Ahead of the twenty fifth anniversary of the dying of Princess Diana, a Ford Escort pushed by the late royal has sold at auction for US$764,000 (£650,000/ RM3.4mil).
Princess Diana might usually be seen driving the 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo between 1985 and 1988 and the automobile, retrofitted for safety functions, was usually noticed round London or exterior the boutiques of Chelsea and the eating places of Kensington.
The younger princes William and Harry had been regularly within the again seat, with a plain-clothes detective on board for safety causes.
The three-door, 130-horsepower automobile is the definitive scorching hatch, though its stealthy black paint with a blue pinstripe units it aside from its sporty brethren. Regular go-faster RS Escorts got here in all-white solely.
The Ford Escort RS Turbo, which sold for a complete of just below US$850,000 (£722,500/ RM3.79mil) with charges, broke the report for essentially the most automobile of its variety sold at auction.
Ford’s Special Vehicle Engineering division was tasked to color the automobile and it fitted an everyday five-slat entrance grille to help within the stealth makeover.
The Escort additionally had a secondary rear view mirror for the safety officer with a radio within the glove field, the cable for which continues to be seen right this moment.
The automobile was returned to Ford in May 1988 with some 6,800 miles on the odometer and it has nonetheless coated solely 24,961 miles from new.
Diana, Princess of Wales, died from the accidents sustained in a automobile crash within the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, France, within the early hours of Aug 31, 1997. – dpa
