

Here's where things get nuts. In the last year of production, Ford released about a dozen Evolution models for racing. Group B was banned by this point, but that didn't stop Ford from entering a few of their machines in rallycross competition. Here, they sported 2.1L engines making anywhere from 650 to more than 800hp.

The Guinness World Record for the fastest accelerating car in the world wasn't held by a Lamborghini or a Ferrari, but by a funny little fibreglass Ford, which would do 0-60mph in a little over two seconds. Dirtfish rally school has one of the last ever made in their lobby, just East of Seattle, WA.

Sidebar: 1984 Ford Escort RS Turbo

Tim Graham Getty Images

Relatively rare, the '84 Escort RS Turbo gets a special mention here for one very odd piece of trivia. Princess Diana owned one, a specially-prepared model painted black at the factory (other S1 RS Turbos were repainted from white).

Prince Charles famously gave Diana a plain silver Ford Escort Ghia as an engagement gift, with the intent to make the royal couple look relatable to the average commoner. One hopes that, upon taking delivery of her RS, the Princess smoked the tires past St. James Park, did a handbrake turn in front of Buckingham Palace, poked her head out of the car and said, "Oi! Liz! Fancy going for a pint and a curry?"

1986 Ford Sierra RS Cosworth

Brendan McAleer

While the RS200 represents Ford's wildest foray into turbocharging, the Sierra RS is what brought the forced induction hoonery to the masses. Let's take this one out for a boot.

Built in an effort to dominate Group A racing in Europe, the RS version of the Sierra was a boy racer's dream. Cosworth insisted that Ford order a minimum of 15,000 engines, and designer Lothar Pinske demanded full control over modifications to the standard Sierra's bodywork. The result was vented, flared, and capped off with a rear wing the size of a snow shovel. Ford's conservative executives weren't very impressed – but their inner eight-year-olds likely were.

While the Sierra looks a bit like a X4RTi, it is a considerably lighter machine, and there's plenty of power waiting to be unlocked from the turbo'd DOHC four. In factory trim, it sounds wonderful, spooling up with late-80s surge and honking out the stainless-steel exhaust (this car's sole differentiation from stock).

Brendan McAleer

The transmission is a Borg-Warner T-5, tuned slightly to deal with the rev-happy Cosworth mill. Probably the best thing about the machine is the way it tucks into a couple of mountain corners, the driver stuck firmly into the near-perfect Recaros. The steering is simply fantastic, as is the visibility. This is a very quick little car, but the joy is in the feel of the thing.

With big power, like that in the 5-600hp Australian touring cars of the wonderfully-named Dick Johnson, this thing would be an utter nutter. A friend once described seeing one explode under boost at Bathhurst, with the car arriving in the travel trap some seconds before the hood landed.

Ford Escort RS Cosworth

Ford

A thousand horsepower is not out of the question. This hunchy little monster is the definitive tuner's delight of the RS line, with aftermarket companies building high-horsepower dyno queens for bragging rights. However, what the Cossie really wants to do is tear up the tarmac.

Homologated for WRC competition, the Escort RS looks like a blend of its Sierra Cosworth and RS1600 ancestors. It's short, flared, crammed with boost, and fitted with a truly enormous spoiler–the last was penned by Frank Stephenson, the designer of BMW's first batch of reborn Minis.

The Escort Cosworth added permanent all-wheel-drive, with a 33/66 front-to-rear bias (one percent of the power went to the wing, obviously). Once owners started unlocking power beyond the factory 217hp, it needed it.

The Escort Cossie did well in WRC competition, but it was in the hands of hooligans that it really created an underground forum. While we'd never recommend running from the police – and particularly not the Swedish police, who probably make you construct your own jail cell with an Allen key – the second of the infamous underground Getaway In Stockholm illegal pursuit videos featured an Escort RS and a Toyota Supra frustrating all attempts to bring them to justice.

2009 Ford Focus RS

Last of the unobtainium, this overpowered front-driver is about as shy and retiring as a butterfly knife. Wild slashes to the bodywork looked like the work of a madman, and the 300hp turbo'd 2.5L inline five was the kind of thing to give the Swedes palpitations again.

In many ways, the RS paved the way for slightly more realistic hatches like the Focus ST and the Fiesta ST to make their way to the US. The immense interest created by this green monster as it started showing up on the internet helped Ford gauge the market for releasing some European-style carnage in America. And release they did.

2016 Ford Focus RS

Brendan McAleer

So much has been written about the Focus RS here that I hesitate to add to it. Suffice it to say that the Fiesta ST is surprisingly a little more fun to drive when you're holding back a little. Pull out all the stops and the RS gets absolutely brilliant, sliding and snarling and doling out enough grip to wrinkle the tarmacadam.

Like the rest of its RS ancestors, it's a nutter. But yet, perhaps the modern RS is not quite as insane as its forebears. The recent mild upgrade from Mountune might indicate that Ford didn't leave much in the way of horsepower on the table here, and that the RS's clever all-wheel-drive system might not be able to handle really big power.

Brendan McAleer

Even as it is, it's more than happy to give your favorite backroad a bloody good kicking. It's proper mental, this thing is. Swear on me mum.

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