My Mazda MX-5: Klaus Ludwig’s 1988 DTM Title Winning Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth

The one and only, the legendary, Klaus Ludwig’s 1988 DTM title winning car Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 is presented in its original winning glory. Where? In Finland – of course! This unique piece of European racing heritage is so amazing that it deserves to be brought into public attention.

The owner of the race car power house - Sarlin Race Team - Kalle Sarlin did not just win the Finnish Touring car championship with this same Sierra Cosworth in 1991, but he also took the time and effort to take this classic back to its original glory.

Kalle and his crew started the restoration of this fine piece of machinery about ten years ago. It has taken hundreds of hours to get it to this point where everyone can let their eyes feast on its beauty. The restoration began from the bare body shell and continued step by step until the current state was reached.

Nowadays to an untrained eye it might just look like another Ford Sierra with some stickers on it. But to all of you guys who know what to look for its obvious that this beast is nothing but business. Wide racing slicks wrapped around three piece BBS magnesium alloys with center-locks are yelling “No, it is not another tuned 3-door Sierra with graphics”.

Under the bonnet lurks a turbocharged 2-litre RS500 racing engine. This Ford’s YB-series 16 valve DOCH inline four has been seriously refined to be able to take the heat of the continuous racing. Garret’s T3/T4 turbocharger feeds compressed air to the engine through a big air-to-air intercooler. Group A cylinder head and Group A pistons guarantee that neither the airflow nor mechanical strength becomes an issue. Three external fuel pumps and 8 injectors make sure that the air fuel ratio stays where the Bosch Motronic MP1.7 engine management system commands it to be. Roughly 480 hp is transmitted to the rear wheels through a sand casted Getrag 5-speed gearbox and a Ford Motorsport 7.5” differential. Both gearbox and differential are cooled with PWR oil coolers.

What is a race car without a proper suspension and brakes? A street car, perhaps. Well, in this case nothing but Ford Motorsport Group A magnesium uprights, Group A magnesium rear arms, quick steering rack, Bilstein coil-over shocks (front/rear) and adjustable front anti-roll bar are there. The brakes are from AP-racing with 4-pot calipers front/rear and vented rotors 330x35 mm front plus 304x28 mm rear.

As if all of the above mentioned was not enough, the list of the goodies goes on: Factory RS500 front lip spoiler, bumpers, twin rear spoilers, heated windscreen, seam-welded chassis, FIA-spec multipoint roll cage, air jacks, Recaro SPA carbon/kevlar seat, 6-point harness, Bosch Motorsport LCD display and so on...