Watching someone else build a Mk1 Escort is the next best thing to building one yourself, and a good build series teaches more than any manual. This is where we collect the best of them. For each series we write up every episode in our own words: what gets done, the parts and suppliers named, the lessons worth stealing for your own car, and how it compares with the way Ford built the Mk1 in the first place. Every video stays credited to the people who made it.
Mk1 builds tend to fall into four camps:
- Concours restoration: back to factory spec, with original or correct parts.
- Rally replica: built to look and go like the works Group 4 cars, with a seam-welded shell and uprated running gear.
- Historic race car: built to a specific series’ rules.
- Restomod: the period look with modern running gear, comfort and reliability.
Our first complete series is a restomod, and one of the most talked-about Mk1s of recent years: the car Retropower built for Gordon Murray, the designer of the McLaren F1. It runs a Cosworth-built Duratec, a six-speed Mazda gearbox and independent rear suspension, yet looks like a period Twin Cam. All 17 episodes are written up, from the first meeting in 2017 to the finished car on the road in 2022.
Next up is a very different kind of build: Dave’s Garage UK, a five-year home restoration of a Mk1 with scratch-built panels, bubble arches and a Zetec engine with an MX-5 gearbox. We’ll start with its Zetec rear-wheel-drive conversion videos.
Browse the Gordon Murray build by job
- Shell, rust and metalwork: Ep 3, Ep 4, Ep 6, Ep 9
- Engine and gearbox: Ep 5, Ep 12, Ep 14, Ep 16
- Suspension and independent rear: Ep 2, Ep 6, Ep 11
- Paint: Ep 10, Ep 11
- Interior, wiring and driving position: Ep 4, Ep 13, Ep 15
