What can you say about the Escort? It replaced the old Pinto, was front-wheel drive, they sold a ton of them, and like their contemporary brethren, the Chevette and Colt, probably eight survive to the present day. This is one of them. And the owner has a little fun with the listing, too. Here we have a UNIT of a car. If you went to high school in the 80s this may have been your first car or what your mom drove you to school in on the daily. No power steering neither. All this results in the easiest belt change in the history of mankind.
What price for this once-common pizza delivery vehicle? I did have a sportier 3 spoke steering wheel though. Yes, I did deliver pizzas in it. Man was that fun. My father in-law had one of these with a diesel engine, he drove it about k miles before it just fell apart well into this century. The torque was indeed astounding, resulting in 0 to times were probably in the twelves. Note: 0 — kph. Customers were never disappointed! Saw a diesel wagon variant of this era a couple years ago. It had a few spots of paint left amidst the rust-but it ran.
At least that day it did. Back when I was delivering the pies we dreamed of having a fancy Escort for delivery. Our store had 4 Chevettes all of which were two years old. Car 1 had more power than the others, but sketchy breaks. Car 2 had great breaks, but no power. Car 4 was the best all around. One day mid-summer the Corporate Safety guy showed up and flagged cars as unsafe.
We got two loaner Escorts from another store and thought we were in heaven. Bigger, more powerful, and they even had radios.
The 1. After working on it I realized it was indeed incredibly cheaply made and built but it was also a genuine Road Roach by design. When the timing belt let go in a seriously bad area at sundown on a Friday I got us the hell out of there and scrapped it. Damned interference engine made pretty good power for a CC mill but bent the valves so that was that. Nate makes a great point tying the shorter life of these to the need for expensive drive belt replacement.
