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Cars and Car Conversions - Feature: Mid-Engined BDA Fiesta
"Back Seat Driving"
October 1982
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Feature: Mid-Engined BDA Fiesta




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.....This Fiesta's inner rear wheel arches have been moved back no less than three inches in order to accommodate driveshafts at the correct angle relative to the rear wheels. It was a close call as to whether the engine would go in at all, even with the crucial three inches taken into account, and the interior is, to say the least, cramped as a result.

This car was conceived not so much in terms of any technological advance on the opposition, but more as a logical extension to the vital business of attracting commercial support; a sensible approach which has netted obvious dividends in the form of the understanding and enthusiastic sponsorship of Roberts Petroleum.

Continual mechanical failure on comparatively well promoted local special stage events, combined with the need to produce something genuinely different provided the initial motivation for the project, and both men managed to maintain this vital motivation by virtue of their astounding mutual determination.

October 1981 witnessed the birth of the Fiesta in Robin's home village of Whitton on Humberside. By Christmas last year it was taking shape in satisfactory manner. Robin's ZF gearbox rebuilder first gave him the idea of fitting a complete Formula One-style rear transaxle complete with Hewland FG400 gearbox and massive CanAm type four pot caliper inboard rear discs.

There were many, including those who perhaps should have known better, who told them it would never work.

It was decided to use the very tough Jaguar driveshafts, also employing them as the top link of the rear suspension, in established Brown's Lane manner. The problem then was to find a racing gearbox that would take the strain of the necessary pick-up points. Advice from Hewland suggested that the FG400 gearbox sideplates would take the pounding, despite the imposition of a Jaguar top link, and this was all the encouragement that Robin required.

It didn't take long to locate the necessary transmission - via small ads - an ex-McLaren F1 unit. It represents the single most expensive item purchased for the car: a bargain at £700 for the complete transaxle unit, which is a real bargain when you consider that this price includes the gearbox, rear axle, and brakes.

The brake balance bar from the old car is fitted to the Fiesta and nearly all of its bias is twisted onto the front single pot caliper discs. "I should say that it's totally over-braked really, but at the moment it's balancing out very nicely."

A spaceframe sub-chassis (which is in fact little more than a World Cup type - but Robin and Andrew fabricated - crossmember) has been welded into the front of the car to provide pick-up points upon which to mount the Macrherson struts, along with their standard bottom arms and an anti-roll bar.

In view of the car's dual purpose role as both a loose surface and tarmac rally car, it has been built with obvious strength - almost everything is double plated, and Jaguar rear hubs provide the sort of ground clearance that could never be achieved with motor racing hardware.

Initial experiments with mounting the engine involved a deep breath, followed rapidly by the cutting of a large hole in the floor behind the seats. With the shell levelled up and doors in place, the engine was then sat in its new home, balancing on a trolley jack and positioned at exactly the same angle as it had sat in Robin's old Escort. Chassis rails were subsequently welded in, upon which to attach the engine mounting plates, and boxes were fashioned for the adjustable rose jointed forward facing four link rods.

From a driving point of view, Robin doesn't.....

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Top-Middle - "The Fiesta should be giving more power and there's bumpsteer on the front end which tends to be accentuated by the crossply racers, but they know how to cure that now; and I think they've both done a magnificent job." John Taylor