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.....solo on the hills now, that and Wales that is. "I was alright until I went to bloody Wales. The names of the places don't tie up with how they sound," he laughs. If you've ever asked for directions in the valleys you'll know what Nick means.
With this first taste of competition, Nick got fired up when a potential base vehicle turned up, literally on his doorstep. "I had a boy-racer Fiesta XR2, when one day this guy came into the dealership and asked if I wanted his car. He'd stored it in a dry garage for seven years that was 100 yards down from the back of the dealership," he explains. "I sprayed it with oil and left it outside for a month. I had a rolling shell and it had an engine, but half the loom was missing. Things like the rear arches were mint though."
It was only when Nick started dismantling the 1982 XR that he discovered traces of a mysterious foreign past. "I didn't even notice until we started doing the car, but the holes for the left-hand-drive stuff had been welded up and the wipers are the other way around," Nick reveals, but quickly adding, "It is UK-registered with a V5 though."
So whether or not it was originally a left-hand-drive-supplied motor, maybe a German-based serviceman who brought it back, or maybe a bare shell that was lying around and bought cheap, who knows? Nick did some research but didn't have much luck. "I had a word with the old road rally boys, but nobody knew anything. It had uprated shocks and the brake pipes moved inside. It had a cam in it and just little things like that."
It sounds like it was destiny really, but how did Nick decide on hillclimbing? "It was my fiance Nikki really, I wanted to do rallying. But there's no way on a mechanic's wages I can do rallying, so I decided to do a car that I could lace around the lanes and do some hillclimbing with," he adds.
Having always liked the Mk1 for its square-jawed looks, Nick set to stripping the shell and fitting new front wings, panel and crossmember, and at the time he even got a genuine bonnet, but that's made way for a fibreglass item now. The build started late in 2002 and the first event was RAF Chivenor in North Devon in July 2003, with Scotty the driver helping out along the way
"Scotty said that everybody had white Escorts and Fiestas, so we went for the Sunburst Red. He remembered that when they first came out the red looked mental on them."
You've got to agree with Scott too, with the Blister Black arches and old-skool.....
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