Page 104 - Fast Car (March 2020)

WILD CARD

Super-clean lines everywhere

“I had a hot Pinto built for it. But then ended up
buying a Sierra three-door base model for £300 and
the engine went in that. Then I had the shell acid-
dipped at SPL and it came back as a bit of a teabag.
But to be honest that’s what I wanted, because I wanted
to be able to see exactly where all the rot was – I didn’t
want any iller left in the car. After that I took the shell
over to a guy to put new loorpans and arches in,
but I wasn’t happy with the work and ended up putting
the whole lot up for sale. I got so many stupid offers
for it though, that I gave up with that idea. Obviously,
I’m glad I did now...”
The disassembled Escort went back under wraps, but
then in 2016, Ashley and his dad, Jon, decided it was
now or never and steamed into the rebuild.
Ashley found someone else to take on the
bodywork, letting in the new metalwork but also
painstakingly turning all of Ashley’s ideas for custom
touches into reality. And there are many – see the Tech
Spec (page 107) – which run from the front panel to the
rear, all there to satisfy a pursuit of super-clean lines.

PROJECT PLANNING GONE MAD
Although Ashley restarted the Harrier’s rebuild in 2016, he’s been thinking about and planning it for much
longer — since he was 13! “I remember using some image software on my dad’s computer to rework an
image of a Mk2 Escort into how I wanted it to look, and some of those elements made it into the final
build. I’ve spent years talking the project over with Dad, working on what and how I wanted to do this car.
We used to watch a lot of the American hot rod programmes on TV and these have influenced the build
too, with so many of the details, like moving the cut-outs in the front panel up an inch so they’re hidden
behind the carbon fibre bumper, which in turn has been smoothed with the cut-outs for the indicators
filled in. These now live inside the headlamp units. It took me ages to find those. The exposed bumper
bolt heads were removed, too.”

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