[Closed] Mk1 escort - who's owned a sporty one and what was it like.

A high-school friend had a Mexico. We thought it was pretty awesome back then. It really was a nasty little shitbox compared to modern cars. Noisy, uncomfortable, not very fast, horribly unsafe. A lot of fun though if you don't care about being an anti-social lout.

A friend has two Mk1s.

A RS2000 which was used as my wedding car.

And a MK1 with Sierra Cosworth 4*4 engine and running gear. It's a bit of a beast to say the least.

Can't believe what I'm reading from hols2 a genuine Mexico Mk1 were fantastic mine was Sebring Red, maybe nothing like as quick as cars nowadays but the 1600cc crossflow engine was great, Bilstein shocks, Janspeed exhaust, close ratio steering, Rs alloys as well as my wider steel wheels. Too many false ones wrong headlights, sump, gearbox, diff, wings, wheels etc just sold my original handbook on ebay for £30, a good example now is worth lots

Mexico arches were standard on the 1300E. You would also have had a better carb and exhaust manifold.

Mine started out as a 1300XL, same six dial dash but without the walnut trim and cloth seats. Outside was standard Escort with drum brakes. Left the inside standard, outside fitted Mexico arches, quarter bumpers and square front number plate. Mechanical upgrades were disc brakes and servo, 13 inch wheels same as the E (standard was 12 inch). Lowered with stiffer springs. Engine was swapped for a 1600 unit from a 1600E Cortina a mate wrote off, with head work and different cam.

I think with a lot of these things it's a case of rose tinted spectacles. I remember it as great car to drive, it'd probably be horrible if I drove it now. For modern stuff, my Lotus Elise was how I remembered the Escort only more of everything. Wifey has just bought an Up GTI, which is huge fun to drive.

It had to have a good heater as it was driven around town with the window down constantly listening to the exhaust note, tight roundabouts for a wee drift, an eye always on the oil pressure gauge as it tended to drop when hot and it was stiff as Ron Jeremy on the open twisty road

Once test drove a standard mk1 1.6 or whatever. Maybe it was 1.3, I don't know. By far the worst car I've ever driven. Even back then, when I owned a mk1 Astra, I remember thinking it was a massive step back in time (mainly in terms of safety!). It cornered badly and I had to stamp on the brakes just to get it to slow down, never mind stop. Maybe it was a bad example, and maybe it bears little relation to the Mexico, but I suspect there are many rose tinted spectacles on this one.

I had a Mk2 RS2000 custom for a few years in 1989/90 and loved it. Excellence steering and gearbox and could slide around corners and roundabouts so easily on the throttle and in full control. Wasn't fast compared to today's hot hatches but had around 120bhp and was much lighter and fast enough.

I would take it over any modern front wheel drive equivalent.

My best friend growing up had a RS2000 bought in the dark in the rain. Predictably it was a dog but it was a lot of fun (when it was moving).

This is all talk, where are your pictures?

Mk 1 Mexico, failed its MoT (rusty Ford would you believe!) and ended its days underneath a kit car. 35 years on and it would probably be worth tens of thousands

mk1

Older cars are definitely more fun to drive than modern cars....because they are not as good. There is no way on earth that older cars are even in the same league in real performance, but they're certainly more fun. I'd bet a bog standard diesel Ford Focus would give a MK1 Mexico a good spanking. But that's not the point.

A lot of fun though if you don’t care about being an anti-social lout.

Anti social louts drive Audis, BMs and 'Premium' SUV's these days.

stgeorge, I get 404 error, am I missing a joke here?

A mk 1 astra, I've no idea how bad they were and im guessing they are all crushed now whereas the Mexico was built in the AVO factory and handled good or great for the early '70s, only 98 bhp. How many hb vivas or Hillman avengers are still running about?

thanks for all the replies.

Best fun ever

https://web.archive.org/web/20050414232648/http://www.kteamtrivia.co.uk/Motorsport/Ford_Escort_Mk1/ford_escort_mk1.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20050429052412/http://www.kteamtrivia.co.uk/Motorsport/Ford_Escort_Mk1/Escort_Mk_1_Specification/escort_mk_1_specification.html
http://www.kteamtrivia.co.uk/Motorsport/Pictures/Ford_Escort_Rally_Car_Pictures/ford_escort_rally_car_pictures.html

This thread brings back memories of my time as a Ford body shop mechanic. I used to change body shells in around 2.5 days.
Seeing as there was plenty almost written off I recon they were no good at cornering. Also seem to remember two types, a normal road version and a stripped out Rally version with Alloy doors like the Lotus Cortina.
Absolute doddle to work on, like most Fords, 12 or so bolts to undo and the whole engine, gearbox and front suspension was on the floor in minuets.
Doors took the longest to change over so four door shells took about a day longer.

they were brilliant at cornering, it's just they attracted boy racers.

At the time the boy racers were Doctors and solicitors with more money than sence.

probably people who could not drive very well then.

Fords from the AVO factory were never 4 doors, I think folk are getting mixed up with basic 1100 or 1300cc things with big steering wheels, duff brakes, magnolia colour and crappy suspension their dad probably drove one. Lotus twin cam, Rs1600, Mexico and not forgetting the RS2000 were miles better than the bog standard

yeah, they could pretty much be rallied as standard i think.

Had a standard Mk1 Escort back in 1977, nice Alleycat alloy wheels and go-faster steering wheel. That ended up like a banana having hit someone coming the other way when sliding sideways round a slip road towards the A2 at Gravesend...
Had a Mk2 Escort 1300 Sport that had a big valve 1600 in it. Used it for auto tests, sprinting and production car trials. It had RS front and rear spoilers and four spoke RS wheels. Absolutely brilliant fun, loads of sideways action at sensible speeds, handbrake turns on demand - and no CCTV cameras everywhere in those days. Eventually rotted away and became a Dutton Phaeton kit car. That was a dirt cheap load of rubbish really and would have been a death trap if it was ever in an accident. Sold it quite quickly and went karting instead.
Would love to drive an old Escort now just to see what it feels like.

I've had 2 of them. My 1st and 2nd cars, then I had a manta then a capri. Capri is completely stripped down in a barn and has been for about 14 years. Would love to be able to rebuild it one day, think that is a while off though, if ever.

1st mk1 was a red 1300l body, with a 1600 crossflow in it, quick rack, short shift box, Ashley manifold and exhaust, twin choke carb and a load more engine mods. 6 clock dash, Mexico wings and quarter bumpers front and rear, 2 up 2 down cibies, uprated suspension and brakes, bucket seats, harnesses, roll cage and weller wheels. Used it daily and for road rallying which I did back then.

2nd one was a baby blue 1300e, rs alloys, 1700 modded crossflow, quick rack, short shift box, uprated suspension and brakes but otherwise standard. Used this one daily too. Stopped rallying by that point, became a navigator instead.

Would love to have another one, my favourite car of all time. The way the prices have gone though, not going to happen unfortunately.

I never had a mk1 but owned several mk2s. Essentially the same car but a bit more refined. It was stripped out with bucket seats and 3 point harnesses. I met a girl who wanted me to take her and her friends out so I stuck a back seat in it. The only way I was to climb between the two front seats and then to straddle the harnesses in the back.

I did all of the usual rally tricks. Bilstiens sump guard anti dive kit. It started as an 1100 then a 1300 then a 1600 with a2 cam straight through exhaust and webber. It was stupidly loud. My mate could hear me leave his house until I went over the horizon about 2 miles away. You had to dress up like scott of the antarctic as the heater was shit.

I was constantly welding it up as they rotted like mad. When my mate at college blew me into the weeds in his 1.6 205 gti I admitted defeat and broke it up for parts.

Happy days

I have always wanted a van version which is on my list of purchases to get.

Knowing what I know, having been a life long classic Ford nerd and having owned a bunch of old cars, I believe they're not worth the price of admission anymore. They used to be good cheap fun but now they're major purchases and people treat them like that. Nothing ever comes up for sale at a reasonable price because everyone thinks they're selling the crown jewels and people are scared to use them so they've disappeared off the roads. There's no new generation of kids coming through and learning to fix cars by buying a £500 Capri anymore like my mates did.

If I ever get a garage and have the funds I want to build one of these;

Google RSR Escort

Rallied a few as a navigator. Much more fun than a modern car.

Absolute performance isn't everything. Rear wheel drive, no power steering, and engine that revs and sounds good when it is revving. Good times.

Yes they're basic. As an everyday drive things have moved on. As a toy, you can't really beat them.

At the completely other end of the  sporty Escort scale, we have one of these in the cupboard at work.....

The Focus RS Heritage edition

I had a 1.3L and the gearstick came off if you tried to change gear too enthusiastically. It got stolen (not a surprise, the doors could be unlocked with a 2p coin) outside Harrogate Odeon. We found it about 100 yards down the road with the engine still running and the gearstick on the back seat. 🙂

Only had a Mk2 1600 Sport, V reg. From memory, had Janspeed pipe, K&N, Weber Carb, Q-shift, Q-rack, RS alloys with slicks. Seemed quick at the time and seemed to handle OK for an 18/19 year old but probably would be poor in comparison nowadays, but still cooler than a BMW or Audi. Best thing was that you could do virtually all repairs and mods yourself. Some idiot would probably fork out a few K for it on Ebay nowadays as a project...

First car I bought at the age of 18 (1999) was a mk2 Escort 1600 Ghia X.. Red, with a black vinyl roof. Bought for a pricey £100. Sandpaper was smoother than the bonnet, the boot had faded to white and it had a lot of drainage holes (aka rust holes).

The windscreen leaked, the brake servo also leaked, so you would have to pump the brakes just to stop in traffic. Going under 30mph would also cause it to overheat, that was fun in London traffic!

I learned a lot in the 2 years of ownership, basically how to fix everything on the car! My dad quickly booked me on to a skid pan course after seeing me snaking down the road. I got rid of it when I got banned from driving for doing in excess of 90mph... It won't go that fast officer! 😉

Roll on 15 years.... My friend inherited a Mk2 RS2000 one of the original Janspeed Turbo's, sans turbo, as the others had gone up in a flame of glory. It had been sitting in a bubble for the past 15 years.

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We decided to drive it the Alps, so we built a custom roof rack. We were leaving on the Friday night and on Tuesday the engine and gearbox were still about 20 feet from the car. Luckily these things are so simple it was fitted within an hour and running within a couple of hours.

What we found out on our first trip to the Alps in the RS was we couldn't go above 70mph without it overheating, and travelling that distance with bikes on the roof killed the fuel comsumption especially with twin 45's!!!

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2nd Alps trip was much the same, lastminutedotcom. Built another Pinto engine and fitted it 2 days before leaving, then had to get MOT and do a test run! Luckily we had already upgraded the brakes, radiator and the candle flame headlights.

Everything was going fine until somewhere near Chambery... Coming out of a tunnel I heard what sounded like a pin dropping on to the road. We both looked at eachother and I said "Ah it can't be important, we're still going!!".. Stopped in Bourg to fill up, it wouldn't start... Long story short, we had no starter motor and no handbrake. Some of the lads push started us at the Whiteroom for our return journey, we didn't turn off the engine until we were on the Eurotunnel 8 hrs later! Only stopped for fuel once, the petrol tank is in the boot, we got some funny looks filling up with the engine running with the passenger leaning over to hold the brake on, with the nozzle going into the boot. << One of my favourite cannonball runs.

Tried uploading some photos to imgur, they are on the app, but the web versions says no go. 🙁
We have been discussing fitting a S2000/ST170/Tuned Pinto/SR20DET, when time allows.

Best mate has owned quite a few/wrote off quite a few and rallied them all, RAC overall class champion back in the mid 90's - it helps if you own a large garage and bodyshop with 20+ staff to repair the damage you've done at the weekends though, along with a seemingly bottomless pit of fun-money.

Absolute hoot to drive and yet one of the most frightening/horrifying places to be when your sat in the passenger seat on pre-race shakedown tests at 10/10ths through the forest.

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These days we get our kicks driving sega rally, much cheaper, much safer and you can drive with a whisky in your hand

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I'll be honest, that rsr floats my boat, I don't give a shit about the old skool tech, I just love the look and shape. I'd have that in a flash. I've seen one with a jap engine in it too. OMG.

Well this is wired just been thinking of selling mine... 1975 4 door Gt prestige non restored condition....

https://photos.app.goo.gl/D3Po6wEq1Fv4hY5B 6" alt="mk1 1600 gt escort

https://photos.app.goo.gl/D3Po6wEq1Fv4hY5B6

Seem to be having issues with posting images...

Milkey pretty much sums up my experiences of classic Ford ownership.

It's all "blah blah blah disaster, blah blah bad thing, blah blah small fire"

But then you stand back and look at it, and you know it was worth it!

This was my last one. Cosworth V6 with loads of trick bits including adjustable suspension, big brakes, lsd etc. Built by someone with way more money than me and purchased for less than my current mountain bike.

In the second picture we're waiting for the AA because I'd broken the power supply to the fuel pump while jacking it up and I didn't realise until it died.

It went wrong all the time. The wipers stopped working on the A1 in a torrential downpour and we almost died.

Worth every second and if I could have it back for what I sold it for I'd snap the blokes hand off.

I used to think the capri look good but that red one looks like knackered suspension or just lowered does nothing for me, RS alloys or minilites are the only wheels that looked good. Too much changing body panels or escorts made to look like a circuit racer are not the best look, the rallying stage was where they were great and the more original un tampered body road cars are the best in my eyes

Johndoh's is the best story. 😀 My cousin fit a Pinto motor into his Mk1 when I was a kid, it was just cool as F to an eight year old. Broke a load of engine mounts IIRC, it didn't have an easy life and rotted pretty much as quickly as he welded it back together.

thanks for all replies and pics. Glad to hear about mk2's and capri's too.