-[laughing] -[Mike] This time...
And there it goes.
...we're taking a gamble on what we reckon is a Fast Ford future classic.
It is exactly what I was hoping for in an ST.
[Mike] With a hot hatch that makes the pulse race.
-Just give it another little... Whoa! -[engine revs]
It's a fast car!
-But under the bonnet, it's fail not fast. -[horn honks]
-What's the problem? -It's got an engine management light on.
[groans softly]
[Mike] And there's no quick fix.
It may well be that we're looking at something a little bit more serious
than just a head gasket.
Oh, yes!
I'm Mike Brewer
and I've been buying and selling cars for nearly 40 years.
It's rattly,
smelly, and it's blooming brilliant.
Now I've set up shop in Britain's motoring heritage heartland.
I can see the back of the Volvo, and there it is.
It's very nice.
Along with ex-Formula 1 mechanic Mark "Elvis" Priestley.
You can't paint a Rolls-Royce with rattle-can.
[Mike] Together we're going to buy...
Do I wanna go to five grand? That's definitely a no.
...and fix up...
-Are you actually pushing? -[Elvis] Course I'm pushing!
[Mike] The most iconic and exciting cars on the market.
This is gonna be epic.
Bolt a supercharger to it, and you end up with a car that does this!
With Elvis' engineering skill...
Like trying to wake Sleeping Beauty, isn't it? Apart from the beauty bit.
...and my car dealing clout...
[man] It's a fair price, yeah.
[Mike] You've got yourself a deal!
...we should be able to make ourselves a tidy profit.
'Cause this is my job and I blooming love it.
[engine revs]
[theme music playing]
Thank you.
No, I'd love to. Listen, let me just have a quick word
with my buddy
and I'll come back to you.
Yeah, thanks, Mohamed. Cheers, mate.
Bye-bye.
-I'm gonna get excited about this one. You ready? -Yeah.
It's a Focus ST.
Ah, okay. Good cars yeah.
I mean, not quite the glamour and glitz of an RS Turbo,
but still rapid and reliable.
Yeah, you think of the Fast Fords that have gone before it.
You've had the Mexico,
you've had the Escort Cosworth, Sierra Cosworths.
This car is gonna sit in that lineup in the future.
That's a very good point, you know.
It's got all the makings of a proper modern classic, hasn't it?
-It has. -Well, how much does he want for it?
Under three grand.
Because it's got a major issue.
-Oh, what's the problem? -It's got an engine management light on.
[groans softly] I mean, that's always that big unknown, isn't it?
I've got a mobile diagnostics tool in there.
Why don't you take it with you, plug it in, see if it gives you any clues.
-Yeah, I'll do that. -Nice.
[Mike] The Ford Focus burst onto the scene in 1998
and quickly became the world's top selling car.
The ST version, which stands for sports technology by the way,
is, in my opinion, in pole position to become the next future
Fast Ford classic.
And here's why.
It's a pocket rocket.
It has 225 horsepower,
a turbo-charged engine capable of naught to 60 in six and a half seconds
and a top speed of over 150 miles an hour.
And today the thirst for Fast Fords is still just as strong as ever,
so I'm always on the look out for the next thing
set to rocket in value in the second-hand market.
And I've got a contact in Bedfordshire
that might just have exactly what I'm looking for.
For me, a wheeler dealer,
it's my job to spot the next trend.
And I reckon it's the Ford Focus,
or namely, the ST.
And the reason I say that is because the prices
have just come all the way down to as low as they are possibly gonna get.
You can pick up an ST for
pub car park money.
Prices are now gonna start to bounce up.
That's because there is no more
Escort RS Turbos. They've gone.
People have got them nestled away in their garages.
So what's the next car in that line?
Well, it has to be the Focus,
and the ST is a safe bet to put your money.
Where it's got all the stuff that you need, 225 horsepower,
5.0-cylinder engine, turbo-charged, naught to 60, six and a half seconds.
Top speed over 150 miles an hour.
These are still headline grabbing figures.
And it was as quick in the day,
as a MK1 RS Turbo, but without that hefty price tag.
So that's where the smart money is.
This is the house. Ooh, there's the car.
Right, here we go.
-Are you Mohamed? -How you doing, Mike? You good?
I'm all right, yeah. Not bad at all, mate. Nice to meet you.
So tell us about this. Have you looked into the engine management light?
Um, to be honest, I haven't,
'cause I didn't really wanna spend too much money on the vehicle,
just sort of put it in to trade.
-Hopefully, someone like yourself can... -Yeah.
...give it a new lease of life.
[Mike] Well, I can see already it's got aftermarket bits on it. Exhaust.
[Mohamed] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it is exactly what I was hoping for in an ST.
You got that boot spoiler,
you've got the nice bit of detail and these little bits of aero...
-Yeah, they're lovely cars. -...on the body.
-All right to look inside? -Yeah, no problem, man. Go ahead.
[Mike] There you go.
Blue and gray interior, just as it should be.
The seat bolster's a little bit worn.
Yes, there's been a lot of wear over the years.
[Mike] It means it's been used, which is good.
Door cards are good, headliners good, just that repair on the seat.
-Is it okay to fire it up? -Yeah, no problem, man. Go ahead
-It's in neutral, I can see that. -Yeah, yeah. No problem.
-[engine starts] -Ooh, yeah.
[engine revs loudly]
Actually sounds really good, doesn't it?
Something to wake your neighbors up with in the morning.
-[both chuckle] -It certainly is.
All right, well, let's get under the bonnet and let's...
-Let's have a look at this engine. -[car turns off]
There we have it.
That's a 2.5-liter turbo-charged engine.
Being that it's got an engine management light,
you might expect to see something that is obvious like a leak.
Coming from the turbo or from the block somewhere.
But actually, there's nothing evident there at all, is there?
-Yeah, there's no obvious leaks. -Okay, well...
Back in the day,
if you had a problem like this, what we'd have to do is
go and find a local garage that's got a heart and lung machine.
Now you just carry a little plug in OBD port sensor.
-So can I have a look? -Yeah, no problem. Plug it in, yeah.
Right then, that's the port in, plugged up, ignition on.
And there's an error that's come up.
And that is a heated oxygen sensor.
-So that's gonna-- -That's just a singular fault. It's not too bad.
You're relieved it didn't list up a whole host of them, aren't you?
Just one, just the sensor.
-All right, good. Well, can I take it for a test drive? -Yeah, no problem, man.
All right, lovely. As you pass by, would you mind just shutting the bonnet for me?
-[Mohamed] Yeah, no problem, man. -[engine starts]
[Mike] Taking the car out for a spin
is the only way I'll find out if the O2 sensor alert
is likely to cause us an expensive headache.
And it will also let me see what this ST MK2 can really do.
[laughs] And there it goes.
That's why... that's why I love a Fast Ford. That is fantas...
Whoa, that's fast.
[engine revs]
I reckon this is a really solid, classic car investment
and the fact that they're getting fewer and fewer by number,
because more and more of them are being taken off the road,
are getting rarer and rarer and that means the value just keeps going up and up.
The engine does feel strong, it feels powerful.
Now I've got an open bit of road I'll just give it another little...
-[engine revs] -Whoa, it's a fast car.
There is smoke behind me.
[accelerates]
Oh, yeah, there's a cloud of smoke
that comes out
after I put my foot down.
Argh... I just hope if I was to buy this car
and that smoke coming out the back, I don't bite off more
than we can chew.
[car turns off]
Whew.
So how did she go then, Mike?
Actually good. It's a strong car,
you can feel it's got some power there, but I had to back off.
-Mmm. -Because smoke come out the back.
And I got a little bit worried about it,
especially with the engine management light coming on.
Other than that, the interior needs a little bit of work and
the wheels need refurbishing, but I kind of like the car.
-[Mohamed] Yeah, it's a good car, man. -It's a good car, isn't it?
You want £2,795 for it.
You do realize, if you fix this car up, it could be worth five, maybe six grand.
We did contemplate getting through doing the jobs ourselves.
-But I do believe it should be done properly. -Right.
I think you're the right man for it.
I don't know if I'm the right man for the job,
I might have a man in my workshop who's the right man.
-[chuckles] -Um...
okay, so if you're still willing to take that £2,795, yeah, you've got a deal.
Top man. Just bought myself a Focus ST.
-Nice one. -Thank you very much.
[engine roars]
I absolutely love my job. I really do. Holding out my hand
and doing the right deal at the right price with the right person
is what I get up in the morning for.
I am a little bit worried about the engine warning light
and that sensor and what that means.
But Elvis will quickly diagnose it and then we'll
face whatever is in front of us.
And do you know what? I think this car needs us.
It needs to be on our workshop ramp.
It's at the stage where it can go one of two ways.
It can end up in the scrap heap
or it can end up coming back to life with me and Elvis.
[horn honks]
[Elvis laughs]
[Elvis] Mate, you bought it.
-Yes, welcome to the next great Fast Ford. -Yeah.
So that engine management light never put you off then?
No, it didn't actually. I took our little diagnostic machine with us
and it turns out it's just an O2 sensor.
-Okay, well, that could be easy fix. -However...
O2 sensors don't just give up on their own,
they give up for a reason.
And I gather the reason is, is because when I drove this car,
when you accelerate hard then lift off you do get blue smoke coming out the exhaust.
Oh, yeah, okay. Well, they do have
a sort of notorious issue with head gaskets these things, don't they?
It's a little bit of oil seeping passed that, getting into the combustion chamber
and as it comes out the back, that's the blue smoke you see.
But until I get in there and have a proper look, I don't know.
The wheels, they either need changing or refurbishing, one or the other.
-Yeah, they're definitely not standard, are they? -No, and inside actually,
-the car is really good. It's got that Recaro interior. -[Elvis] Look at that, nice.
The only thing that I would say let's it down, is the seat,
it's got a bit of a tear in the bolster, so need to fix that.
Yeah, okay, but it's a great car though, mate. I mean, what did you pay for it?
2,795 quid.
Yeah, that's good.
[Mike] I reckon if we get it right,
we could sell this for somewhere like £5,000 or £6,000.
Price always goes upwards.
So it's still a bargain for somebody.
Mate, I absolutely love this. I can't wait to get my hands on it.
-Excellent, well, let's start work! -Nice.
You know there's absolutely no doubt that Ford hit the sweet spot
with these MK2 Focus ST's.
They followed on of course from the earlier MK1 RS Turbo which was a more brutal car,
but with this one, you got a similar level of driving performance.
But if you did choose to use one of these every single day,
well, my goodness it would wake you up in the morning. Because the addition of that,
2.5-liter 5-cylinder engine by Ford was a bold move.
The problem I've got is this one's now 15 years old
and I have no idea what's been done to it or how it's been maintained in that time.
So before I can do anything else,
I need get a feeling for what's going on under the bonnet.
There are one or two little details here
that give me slight cause for concern, you know.
There's a couple of hoses down there that look like they'd be more at home
on a garden hose pipe than on a high performance engine.
There are some hose clips down here that are way longer than they should've been.
And when I took that plastic cover off the top of the engine,
it only had three bolts in when it should have had eight!
These are just little signs that the care and attention that needs to be given
to an engine like this may have been overlooked.
But I won't know that until I start looking around and conducting a few tests
and dig a little bit deeper.
[Elvis] We've bought ourselves a Focus ST MK2
because we reckon it'll be the next classic in the Fast Ford world.
But right now, this car's more smoke machine, than fast and furious.
I know it's going to be oil that's being burnt inside the combustion chamber,
but how's it getting in there? So I'm performing a cylinder leakage test.
I've already been through cylinders one, two and three. And they seem fine so far.
I'm now onto number four, so I've rotated the engine
and got the piston in cylinder number four up to top dead center,
the highest point in its travel.
That also means the valves are now closed, so in theory,
there's no way of anything getting in or out of that combustion chamber
now that it's sealed,
other than through this little pipe that I've screwed in through the spark plug hole.
What I'm going to do is now connect our little device up here
which puts two bar of air pressure from my compressor
straight into the cylinder and if it leaks out,
well, I know that's where my problem is.
Here we go.
[air hissing]
Huh.
There's definitely a leak.
I can hear it.
What's really difficult to know at this point
is exactly where it's coming from because it's just from this sort of general area.
[air continues hissing]
Yeah, definitely a leak.
I've got a little trick though, which will help me pinpoint exactly
where that leak is.
Now this trick is nothing particularly high tech.
It's actually just a standard bit of rubber hose,
but I can use it a little bit like in the way that a doctor uses a stethoscope.
Put one end to my ear
and I can listen from the other end
at various points around the engine and the sound
will travel up the hollow section of the tube.
It's not coming from...
from our little hose inside the spark plug hole, so that's perfectly well sealed.
Now one of the other places it could go is through the water system,
and if that were to happen,
then we'd likely get a sort of bubbling up of...
air leaking through the water itself.
And I would hear that in there, but I can't.
So I'm fairly certain it's not coming from there.
But the other place it could go, of course,
if it's not going through the water system,
if it's not coming out the top of the cylinder,
is it could go through the oil system.
And the easiest place to check that would be down here
at the dipstick.
[hissing loudly]
And there it is.
I can very clearly hear air leaking
through that dipstick tube.
And that kind of makes total sense, doesn't it, because we know we're burning oil
and that's why we're getting the blue smoke
and there's two real ways you're going to get oil into the combustion chamber.
One is typically through a faulty head gasket, but the other
could be that oil is finding it's way up and past the piston,
past the piston rings and into that chamber and being burnt.
But the fact that I can hear it
down here
at the dipstick tube.
Well, that points towards it being the latter of those two
because that dipstick tube goes all the way into the bottom of the crank case.
So it may well be that we're looking at something a little bit more serious
than just a head gasket.
Right, that means I need to get everything disconnected from the engine
and take the head off to get a better look at what's going on inside the cylinders.
Right, this is where we hopefully get one step closer
to uncovering the mystery of what's going on in this engine.
The head's coming off.
[sighs heavily]
Okay, that's interesting.
There's a couple things that leap out at me here straight away.
This engine, which was designed by Volvo back in the day,
had some issues in its early stages of development.
The cylinders used to chatter or move ever so slightly against each other
and the very simple fix was
to press in a slither of metal between each of those five cylinders
literally to support them and stop them moving.
Now I did have a
slight concern that this engine may not have had that fix applied to it
and that might have been the answer to our problems,
but it has, I can see that they're in there.
So that means we've gotta look further
and the next thing that leaps out at me here is in cylinder number four,
I can very clearly see there's some fairly heavy scoring and marks there.
Almost like at some point, it's had a
cylinder head gasket failure maybe, the engine's overheated
and the piston has swollen
and bound up against the edge of the cylinder.
And it's got some really quite deep,
yeah, quite severe marks there which are
almost certainly one of the causes of oil passing its way into the combustion chamber
and being burnt and coming out the exhaust.
Cylinder number five also has some quite heavy scoring as well.
It's not too deep, but it's definitely there and will need some attention.
What I need to now decide is how far I go with this.
Do I completely remove the engine from the car,
maybe send it somewhere or take it somewhere and have it machined and fixed that way,
or can I fix it in situ?
But either way, I think we can safely say it's not simply just a head gasket problem
and the cost could quite easily spiral out of control here.
[Mike] Whilst Elvis gets to the bottom of our engine problems,
I'm going on a visit to the fantastic Ford Heritage Centre in Daventry
to see some of the original Fast Fords.
And I'd also like to check what the real Fast Ford experts think
of me buying this ST.
Wow, look at this.
And this is just part of the collection. [gasps]
1968...
Mustang Fastback in Hunter Green.
Very much like the one that we did in the Wheeler Dealer workshop.
Honestly, I'm like a kid in a sweetshop in this place,
which makes my mate Len
fore dancer to Willy Wonka.
Hello!
-Hello. -[chuckles] Len, it is huge in here.
I can't believe how good it is.
It's really good, really good. We're really pleased with the place.
-How you doing? -I'm all right, yeah. Really good to see you again.
[Mike] This place is packed with the most important Fords from every decade.
But there's a few cars in this lineup that are
just a bit more special than the rest.
-This is the Holy Grail, isn't it? -It is indeed, yes.
So this is the car that Hannu Mikkola took down
from London to Mexico in 1970
and won that rally and therefore penned
the Escort Mexico
and then that spurned a whole generation of Fast Ford's after.
This is the genesis of the whole performance Ford market, this vehicle.
[Mike] Inspired by their rally success
the Escort Mexico was a gamechanger for Ford.
And it struck a chord with the British public, who bought it in their thousands.
[Mike] And then we move on to the Escort which is front-wheel drive.
Front-wheel drive one that one, yes.
Four-wheel drive?
Yep, that moved into four-wheel drive on the Escort Cosworths.
-I love a Cossy. I do love a Cossy. -Yeah, very nice.
[Mike] But I have to know,
does the ultimate Ford expert think I've made a canny purchase?
Len, you're the man in the know...
I paid, ready? For a MK2 version of this car, the next one up.
Sub three grand for it, it was like 2,795 I paid for it.
I think that's a bargain.
A bargain, I think you probably hit it just at the right time,
I can only see the price of those going up.
I'm convinced that somewhere in sort of 10, 15 years' time
people are gonna be standing down at car auctions putting their hand up in the air
-bidding 15, 20 grand for one. -Indeed.
I think the main thing is originality.
That's where I would point to.
Try and keep the vehicle as original as possible
and that's what people will want.
In a few years' time, they want traditional, original vehicles.
That's where the money will be held.
In fact, if you wanna bring your car along, I know of a great car meet
where you could show your car off, get a good valuation on that.
But I think you know, it will do really well.
Not only that, if I show it off
-there might be somebody there who's interested in buying it. -Exactly.
[Elvis] Whilst Mike's been sightseeing, I've been tackling the damaged engine.
But the cylinders are just too wrecked to fix by hand.
So I've had to call in a favor from an old mate of mine at Knight's Engine Services
in Northampton
as they have some specialist kit that will be up to the job.
It's this scoring here that you can see
that's due to the engine being overheated at some point in its life.
There are a couple solutions to that. We could
machine away each of the five cylinders
and replace them with new liners, but it's expensive.
Over £2,000 and quite frankly,
not far off what we paid for the car in the first place, is it?
However, there is another solution.
We could just machine away the affected surface area
of the existing liners, around about half a millimeter.
But if I do that and end up with a larger diameter bore,
I'm gonna need some bigger pistons too.
And so I've got myself a set of these.
These are oversized piston, half a mil bigger than standard
made of aluminum, they're lightweight.
They cost me £700, which isn't cheap
but it's definitely better than the alternative.
I wanna keep as much as this Ford as original as possible.
So I'm going to rebore the engine.
And with me doing it, I'll save us a few quid.
First, I'm using a cylinder bore gauge
to work out precisely how much material I need to remove from each cylinder.
You can very clearly see...
that that cylinder is no longer round.
And that's actually quite common,
particularly on an open deck design like this one
when an engine's overheated.
You can quite clearly see why,
because at the top and bottom the cylinder's unsupported,
whereas side by side,
it's supported by that aftermarket shim
that Ford sanctioned as a repair for these things
all that time ago.
And that's why we ended up with this ovality
that this machine here is gonna help us get rid of.
I'm using this CNC borer
because it's one of the best tools
for removing a substantial amount of stock or material
in the least amount of time.
I've already set the tool
and programmed into the machine
the diameter and the bore depth,
and if I then... [turns on machine]
...just move this over manually,
over the top of cylinder one to roughly in the center,
clamp into position...
I can then press start and the machine will then
automatically go through the process itself.
[music playing]
I need to remove just half a millimeter of material here,
which sounds tiny,
but when you think that this machine
has an accuracy tolerance of just 100th of a mil...
it suddenly feels like quite a lot.
[music continues]
[borer whirring]
There we go. That's it.
All five cylinders now bored out
and almost ready to accept our new oversized pistons.
The last remaining job to do here
is to stick it on the honing machine
which will finally take it to its finished size
and give it the correct surface finish.
And after that, I've got the mammoth task
of rebuilding this engine,
because if Mike and I want to prove
that our Focus ST
could be a future classic Fast Ford,
well, then this engine needs to be firing
on all five cylinders.
[Elvis] The rebored engine for our Fast Ford
is almost ready to go back into our Focus.
But it's still a long way off being ready to turn over.
Hey, up, fella.
-Hey, mate. -How are you?
-Yeah, all good. -Looking good.
Oh, the engine's still in bits, is it?
What's going on with this?
Oh, well, yeah, we are getting there
but it's putting up a proper fight, I can tell you.
I've had to take this to a machine shop
and actually completely rebore it,
skim the head.
I mean, I did most of the work myself
so that's kept the cost down.
How about you? What have you been up to?
Oh, well, I haven't had these kind of problems.
-I've actually had a nice time. -Mmm-hmm.
I went to the Ford Heritage Centre...
-Nice. -...got to see some of the cars, they're amazing.
The guy who curates it and puts it together, Len,
he told me...
uh, about a little event that's coming up,
where a lot of Fast Fords are gathering together...
-Oh, yeah. -...and I'm...
hate putting you under pressure
'cause it's not what I like to do...
But you're going to anyway.
...but it would be nice if we took our car along.
Yeah. It would be.
I mean, yeah, there's still a bit to do but, yeah.
All right. Well, listen, I can get this back together
but I mean, I might need a hand.
One of the things I could do,
maybe, is take the seat away and get that trimmed.
[Elvis] That would be amazing.
Right. With this Fast Ford meet happening in just a few weeks,
I better get a wriggle on with putting this car back together,
otherwise we'll miss out on the perfect opportunity
to show off our renovated Focus
and seal a sale.
Now although most of the problems we found with the engine
were specifically with the block,
because I've had the head off,
I've also given that a thorough inspection.
I've checked the valves to make sure they're okay,
I've replaced the valve stem old seals,
made sure the head itself is perfectly flat,
which it is.
The next job is to check the valve clearances,
specifically the clearance between the heel
of the cam here,
and the follower that sits underneath it.
The followers are like small metal pistons.
They're designed to be pushed by the rotating camshaft
opening and closing the valves.
But for the engine to run smoothly,
we need to make sure we have just the right amount
of clearance between the two.
But before I get into checking the clearances,
I always like to check the followers themselves
and measure them very accurately
to make sure I know exactly which sizes they all are.
The reason I'm having to do this job is because
having taken the engine apart,
everything inside will have fractionally shifted around,
and because each follower is minutely different in size,
I can't just put them back into the positions they came out of
before checking the clearances will still be correct.
It's a lengthy task,
but it's worth it to get this car
back to its original condition.
So having measured all of the existing followers
and written the numbers down, I've also written down
the manufacturer's clearances here.
So 0.17 millimeters as a minimum
to 0.23 millimeters as a maximum
on the inlet side...
and the same on the exhaust
which is 0.37 millimeters
to 0.43 millimeters.
That means we got a tolerance of just 0.06 of a millimeter.
It's nothing,
but it's super important to get them right.
If those clearances are too loose,
the engine will begin to chatter,
and over time, it will gradually destroy valves and followers,
and if it's too tight,
we're gonna get a less than effective compression stroke.
The valves won't seat properly
and that puts them at risk of overheating.
Now I can change those clearances
by changing the follower itself
because they come in different sizes,
but you can only do one cylinder at a time.
So I'm gonna start here
with cylinder number one on the exhaust side.
Before I do anything,
I'm attaching this cam locking tool
so everything stays put.
I've got 20 followers to work with.
I can move them around and place them in any position
if they measure the correct size for the valve.
So I'm gonna use a set of feeler gauges
to check the gap or the clearance
between the heel of the camshaft
and the follower that sits beneath it.
And I'm looking for a nice, snug fit with the gauge,
but not too loose, of course.
That's... That is too loose.
So if I step it up a level,
I just keep going until I get a nice
amount of resistance,
but that the gauge will still fit between the gap.
Actually, that feels very good.
What I'm gonna do is go up one more stage
on the feeler gauges just to see...
what the next one feels like...
and I'm looking for that point where
we're between one that doesn't go in...
There you go.
So that's that. That's too tight.
So if I back it off one step on the feeler gauges...
Yeah, that feels just about perfect.
A really nice amount of resistance going in,
and now it's not too loose.
Let's see what we got.
So 0.48 of a millimeter.
Now that is slightly above what the manufacturer recommends,
so I am going to end up having to change this follower.
If I write down the number that I've got,
I can then compare that to the number that I need
and figure out the difference between the two,
and that will then tell me exactly what size follower
I need to put in as a replacement.
If I don't have the correct size follower,
I'm going to have to order one from the manufacturer.
But sometimes, you just get lucky.
I've noticed that the follower I need for number two
is exactly the same size as the follower
that's currently sat in valve number eight
down the inlet side.
Now I can just swap those two over,
and I can recheck it by putting the camshaft
and my locking tools back in place,
and if that clearance is exactly what we need,
well, that can then stay in there.
And of course, I've still gotta work through them all.
That's a time consuming, slow, meticulous process,
but by reusing as many of the existing followers
that I've currently got in my possession as I can,
it means there are less that I have to go out
into the world and source.
[Mike] Whist Elvis cracks on with the engine,
I've got a mission of my own.
I've brought the ripped driver seat to my mate, Dave,
to have a go at repairing it.
[music playing]
So, Dave, this is our seat,
yeah, with the offending hole,
which is a bit nasty.
What can we do about that?
Do we just replace the whole panel or...
[Dave] We source a passenger seat cover,
um, which is here,
and we will put in the new blue
and the gray,
and being an older cover,
it will blend in really nicely and be the ultimate repair.
[Mike] First step is to get the cover off
to see how badly the seat is damaged.
Ah, we have got a bit of a problem here.
I don't know if you've seen. Look at this, round here.
The foam is broken down.
Yeah, so we can repair that.
That's it.
Dave starts this bit of repair
by roughly marking out the area of foam
we need to cut away, before sawing it off
like a hot knife through butter.
Then it's a few squirts with the glue gun,
and it could be stuck in place.
Eh. What a great repair.
Fantastic.
Next, Dave's given the new section a quick shave
to blend it into the old.
He's not bad at that.
I might get him to do me.
Finally, he wraps the repair with a thin layer of material
to protect it in the future.
Now, to adjust the old passenger side cover
to fit the driver's side seat.
We're gonna put some reference points on this,
just so that when we putting it back together,
we know exactly where we need to put it back,
and we can transfer these points
onto this panel later.
[music playing]
[Mike] We need to swap the two seat panels over,
so whilst Dave removes the right side,
I'm on the left.
Now this is your field of expertise.
I mean, if it was me,
you'd say, "How would you tackle this, Mike?"
I would overcut that around there, probably.
-And that wouldn't work. -[Mike] No.
Now comes the tricky bit,
Dave is removing the section we need from the new seat
whilst I'm working and cutting out
the ripped section on the old one.
[Dave] Absolutely. It's to our...
It's to our specific...
[Mike] The Singer, the DSL lightweight...
Nice one, mate.
Yeah. Looking good.
Yeah, it's ready to go.
So, next we can take these bits over
to the sewing machine with the cover
and we'll start machining those bits back in.
[Mike] Then it's a matter of sewing it together
and putting the cover back on the seat.
So, is there an art to this?
We'll start from the top,
we'll locate it on the headrest posts
and, yeah, roll it down.
Well, okay, shall I, uh...
get around this side and, um...
-That way up? -Yeah, that's it.
Pull it. You're in. That's it.
[Mike groans]
[Dave] Gosh, stiff, isn't it?
It is proper tough.
There we go.
It's now slipped over.
-God, Dave, that looks absolutely fantastic. -Doesn't it?
And you were right,
getting a second antique cover.
It just blended in perfectly, isn't it?
Yes. Perfect. Yes.
How much does all this come to then, Dave?
I mean, remember, you had to get me
a second-hand seat as well.
So labor would be about 150,
plus the 50 quiddish for the cover.
-[Mike] Two hundred quid all in? -Yeah.
I'll tell you what, that is absolutely fantastic.
All right, Dave, see you later, mate.
[Dave] Take care.
[Elvis] I've got the engine back
and we're nearly there with the car,
but I've got something that will complete its classic look...
some vinyl stripes.
I've bought myself a full set which is 30 pounds,
and they're gonna look great
against that Ford performance blue.
However, they are tricky to get on,
particularly big and long stretched ones like these.
[music playing]
Once I've taped the transfer in the correct position
and cut the gaps for the doors,
I need to push all the air out very gently with the squeegee
for a smooth finish.
Et voila.
[music playing]
[sighs] Look at that. It looks amazing.
I mean, I cannot wait for Mike to get back
with the newly painted wheels and that repaired seat.
I mean, this car's come such a long way
since we found those issues with the cylinders in the engine.
I just hope that everything we've done to it
means that this Ford Focus ST will finally be welcomed
into the Fast Ford hall of fame.
Our future Fast Ford classic is almost complete.
I've already got the wheels back on,
so now I just need the final piece of the jigsaw.
[Mike laughs]
Oh, mate, look at that!
-Does it look good? -That looks absolutely epic.
-It does, doesn't it? -[Mike] That ST stripe,
that's just finished the car off.
The wheels you've had done, look at that!
They were black before, they look brilliant, don't they?
I think the whole lot together,
it just looks fantastic. It really does.
This car is gonna be exceptional when it's done
because we've now got a plush seat
-to sit in as well. -[Elvis] Look at that.
It looks amazing, mate. Yeah.
The engine, last time I seen this car,
-engine was out on the bench. -Yeah, that's true.
Well, it's now back in here and running sweetly.
I've also replaced the O2 sensor,
you remember you had a problem with that earlier on?
So that's now fixed.
So actually,
I guess when that's in, we're kinda ready to go.
Well, you're gonna wanna get that fitted
as quickly as possible and get your bum in it,
because remember Len,
he told us about that classic Fast Ford meet.
I wanna put this car amongst them.
I reckon they're gonna love it.
Right, let's get it bolted in.
-Let's get it finished off. -Nice one.
[laughs]
[Mike] When I bought this blue Ford Focus ST,
it came with matching blue smoke from the engine.
Argh.
And the solution bored a hole in our budget.
Yeah, we are getting there but it's putting up a proper fight,
I can tell you.
[Mike] But we got it to look as smart
as the day it rolled out the factory.
That looks absolutely fantastic, doesn't it?
It now looks like a Fast Ford,
and dare I say it, a future classic.
But how much did this impressive renovation set us back?
I originally bought the car from Mohamed
for £2,795.
The parts to repair the engine came in at 420.
Pistons cost us 700.
The vinyl stripes were a bargain at 25.
Refurbishing the wheels only cost 240.
The seat repair was 200.
And a new O2 sensor just 55 quid,
giving us a grand total of £4,435.
Has that gamble paid off,
and can our Focus now sit side by side
with the rest of the Fast Fords?
There's only one way to find out.
[Elvis] Whoa!
[laughs]
You can really feel
-that torque, can't you? -Oh, wow!
[music playing]
[Mike] Got to think about it, mate,
we've come a long way with our journey.
You know, when I bought the car off Mohamed
at the beginning,
-he couldn't sell this car... -Yeah.
...because people would run for the hills.
If you turn up to go and see a car like this,
no matter how much it was,
as soon as you looked at the dashboard
-and you have that engine warning light... -Yeah.
...it's enough to send you scurrying off.
And it's only really when I started
getting my hands dirty and really taking bits of it,
only then did you really find out
the extent of some of the troubles and...
although it was a bit of a shame in the beginning,
you know, my heart sank when I found those two cylinders
of all those scoring and pitting and...
and the problems that they had,
in the end we ended up with an engine that's...
now pretty much bulletproof.
It's got a long life ahead.
And the way it feels now under my right foot,
it's just brilliant. It makes it all worth it.
[music playing]
[Mike] We've literally put different pistons in it.
We've rebored the engine slightly bigger.
I mean, it's 2.5-liter, 5-cylinder,
we might be 2.5 half liter now,
but, yeah, I mean, it's got 236 foot pound
of torque, this car.
[Elvis] Oh, mate, listen to that.
[Mike] It pushes you in the back of your chair.
-Yeah. -The word "Fast Ford"
is there for a reason. This car will top out
at 150 miles an hour.
It feels exactly like this car should feel, you know?
And everything so kind of tight and precise,
I mean, almost race-car-esque,
dare I say it, for the road.
[music playing]
And this is an ST.
It's brilliant, isn't it?
This is a genuine Fast Ford classic
of the future, in my opinion.
Oh, it's amazing, mate. Honestly.
It really does feel like it suits the name now.
And what we've done with this car
is we've gone for the original look,
restated those lovely ST stripes down the side,
and I know the market wants cars like this.
[Elvis] Yeah.
[music playing]
Well, listen, I advertised the car out there and I
had this young lady on the phone called Maria.
She was so excited
about what I was telling her about this car.
Honestly, she was saying to me on the phone, "I want it,
I want it." I said, "Well, you got to drive it first."
And she said, "I don't need to.
I've driven loads of them in the past,
I know what they feel like,
and if your car feels the same
-I have to have this car." -[Elvis laughs]
[Mike] So I said to her, "Look, calm down,
-come and meet us today... -[Elvis] Yeah.
...uh, at this Fast Ford gathering
that's gonna be at this colliery."
Well, it would be a great place to show it off.
And I got to be honest, mate,
if she knows what she's talking about
when it comes to ST's,
she ain't gonna be disappointed with this one,
-is she? -Definitely not.
[music playing]
[Mike] We're heading to meet a bunch of Fast Ford fanatics
at the derelict Clipstone Colliery.
This cathedral of coal was once an integral supplier of fuel
for Britain's manufacturing giants
at a time when the Ford Motor Company
was just starting to take the European car market by storm.
Hello, everyone.
All right, let's have a look at some cars.
[music playing]
Nice car.
Sapphire, Cossy, four by four.
Did you buy it like this
-or have you done the work yourself? -[man 1] No.
True '90s car, big wheels,
-stickers, stereo... -[Mike laughs]
-They all seem to match. -[Mike] Yeah.
Do you get the 1990s on that period-correct telephone
-on there as well? -[man 1] Unfortunately not. No.
[music playing]
[Elvis] What about this one? Whose is this?
-That's mine. -[Elvis] This looks incredible.
[Mike] What kind of work have you done underneath?
All the engine rebuilt...
-Nice. -...rebored.
-[Elvis] Oh, wow. -[Mike] Get in.
-[Elvis] Look at that. -[Mike] Eh.
I bet you that looks better
then the day that sat on the showroom floor.
-[man 2] It will do. Yeah. -It will do, doesn't it?
-[Elvis] That is amazing. -It will last a lot longer.
-That is incredible. -[man 2] Yeah.
-[Elvis] Nice job. -What an amazing looking thing.
[music playing]
-[Elvis] Wow. Look at these. -[Mike] Hello, fellows. How are you all?
This is a proper brace of Fast Fords.
That's MK1 XR2, who owns that?
-It's mine. -That's yours?
-That is lovely. -Nice.
-Yeah, lovely. -Very nice.
[Mike] That's the car I wanted when I was 17.
I mean, I absolutely love it but my wife doesn't.
[all laugh]
[man 3] But really, it all but--
-it puts a massive smile on your face... -[Elvis] Yeah.
-...when you drive it. -[Mike] It certainly does.
-Yeah, amazing. -I mean, you're driving around
appreciating classics.
Hopefully, your wife will appreciate that
when you tell her it's going up in value.
-Who owns the RS Turbo? -[man 4] It's mine, mate.
[Mike] Congratulations.
Now you got a little lottery winner, haven't you?
-[man 4 laughs] -That's the ticket at the moment.
What about this one? Who owns this?
-[Tom] That's me, Tom. -That looks immaculate...
-Hello, Tom. -[Tom] All right.
-...Tom. -Thank you.
It's only done 20,000 miles from around then.
-[Elvis] Has it, really? -[Tom] Yeah.
[Elvis] Wow!
-[Mike] So 1990, isn't it? -[Tom] 1990.
-[Mike] So what's that, 30 years old? -Yeah, 30 years old.
So it's done... nothing.
It's done like less than 1,000 miles a year.
-[Tom] Yeah. -[Elvis] That's incredible, isn't it?
[Mike] That is. How long you had it?
Ten years.
[Mike] And how much did you pay for it?
-Five hundred quid. -What?
[all laugh]
So how much of this
-sort of restoration have you done... -Done nothing.
-So you bought it like this? -All I've done is cleaned it.
-[Elvis] £500... -Yeah.
-...for that car in that condition? -[Tom] Yes. Yes.
Yeah, cleaned it. Just cleaned it.
-[Elvis] Unbelievable. -[Mike] Today,
that car is worth, well, tens of thousands of pounds.
I've seen one of these sell,
a MK1, recently,
-sell for about £17,000, so... -Right.
-I think you're in good stead with this one. -[Tom] Yes.
I think you're gonna make quite a bit of money
-out of it... -[Tom] Yeah.
...if you are looking to sell it...
Yeah, I am looking. Yeah.
[Mike] Well, congratulations to you
'cause you got a lovely, lovely looking car.
[Elvis] Yeah.
[Mike] We've had a good look at their beauties,
but now I wanna know if they think our Ford Focus
is a future classic Elvis and I believe it to be.
Yeah, nice to see one
in original, standard condition.
-I love it. -[man 5] Yeah.
I think the color's actually spot on for a Fast Ford.
[Tom] It's very nice.
I've got the RS MK2 version.
And I think this is a future classic.
[Mike] Our Fast Ford friends has given our Focus
their seal of approval,
but what we care about most right now
is if our potential buyer agrees.
-You must be Maria. -I am. Hello.
Maria, very nice to meet you, I'm Mike.
-You too. Hello. -This is Elvis.
-I'm Elvis. How are you? -Hello.
[Mike] Well, Maria, so pleased to meet you
because when we spoke on the phone
you seemed so excited
about the fact that we've got a MK2 Focus ST...
-Yes. -Why?
I drove one years ago.
I absolutely fell in love with it.
I saw this one,
I saw everything you've done to it
-and I just needed it. -[all laughing]
We put this car in amongst an eclectic mix of Fast Fords
from different generations,
and we've been asking them what they think of this car,
whether it is a future classic,
and universally, they've all said yes.
And it's good for you,
because it means it comes at a price today,
and in a year's time, I gather this car's
-gonna be worth more money. -Yeah.
But what we need for it today
is 6,250.
Would you do five and a half?
So you just want 750 quid off?
[all laughing]
Uh, look, me and Elvis have a price in mind
that we'd be happy to take for the car,
uh, just so you can enjoy it,
and that figure will be £6,000.
What do you say?
-Yeah. I can do that. -[Mike] Lovely.
-You just bought yourself a Fast Ford. -Thank you.
-[Elvis] Congratulations. Welcome to the club. -Thank you very much.
[music playing]
Well, when I found and bought this car,
it did come with a massive gamble,
and that was that engine warning light.
However,
Elvis not only diagnosed the problem,
but he also fixed it.
Then he went on to rebuild the engine,
and we've ended up with a proper
Focus MK2 ST.
And it sits here amongst its peers
as a future Fast Ford classic.
If you wanna see more iconic cars like this
being turned around by me and Elvis,
then join us again soon on Wheeler Dealers. Ta-ta!