I may have found Andy Rouse's XR4Ti

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by racer69

Colin Bond bought a car off Don Smith at the start of 1988, along with an agreement that he would also take delivery of a shell Don Smith was awaiting delivery of from Europe. However when the shell arrived Miedecke had done a deal with Andrew Bagnall to have the shell, and Bagnall got it.

Mr Bond ran the borrowed car (from Mr Giddings) for season 1988, until a new shell arrived in time for the endurance races (and built up by Mr Bond's team), where Mr Giddings and Mr Stewart teamed up in a second Caltex-branded Sierra for the enduros that year.

[jeek]

Well i have been doing a bit more hunting around and speaking to the previous owner! and we have come across the original grill that was on the car with original ICS paintowrk on it!

Like in this pic!


Do the people who know Mr rouse.think it would be possible to get something signed saying this is his old car? Or ask him if he would mind if i had some contact details for him?

[Al Weyman]

Nice one, now don't forget if you do restore it put the right US 2.3 Pinto Turbocharged engine as fitted to the Merkur, Mustang and Thunderbird and not the easy Cossie route as that would ruin a bit of important Ford history as this was the transitional car that eventually resulted in putting the Cossie on the motorsport map.

[jeek]

Yeah we are still in 2 minds if we will restore it or not but if we do we will try find a merkur engine!

[Mikelee]

Just wondering what the outcome has been with the car?
Have you decided wether or not to restore it? Exciting stuff

[Wireless]

Originally Posted by Mikelee

Just wondering what the outcome has been with the car?
Have you decided wether or not to restore it? Exciting stuff

Me too. What happened...?

[ian.stewart]

Originally Posted by jeek

Yeah we are still in 2 minds if we will restore it or not but if we do we will try find a merkur engine!

I would think the Pinto Turbo engine if finadable in the UK, have an ask on the NSRA site,Plenty op people rip out the Turbo engine on favour of a V8, and ofte have non Turbo 2.3s laying about as Mustang 2s are often pillaged for their front suspension. http://www.nsra.org.uk/newforum/
+ There is often a fella on here, http://www.racecarsdirect.com/categories/25.html sellig BTTC sierra parts, could be worth a looksie
Ian

[Al Weyman]

When I was going to build one years ago I found a non turbo engine easy enough it was all the other stuff that went with it was the problem mind you no eBay or internet back then!

[jellison]

Originally Posted by Podd37

I hate to say it but there is no way that that is the roll cage from a GpA anything. No door bars, no front section, no marks of it being attached to the shell and rather amateurish looking bolts on it. Perhaps the front wings came from the Rouse car, but that looks like a homebuilt job to me.

Agree.

[Al Weyman]

I thought we already agreed that and that maybe the original was alloy which was changed after its BTCC career to comply with club racing.

[jellison]

Not a Cat in Hells chance Rouse Ever sat his backside in that SHED.

[Al Weyman]

Now now steady on, I have a 'shed' in my garage, well it looks a shed at the moment as its in bits but I can absolutely assure you much more famous and accomplished drivers than Andy Rouse have driven including at least 4 or 5 F1drivers it so don't judge a book by its cover especially one that has been left out in the elements. Read the thread properly and you will see reference to the original cage mounting points. All BTTC cars of the period were based on a simple off the line road car shell, leave it out in the rain for ten years and thats what you end up with!

[kurtiejjj]

I'm still not sure of the colour, as originally it was blue but now white. Of course it could have been given a repaint, but under the white layer there is absolutely no trace of blue paint whatsoever. How come??

+ did these cars have the air jack/point thingies on both sides?

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by jellison

Not a Cat in Hells chance Rouse Ever sat his backside in that SHED.

If you look back at the beginning of the thread, you'll see that quite a few of us [me included] took your position about the car when we first saw the pictures. But as Al's said, since the thread's developed, it would appear that there's more and more evidence that this may indeed be one of his shells. You have to bear in mind that what's here is bereft of all the good bits. Even the cage has been removed [A wierd thing to do unless it went rallying]. Essentially its the same as the remains of a reshell, if somebody had done that. To turn this into a Group A XR4Ti would be a more difficult task than Andy faced in building it from scratch originally.

[jellison]

Originally Posted by davyboy

If you look back at the beginning of the thread, you'll see that quite a few of us [me included] took your position about the car when we first saw the pictures. But as Al's said, since the thread's developed, it would appear that there's more and more evidence that this may indeed be one of his shells. You have to bear in mind that what's here is bereft of all the good bits. Even the cage has been removed [A wierd thing to do unless it went rallying]. Essentially its the same as the remains of a reshell, if somebody had done that. To turn this into a Group A XR4Ti would be a more difficult task than Andy faced in building it from scratch originally.

Fair enough - so basically a worthless box that it would be stupid saying really had any link to the Rouse car. The Turbo XR4's were just a one year stop gap in any case. Did not make much power (approx 350) either. Preferred the GTV6's that one it a year or twoo b4 and of cause the Proper Cossies.

[VIVA GT]

I've been watching this thread with interest since it started, but yesterday I decided to re-read it through.
Looking at the pictures I've noticed that the fuel filler cap is still in position, which I'm sure is not right. Even if the car didn't have a long distance tank and the traditional Premier fillers on either side, I'm sure that Andy Rouse Engineering would have plated this hole over and filled the (whatever) tank directly.
There's also mention of a chassis number (presumably the one stamped into the floorpan?). This would only be present on a raod car, and again, surely a Group A car would have been built up from a bare shell? There's far too much of the road car to be thrown away when building a Group A Touring Car (this was certainly the case with Group A Cosworths).
Just my thoughts and observations...

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by jellison

Fair enough - so basically a worthless box that it would be stupid saying really had any link to the Rouse car.

No. I accept you're entitled to your opinion - not that it adds anything at all to what has been an interesting debate/discussion since this thread started. Whether its a worthless box isn't for you to decide nor is it at all stupid. Perhaps when making such comments you might like to add a simple 'IMO'......

[jellison]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

No. I accept you're entitled to your opinion - not that it adds anything at all to what has been an interesting debate/discussion since this thread started. Whether its a worthless box isn't for you to decide nor is it at all stupid. Perhaps when making such comments you might like to add a simple 'IMO'......

IMHO - Even if it has ANY of the Original Car in there, there IS so little of it, to make it Worthless IMO.

I am on the side that think it is not a Group A shell.

Also - Get a grip - This is not life of Death stuff!

[Aysedasi]

Who said it was.......?

[EvilPumpkin]

Originally Posted by jellison

IMHO - Even if it has ANY of the Original Car in there, there IS so little of it, to make it Worthless IMO.

I am on the side that think it is not a Group A shell.

Also - Get a grip - This is not life of Death stuff!

Good manners cost nothing. Bad manners, however, can be very costly so suggest you learn some basic ones if you want to continue posting here.

[jellison]

Originally Posted by EvilPumpkin

Good manners cost nothing. Bad manners, however, can be very costly so suggest you learn some basic ones if you want to continue posting here.

You have never met me. We are just syba geek on here. You obviously have never met me Via Pistonheads either. Ok officially bored of this now.

For what it's worth - IMO that car is not an ex-Rouse one.

[GBRM]

I'm not sure either way as there are bits that do look original and bits that don't.

As for it being a road shell that doesn't surprise me at all, a lot of late '70s early '80s Group 1 cars were roadshells first (and Mr Rouse was quite an old-fashioned engineer), sometimes it was the only way to get the particular shell you wanted and in the case of the XR4Ti I would have thought it was a particularly rare beast to get hold of.

Going back to one of my earlier posts I did send a link to this discussion to Pete Hall (who would have been involved in the build/spec of the car) and neither he (or Andy) have ever come back to me or posted on here, so make of that what you will.

O/T - This isn't Pistonheads.com!!

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by GBRM

Going back to one of my earlier posts I did send a link to this discussion to Pete Hall (who would have been involved in the build/spec of the car) and neither he (or Andy) have ever come back to me or posted on here, so make of that what you will.

I read somewhere [Autosport possibly ?] that Andy has no interest in his old cars and is not a man for nostalgia. I don't know him, so I can't say for sure, but that may explain his lack of action here Gregor.

[GBRM]

Originally Posted by davyboy

I read somewhere [Autosport possibly ?] that Andy has no interest in his old cars and is not a man for nostalgia. I don't know him, so I can't say for sure, but that may explain his lack of action here Gregor.

That's true (he only has one racecar at his home and that's a new one!!) but I he'd be interested if someone was passing off a fake (sic), plus Pete Hall is very interested in old cars (he had one of the largest collections of old cars in the country until recently) and would be the same.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by GBRM

That's true (he only has one racecar at his home and that's a new one!!) but I he'd be interested if someone was passing off a fake (sic), plus Pete Hall is very interested in old cars (he had one of the largest collections of old cars in the country until recently) and would be the same.

Out of interest did any of his 'old' cars have any touring car race history? I.E Ex Rouse Grp 1 or Grp A chassis?