A fair question, and one that comes up on most first calls. With everything ever homologated, why run the Ford Escort?
It was right the first time
The Escort's rally record is not nostalgia, it is data. Light, rear driven, balanced, and simple in the way that matters. When something breaks four hundred kilometres from the workshop, simplicity is a spare part you carry for free.
The modern build removes the wrong half of old
A properly built Safari car keeps the geometry and the character, and replaces everything that used to make old cars frightening. The shell is prepared to modern standards, the cage and seats and extinguisher systems are current, and the cooling is designed for the equator rather than for Wales.
What is left is the honest part. A car that tells you everything the road is doing, at speeds where you can actually listen.
It is the right amount of fast
Modern machinery covers ground faster than most first-time crews can read it. The Escort's pace is the pace at which East Africa is still legible. Quick enough that the finish means something, humane enough that you remember the week instead of just surviving it.
And it sounds correct
We could dress this up as engineering. It is also just true. A twin-cam Escort at full noise on murram is one of the great sounds of the sport, and you are allowed to want it.