Hey Jalops

User Crazygutgut here.
I was driving down 19th Ave (in San Francisco) on Saturday July 5th when I spotted the "Escachero." I wonder if the guy is a fan, cause he spraypainted Escachero on the doors.

Most of the car is a 90ish Ford escort. the back of the cab seems to be made from a 60's Chevy or Ford pickup. the fins I'm not sure what those came off of, they looked pretty rough, but he did have "Coupe de Ville" scripts on the fins.

I still gotta get picks of the 1977 Honda Civic-amino that is driving around my hood, too....

And, yes, we'll be at Altamont— we're looking forward to helping push your car off the track and console your sobbings with the gracious tone of a victor

So let's talk about Make:Way's car. It's a 1993 Ford Escort; they claim that they were reduced to buying one of the weakest, most shoddily-built vehicles ever to creep out of Dearborn under its own so-called power because "nobody sells anything interesting AND running for $500 or less." This speaks volumes about their lack of experience with cheap car shopping. Why, you can get V12 Jaguars for $500!


Or, if you want something that can contend on a budget, what's wrong with a nice Cavalier wagon? Cavalier wagon owners will pay you to take their cars, and Team Two Wheels Too Many has proven to everyone's satisfaction that they kick ass at the racetrack. Now, the Escort isn't what you'd call the ideal car for the Altamont Motor Speedway, but spinning out repeatedly will be the least of their problems.


You see, Volvos are all about the safety. Because of that, they have massive aluminum battering rams for bumpers. Here's our car. Lesser cars will bounce off these bumpers like ping-pong balls off the side of a Big Boy locomotive.


And what happens when you get into a paint-trading situation with a vast hunk of Detroit iron, like f'r'example the Size Matters Fury? Well, if you're driving a Göteborg brick, you might get an unsightly dent or two... but a freakin' Escort will disintegrate like a popsicle-stick tower having a piano dropped onto it from ten stories up! We won't get into the terrible things that take place when a front-wheel-drive car takes a hard shot to a front wheel (which occurs about every 17 seconds at Altamont), because Team Make:Way will be too busy trying to get out of the way of the faster cars (i.e., damn near all of them) to worry about that!

Why, it's all we can do to keep Horgh himself from getting on the first plane from Norway to come out and teach these Make:Way fellas a lesson about Black Metal they'll never forget!

Any of you other teams headed to the Altamont race have something to say to us? Go ahead and crank up your wheezing propaganda organs and send me your best taunts- we'll print 'em!

[Junkard Finds]

Image credit Murilee Martin

First up is this electrified '89 Ford Escort. It may not look like much, but this car was converted by Sandia National Laboratories, of nuclear weapons fame. Yes, atomic scientists were involved here, so we figure this Escort probably has an experimental superconducting motor that belts out at least 1,000 horses, not to mention its own liquid-sodium-cooled breeder reactor in the back supplying the electrons. Well, maybe not; all the seller tells us is the short-and-to-the-point statement "needs work." For $499, that description covers all you need to know. But just imagine this thing packed to the rafters with all the surplus NiMH laptop batteries you can find in bulk, feeding 880 volts to an electric motor the size of a 55-gallon drum... through the front wheels. Look out!

If you're willing to pay a bit more (top bid is $1035 at the time of this writing), you could go French with your Tesla-whuppin' electric machine. That's right, here's your chance to purchase an actual 1980 Lectric Leopard! Based on the Renault Le Car, the Leopard has achieved cult status among electric car aficionados, so right there you'd have a network of folks to share your pain give you helpful tips as you wrench on your new silent ride. This one needs new batteries and has no paperwork, but don't let that deter you from dropping an atomic bid on it ASAP! Think of the shocked bystanders at the dragstrip when you show up with your Lectric Leopard stuffed with thousands of fire-prone lithium ion cordless-tool batteries and proceed to torque-steer your way to glory!

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[via Shoutwire]

So you want to know why those damn Lada-drivin' Scandinavians and oil-money-flush Arabs are seriously stomping the good ole USA in the Hoonlympics these days? Why the Hoon of the Day entrants have been a bit weak lately? Well, goddammit? I'll tell you why, buddy: we're getting soft! It's like berserkers sacking your coastal towns and the OPEC embargo all rolled into one hoon-miliating package, while our hoons squander their potential by simply bashing perfectly jump-worthy cars against the mock-angry background of a frat-metal soundtrack. Here's the kind of video you mostly wade through these days when scouring the tubes for righteous hoonage...

But wait, there's more! These here boys have a Mazda pickup they could be blasting through a huge wall made of pallets, or driving in an impromptu enduro with some friends in a Lumina, or taking a running start for a jump to brag about to the grandchildren (well, if they live long enough to reproduce, of course). But no, they just want to beat on it like some anemic chimps banging broomsticks hopelessly against the bars of their cage in between listless bouts of onanism, and they don't even manage to do much damage. Meanwhile, you can bet that Sven and Ahmet are gearing up for some epic hoonage... the sort of hoonage that we once claimed as our own.

Now the video above shows the occasional flash of hoon promise- yeah, they start off with the usual tedious spraypaint/bash/shoot routine, but there's more life to it; rather than just feeling like a pathetic jerkoff on the smoldering wreckage of western civilization, it feels more like an energetic jerkoff on the still-burning potlatch of western civilization! Now this crew would be laughed off the road by your typical hoons in Hammerfest or Dubai, but at least they manage to get a little air out of the van's jumps (though they promptly screw it all up by stopping and reversing the video at the best moments, you know, because the video software makes that easy and stuff).

So come on, Ameri-hoons! If you're gonna be idiots and destroy a car, send that friggin' car out in a blaze of glory! That is all.

– Murilee Martin

Related:
Hoon of the Day: Swedish Escort Service, Enzo Donuts! [internal]

The Mighty Mr. Forney sent us this wacky shortened Escort RS 1600 built by some wacky fookers in Blighty. We are in awe. We are scratching our head so hard we'll likely hit cerebrum in four-to-six minutes. – Davey G. Johnson

Just Affords Project Unveiled [Internal]

Related:
Prodrive's P2 Gets the Top Gear Sub Four Second Treatment [Internal]

The days are short and the aqvavit is strong in Sweden, and the hoons there sometimes need a little pick-me-up to retain the will to live during the wintertime. So, they fire up the hot-rodded Escort and make with the jumping. And no wimpy railroad grades or hills that require a velocity-sapping uphill chug to reach the jump; these here Scandihoonians have a nice ramp setup with a long flat approach that lets them get very impressive hang time. 10 bonus points for beating the piss out of a non-beater car and another 5 for the Hayseed Dixie soundtrack. Add another 5 for the good camera work and editing and we get a Hoon-O-Meter reading of 38. – Murilee Martin

Related:
Hoon of the Day: Lada Versus Volvo Norwegian Jumpstravaganza [internal]

Even a day after, the whole April fool's day deal is infecting our newsgathering brains. We were thisclose to posting on a Car and Driver report that Ford was planning to rebrand its Focus as an Escort. Then we got to a quote from Mark Fields, who said Escort fans had been disappointed their beloved 'Scort had been done-away with. A few geffaws later we were off the case. But we still had to call out C&D for a well-executed Foolish piece, despite April Fools day having a really short shelf life and us having our Fools antennae locked and loaded. We did have a great joke about the Fusion becoming the Contour, but that's blown now. – Mike Spinelli

2008 Ford Escort - Auto Shows [Car and Driver]

Related:
Detroit Auto Show: 2008 Ford Focus [internal]

"It was unclear what the status of his health was, but a witness provided a Luna bar for relief, as the judge clamored for orange juice."

"O'Quinn also maintains an extensive collection of collector cars with a total value of over $100 million. In October 2005, he bought Pope John Paul II's 1975 Ford Escort GL ( 690,000). In September 2006, he bought a 2005 Lamborghini Gallardo covered with 33 celebrity autographs ($500,000), the Batmobile used in the filming of Batman Forever ($335,000), a 1941 Packard limousine used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt ($290,000) and a 1938 Cadillac Town Car used by Pope Pius XII ($250,000)."

Virgie's "Texas" Lawyer Collapses in Court [TMZ]
John O'Quinn [Wikipedia]

Related:
Driving Under The Influence Of Meat: Tracy Morgan Gets A (Second) DUI; How'd She Get The SLR Back? The Paris Hilton And Friends Post-DUI Video [internal]

Our uncle had an Escort of this vintage back in 1979. They were everywhere in the UK and Ireland at the time. One afternoon, while out at a park, he handed Mom the keys. She walked over to the locked Ford, put the door key in the hole, twisted, and nothing. Then the key snapped off in the lock. She went back to tell Pete what happened, and he takes one look at says, "That's not my car!" Then he opened his door with the ignition key. The RS 1800, however, was a different beast. Chock-full of Cosworth yumtasticness, the car captivated Hammond as a youngster. And now he gets to drive it. – Davey G. Johnson

Related:
Classic Top Gear: Stupid Car Showdown [Internal]