Now THAT'S some leisurely shift action!

I bet a one of those in excellent condition would go for 11ty Billion dollars at Barrett-Jackson.

"and, miserable as those early Escorts were" ... miserable? not sure that accurate at all. These first Escorts were actually quite modern compared to the competition and reasonably engineered for the time period. Also these first Escorts were one of the only cars ever to pass the 5 MPH bumper test with no damage at all. And if you look at the bumpers you can see why, they are build like accordions.

And on the same topic anyone remember the Ford EXP? 10 points if you can name the Mercury version?

LN7.

@zacarious: LN7's were teh hotness to my 13 year old eyes back then.

@DannyBN: Missed it by that much.

all that sand passing through the front grill can't be good...

and what bball game is going on before the commercial breaks in?

Funny thing is, there are probably a thousand or more first generation Escorts puttering around the Detroit area. And only about 50 of them have intact rear suspensions.

@SundaySunday: Sorry about that, Chief.

@MazdaEric: Looks to be a Dodgers vs Reds game. Dodgers won 9-6 in 10 innings.
[www.retrosheet.org]

/recovering super-obsessed baseball geek

I actually liked the old Escorts, but for the interiors. For some reason, they always felt sticky to me. There was never anything on the seats or anything like that, but the fabric always felt kind of...gummy.

Maybe it was just really happy to see me?

@SundaySunday:
I remember going with my dad when he went to pick up the brown 4-door Cougar and seeing a newly released LN7. I was all over that thing, saying "Dad, you should get that instead!" He just laughed it off.

Of course, a few years earlier we shared that same experience over a Pontiac Phoenix coupe, so there was a history at that point. We got a 4-door Catalina that time.

@MazdaEric: I guess the thought is if the car can drive that well in the sand, it must be amazing when the streets are paved.

Isn't this much more exciting?

+ Watch video

My insane father drove the five of us from Toronto to Daytona Beach in a 1984 Escort wagon.
I was 6'2" at age 15 and my brother was 17 and built like a brick shithouse. My sister was already 5'6" at age 12.
The three of us kids fought over which poor bastard would sit on the hump in the middle next.
My mother was terrified of the armadillos sniffing around the tents at night. I don't know how that didn't end in murder-suicide.

I hold the Escort no ill-will, other than for that SS stupidity.

"An SS built to take on the world"?
Granpaw (and his Grand Cross of the German Eagle) would approve, Henry.

SS? Did Chevy build this? Was it not good enough in their eyes to be a GT and they wanted to discredit GM products?

I started to drive a 78 Fiesta around this time. The Escort was clunky and uninspiring by comparison.

This Escort probably cost less to buy than Elliot Spitzer's did to rent per hour.

I remember when the Escort launched in the US. It was supposed to herald a new "Euro" style, etc. Too bad ours were never as good as theirs. They were a big improvement in their domestic segment, though.

@SundaySunday: Amen to that. I had a beige on beige '86 and the rear towers would rust at the mounting point. Pretty scary. One of the best handling cars I've ever had though.

@Lounatic: So rust is the culprit. I should have guessed.

Now that I recall, I do remember my mom having an '84 Escort when she was in between lease cars. I got to take it out to drive to school or some such and it was a ball to drive hard into the corners.

@zacarious: LN7

@Mike the Dog: WAY too late, as usual...

Seems like a common theme with Big Three compacts- they never actually win the war against their Japanese competitors, but they do tend to do a little better each time.

Just think, by 2050, the gap between the Focus and Civic will have narrowed an extra 1/8 %!

Finally, an Escort to commemorate the heroic actions of our friends in the Schultzstaffel.

Alternately, perhaps it was a tribute to the '67 Chevelle.

I'll admit it, however; at the time, I was willing to look past the historically-accurate pro-Nazi badge simply to have a shot at all sixty-five of those CVH-head horsepower.

@Brian B: Really? It can get worse from an euro-spec '85 Escort 1.3 LX? Because that one always ranks pretty high on my "Worst cars ever driven" list.

@ViergangFuchs: Yeah, and just look at that Thunderbird logo, remind you of anything? mmmhmm..

This aired 5 days before I was born? What a great era to be born into.

@TurboBrick: Um, remember that the escort replaced the Pinto in the US market. The Pinto didn't exactly set the bar very high.

Europe got the Escort Cosworth, a loony 4WD hatchback capable of astounding performance both on the track and twisty country roads.

We got...this.

Not quite as brutally '80s as The Ride Of Your Life (which we just had to watch in Driver's Ed... oh, Lord) but close. Truly, these were terrible cars. They didn't even have the decency to give us the less-awful Euro version.

"Mommy, why is the sand green?"

@zacarious: I remember riding in a very early Escort at the time. You could hear the gas sloshing around in the tank. The dash and interior trim all looked like government surplus. My butt was numb after a half hour in the passenger seat. The car wallowed around every turn and the engine strained hard during acceleration. I thought, "What a piece of utter crap!"

Honestly. My '75 Pinto was a better car.

@Brian B: Yeah, the bar wasn't too high...and it was also on fire.
My mother had one of the early Escorts--it was an econobox and the gears were that loosey-goosey.

I bought an '85 Escort L. I was 18, and it was my first new car. It was very affordable and looked good at the time. It shifted really well, better than any manual I've driven since (quite a few). The engine was it's weak point. Besides just being...weak...it had a design flaw that caused water to condense in the valve cover and drip into the oil. That was a Bad Thing. Ford replaced the engine under warranty.

My good buddy in Highschool had an Escort L. We used to joke the L was stood for Luxury. I too got the sticky seats and dash from it. Must be some kind of oily plastic that Ford used at the time. Gross. And you could hear the gas sloshing around in the tank as well. Now that's cheap. It ran a long time though. Come to think of it he hasn't owned a car since. I guess he hit his peak with the Escort L.

SS and no outcry from Chevy?

I'm glad to see that the Dodgers beat the Reds that day.

@Spasticteapot: That was much later, and the only thing that Cossie shared with the Escort was the name badge. Really it was a shortened Cosworth Sierra with Escort lookalike body panels.

Remember, all these desirable special euro models were / are VERY rare & expensive, so for most regular euro schmoes 1.6L XR3 would have been the sportiest Escort they could afford.

The woman driving this bucket must have been on Vicodin or twenty Benadryls when shifting.

I just got a '97 Escort LX wagon (the parents decided the T100 was too bad on gas), my first stickshift, and I shift like a bat out of hell. Granted, I'm going 35... into my shame corner.