RE: Ford Escort 1600 GT (Mk1) | Spotted
Discussion
s m said:
I got a 1.3 78 Mk2 in 86 that was really solid - used by a farmer’s daughter to take hay bales in the boot to her horse a mile or 2 away. Parked in an open barn and her Dad had sprayed everything underneath in old engine oil - crude but effective rust proofing
Put a modded 1600 in it and it was a cheap but fast runaround. Sold it for much more than I paid and it was still going up to about 1990 when it exceeded the the then owner’s skills
I had a red 1.3 just like that, with a Mountney steering wheel, K&N filter and a four branch manifold and single box rally exhaust system. Put a modded 1600 in it and it was a cheap but fast runaround. Sold it for much more than I paid and it was still going up to about 1990 when it exceeded the the then owner’s skills
Slow and very loud.
biggbn said:
I'd take the beetle out of that selection of cars!! That said, I've never got the old Ford bug but a two door mk1 is a pretty little car and would be, I'm sure, huge fun.
I think that was his girlfriend’s car - for me that wouldn’t compare fun factor wise with the Escorts or Lotus - but would be boring if we all liked the same!
Great photos..My first car was a 1971 Mexico.. Bought for £500 in 1980 a great car and for the time quite fast and nimble!!
OldSkoolRS said:
Nice...BVR and speakers on the parcel shelf too. I prefer Venetian red too, black is a pain to keep clean, though 20+ years in my garage probably doesn't help. 
Just needs a wash, honest guv.
I loved Venetian Red and it had to have speakers on the parcel shelf in the 80s. Just needs a wash, honest guv.
While black may be a PITA to keep clean at least you still have yours!
Mine went in 1984 for about £2,500.
Mr Tidy said:
I loved Venetian Red and it had to have speakers on the parcel shelf in the 80s.
While black may be a PITA to keep clean at least you still have yours!
Mine went in 1984 for about £2,500.
Hasn't run for a lot of years, so an engine rebuild is on the cards too after I've finished the welding (strut tops and that's it since it's been garaged and dry weather use since about 1985). I bought mine for £1k in 1995 so I guess it counts as a shed? Only issue is that if I sell it I have to split the profit with my parents...While black may be a PITA to keep clean at least you still have yours!
Mine went in 1984 for about £2,500.
OldSkoolRS said:
Hasn't run for a lot of years, so an engine rebuild is on the cards too after I've finished the welding (strut tops and that's it since it's been garaged and dry weather use since about 1985). I bought mine for £1k in 1995 so I guess it counts as a shed? Only issue is that if I sell it I have to split the profit with my parents...
Looks like you ought to keep it then!fttm said:
Bagshot was a car breaker come the end , rough as feck .
Yeah, it's been allowed to fall into disrepair now. I think the main pit area is now used for storage by (I think) BCA. Some of the lanes are still used by army lorries. But some , used at one time by rally clubs, are now not maintained at all, and overgrown.I remember, back in the day, a Mk1 Escort came flying round a particular bend known for it's deep potholes, and broke its axle. Rough is certainly the word.
OldSkoolRS said:
Nice...BVR and speakers on the parcel shelf too. I prefer Venetian red too, black is a pain to keep clean, though 20+ years in my garage probably doesn't help.
Just needs a wash, honest guv.
Nice Just needs a wash, honest guv.
My first Mk2 RS2000 was Venetian Red - had the plate BDA 8T. I remember when my friend bought his RS1800 from Mike Youngs down South ( basically twice the price of a decent RS2000 in the mid 80s ) he was interested in getting the plate off my car but couldn’t as his car was an earlier year. That RS was written off by an out of control BMW but I did notice it was resurrected later on and given a colour change to black.
Second RS2000 was a black one - like you say, an effort to keep clean but looked nice when it was
J4CKO said:
The impression now is that every RWD Escort was some RS drift monster driven by Wannabe Hannu Mikolas, there were old Escorts with extra lamps on and various other mods but by and large nothing like the perfectly turned out examples now, in the eighties they were old sheds by and large.
The typical ones I remember were generally driven by old blokes, fag in the corner of their mouth. The caretaker at my primary school had one, all roll ups and creosote. My grandad had one before his Chevette phase, then a Fiesta MK2 and culminating with a Metro 1.1.
Or old ladies in a 1.6 Ghia in Beige going to church.
Totally agree with this sentiment. I briefly owned a Mk2 Escort estate in 1990 and it was a hateful thing. Broke down on me several times and the worse incident was the windscreen wipers giving up in Shaftesbury one evening, leaving me trying to navigate my way home on a dark and rainy A350, it was terrifying!The typical ones I remember were generally driven by old blokes, fag in the corner of their mouth. The caretaker at my primary school had one, all roll ups and creosote. My grandad had one before his Chevette phase, then a Fiesta MK2 and culminating with a Metro 1.1.
Or old ladies in a 1.6 Ghia in Beige going to church.
As a Ford fan myself (but the later RPJ generation Fords) I get why these Escorts are nostalgic and valuable and a Mexico or RS is a lovely thing, but for £26,950, for my 1970s bread and butter car fix, I would find the nicest AlfaSud I could find and buy it, with probably about £16K left over for something else! Now that was a 1970s car that was dynamically superb out of the box without any mods (I still regret selling mine) and considering the low numbers left, very undervalued in today's heated market!
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