But things were looking up by '85. Live Aid, Back to the Future and Transformers were all rocking our world, and it felt like things couldn't get any better.

And then Ford unleashed the fire-spitting RS200, a car fondly remembered by Stuart Milne.

A product of the sensational - but often fatal - Group B rally championship, the RS200 boasted big power in a small package.

The standard road-going versions packed a 250bhp punch, and that meant passing the 60mph marker in 3.6 seconds. That's quick today, but truly outrageous 20 years ago.

The news hitting the headlines back then was news that in its 650bhp, full-fat race-spec, it would blast from a standstill to 60mph in just 2.1 seconds. That's even faster than the £800,000 Bugatti Veyron.

Before we get tied up in a bundle of big numbers; here's a history lesson.

To race in Group B, manufacturers had to sell at least 200 of the cars they were going to race. Even for a company of Ford's size, creating an all-new model would be money down the drain, so its motorsport chiefs were tasked with finding a suitable donor vehicle.

The donor arrived in the shape of the stillborn Escort RS1700T; a thoroughly ugly car that had already been developed for competition.

Ford set about the RS200 project with gusto; even going as far as getting Reliant - fathers of the legendary Robin three-wheeler to build the glass fibre body.

By 1985, the required 200 models had been built and it's one and only season in Group B was cut short after the death of driver Henri Toivonen.

But its legacy lived on, and demand for the 200 grew. This led to an Evolution model, with even more power and even more propensity to crash.

You see, that with a short wheelbase and a turbocharger that delivered all the 200's power in one explosive dose, they were a bit of a handful. Unsurprisingly, good examples are like rocking horse teeth.

So when one popped up on autotrader.co.uk with only 1,000 miles under its belt, the office stopped dead in its tracks. Not hard to see why.

Read previous Look at the Wheels on That columns.