Girado & Co. is a high-end British car dealer that sells a mix of sports cars and racing machines. The company also has an annual tradition going back to 2016 of making a Christmas video. The clips often star a rally car drifting in a winter landscape.
The company is back this year with a new video starring an early 2000s Ford Focus WRC. Sit back and watch this classic rally car slide around in the name of the holidays.
The Ford Focus WRC Shows What It Can Do
This video stars a Ford Focus WRC with Carlos Sainz as its former driver. At the time, Sainz was Colin McRae’s teammate at the Ford World Rally Team and was a skilled competitor. He had already won two WRC World Championships in the 1990s during his time driving for Toyota. His best performance for the Blue Oval was third place in the driver standings in the 2000 season.
The Focus WRC uses a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine. It has a six-speed sequential transmission and an all-wheel-drive system with front, center, and rear differentials.
Both Sainz and McRae’s Focus rally cars wore the iconic Martini livery. The paint scheme includes a blue, purple, and orange stripe on the hood and a similar arch-shaped element running from behind the front wheels to the roof.
The car still sounds amazing. The engine has a raspy note, and the anti-lag system adds a machine-gun-like ratta-tat-tat to the symphony.
A Great Time For Rallying
The early 2000s were a high point for the World Rally Championship. Models such as the Subaru Impreza WRX and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution found success in the sport and built a frenzy of interest for their road-legal versions.
Plus, the ranks were full of exceptionally skilled drivers. McRae had a particularly aggressive style. Tommi Mäkinen was a technician behind the wheel. Other major names were Richard Burns, Carlos Sainz, Petter Solberg, and Sebastien Loeb.
While this Focus WRC is no longer among Girado & Co.’s inventory, the company currently has a 2001 Peugeot 206 WRC Evo 2 for sale. This car won three events: the Rally Australia and the Tour de Corse in 2002 and Rally New Zealand in 2003. Its drivers included the champions Marcus Grönholm, Didier Auriol, and Richard Burns.
TopSpeed’s Take
It’s nice to see this classic rally car on the road again. It comes from a vital era for the sport. The only way this could be better is with Sainz as the driver.
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