The Classic Ford interview: Richard Longman

The ace engineer and Ford saloon car champion chats to Classic Ford.

Words Jack Gorman

Photos Ford Photographic

While the Essex boys drove XR3s,” says Richard Longman from his Ringwood home, “we were racing things that looked the same. You or your dad might not have had an RS but you could bolt spoilers on, front air damns and exhaust manifolds to any basic Escort, everyone loved those cars.”

Between 1983 and 1986, Longman made the first front-wheel-drive Escorts a class dominator and nearly a championship winner in the British Touring Car Championship. His Datapost-livered cars looked the business and drove superbly.

In fact, if you bought an XR3i after May 1983 you were driving a Longman-modified car. Six months after it’s original launch, Ford gave it Longman’s tweaked rear suspension.

“Ford’s Rod Mansfield changed the pick-up points on the XR3is” he says, “we altered the mounting points by an inch and it made it a better handling car. We contributed to Ford’s success.”

In the 70s and 80s Longman was the front-wheel-drive expert. Like Andy Rouse, he was born engineer before racer but success came quickly especially. Career highlights include winning the first race broadcast in colour on British television, taking the Mini’s first victory in the top category of Saloon Racing in 1977 before taking the championship back to back in ’78 and ’79. A feat made even more remarkable when he nearly lost his life and spent five months in hospital following a horrific crash in 1975.

By 1980, rules changes made the Mini uncompetitive and Longman needed to find a new car. At the same time, Ford noticed his technical talents and gave him the Fiesta with a brief to make it a winner. The following season, Longman raced a 1600 Fiesta while teammate, Alan Curnow, raced a 1300S.

“I had an emission-control engine with smaller valves which wasn’t competitive,” he says, “the handling was pretty good and I managed a couple of second places against Audi and Toyota who were obviously a powerful proposition.”

Although Curnow became class winner and finished second overall, Longman struggled with his engine, taken from the American market and not the XR2, and made the decision to race Metros for the following two seasons.

“But Peter Ashcroft and Ford were always in the back of my mind because they had the RS1600i,” Longman laughs.

With Ford willing to back him and wanting the Escort to have some motorsport pedigree to boast sales, Longman was quickly involved. After making his own adjustments and a trip to America to understand the new CHV engine, Longman’s Escorts were class winners.

But the ‘83 season was difficult for Longman, finishing behind Curnow, Chris Hodgetts in another RS1600i and class winner, Alan Minshaw, in a Golf GTI.

The following year was a much different story. With only one retirement all season, Longman took class honours with six class wins and finished second in the overall championship.

“The RS1600i was a wonderful car to drive,” he says with fondness, “and one of the best handling cars I’d driven. You could go around Thurxton, which is a great handling circuit, in incredible times.”

The 1985 BTCC Season belonged to Ford. Whilst Rouse dominated Class A, the Escort evolved into the monster RS Turbo. Ford gave Longman the new car to develop exclusively and it was Longman who claimed the Turbo’s first class win on its debut part way through the season and halting the dominance of Graham Goode’s Nissan Bluebird Turbo. The following year, Longman had the class in his hands throughout and would have won six class win in a row if it hadn’t been for a picky scrutineer at the second round.

“The Turbo was a bit of an animal,” he remembers, “at the 99 lap race at Brands my wrists ached so much at the end I couldn’t take my helmet off. You don’t feel it driving with the adrenaline going.

“In practice at Thruxton the scruntineers said I had a gap between the headlights into the engine compartment,” he continues, “they made me tape it up but the engine temperatures were higher. I was leading the race and with one-and-a-half laps to go and the fuel got too hot and airlocked. That was a big disappointment.”

It was a sensational season with Longman again finishing runner up overall. The amount of power the Escort was producing was awesome, allowing Longman to out qualify the bigger Rovers and Volvos at the Grand Prix support race.

“They were amazed a 1600 turbo could do it,” he explains, “I had sticky qualifying tyres and when we stopped and took the blistered tyresf the rims had gone around 6 inches in tyre. It was nearly a 100 mph average lap. The Volvo team couldn’t believe it.”

But the Longman and Ford connection ended at the end of ’86. Rule changes meant that the Escort would sit at the bottom of the revised Class C of 1600-2000cc engines and, of course, Ford were more interested in developing the RS Cosworth Sierra than the MK4 Escort. Datapost withdrew their support too, so Longman and Curnow stepped away from racing.

Longman remembers his Ford years fondly and still laughs remembering the time he embarrassed the official Boreham crew at a Ford testing session with Jackie Stewart.

“There was the RS200, a rally spec RS Turbo and my car,” he says “ but Jackie loved the handling of my 1600i and he went around Snetterton and broke my lap record. He was criticising some of the handling on the Boreham cars, they obviously hadn’t gone into quite as much details as we had.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Blog, History, Motorsport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.