INSIDE M-SPORT

We go behind the scenes at M-Sport’s factory and take a ride in one of the WRC cars built there for an experience to remember!

- Dan Trent

For anyone with an interest in fast Fords the factory floor at M-Sport’s Cumbrian headquarters is enough to have you going a little weak at the knees. Accessed through the grand entrance of Dovenby Hall, you walk through the plush hallway of a posh stately home, past wood-paneled dining rooms lined with rallying silverware and then through a door into a very different environment. Here, in a huge, immaculately clean, modern open plan workshop is where rallying dreams come true.

M-Sport is best known for its close links to Ford and status as factory WRC team in all but name. But it also builds Bentley GT3 cars and racing versions of the electric Jaguar iPace for a support series running alongside Formula E. Rallying Fiestas of all types remain the core of the business though.

And from first steps as a privateer or rookie through to the highest levels of the sport M-Sport has the car to support you, and the expertise and resources to support it.

There’s so much to take in it’s hard to know where to start. But the plain yellow R5 Fiesta sitting ready to go on its gold OZs looks as good a place as any. We’re not allowed any photos within the assembly hall so you’ll just have to take it from me – anyone looking for inspiration for a badass conversion for an ST has all the ingredients here, the tarmac spec slamming it to the deck, the wheels filling out the swollen arches and the back end topped off with a big, boomerang-shaped wing.