Thoroughly enjoyed watching that video thanks Neil. Yes I did own a Mk1 which was a fully caged and modded RS2000 bought for rallying. I competed in it for 4 years until it was replaced with a Lancia Delta. I gave the RS2000 to my navigator to look after for me as I had no space and it came to an exceedingly unusual, in fact unbelievable, end. I realise this sounds loony but it is the exact story of the car's demise:
My navigator Lee, shared a first floor flat in Sydney Road, Watford with a very nice girl who worked in Watford Steam Laundry behind the flat. There was space alongside the flats which had been the drive into the laundry when they were using carts. The arrival of motor vans for transport heralded the constuction of a new drive from the other end of the laundry which made the space alongside the flats redundant. It was barricaded from Sydney Road by a huge pair of oak gates, which, with the frame, were 8ft 6" high and around 9ft wide and erected level with the front wall of the flats leaving a parking space in front. Lee sought permission from the laundry to store the RS there for me and we got the gates open and parked it inside safe from prying eyes and joyriders who did have a bit of a reputation for quick cars in those days.
Some weeks later Andrea, Lee's flatmate, had begun a relationship with a policeman who had been transferred into the new motorway patrol group that had been set up in Watford. On the friday of that week Lee received a phone call from the police asking him to go home to deal with a problem which had arisen. On arriving home, which was only a 10 minute bike ride from Watford Telephone Exchange where we both worked, Lee was confronted with the rear end of a Rover SD1 police patrol car sticking out from a huge pile of broken timber behind which was the remains of my RS2000!! Sadly as the car was no longer in use it was not insured so I agreed for Andrea's boyfriend to pay me a figure over the next 6 months. I think it was £400 but I am not sure of that. What had happened as we were told, though I'm still not sure its true!!!, is that Peter had taken delivery of his brand new patrol car and on the pretence of test driving it, he had popped round to show it to Andrea. His story was that he pulled onto the drive and was getting out to ring the doorbell when his knee caught the auto gearstick and knocked it into gear. He jammed his foot on what he thought was the brake but it turned out to be the accelerator and he promptly accelerated the police tuned V8 into the oak gates...........!!!!!!!!....and the rest is history!
We always thought it ironic that the car had survived 4 years of being thrashed to death all over the country, through forests and moorland, private estates and even factory car parks on rallies and auto tests without ever being caught, yet it met its demise in a quiet back street, finally nailed by the boys in blue!!
