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Car and Driver
a day ago
- Automotive
- Car and Driver
1981 Ford Escort XR3 Test: The Grass Is Definitely Greener
From the November 1981 issue of Car and Driver. If one needed any reassurance that a new day has dawned at the Ford Motor Company, the fact that Ford president Don Petersen has been seen tooling around in this lovely little red street racer ought to provide it. This is a type of car that is unthinkable in most of Detroit's board rooms today. It is exciting, aggressive, compromised entirely in the direction of driving fun, and—within the Procrustean confine of Detroit's automotive orthodoxy—frivolous ... "We can't wast our time on stuff like that," goes the litany. "People will think we're not serious about fuel economy. Tell the guys in Research and Development that we need a full status update on the new decal package!" There are two Ford Motor Companies, one in North America and one everywhere else. The one in the United States is and has been taking gas lately, and it has been decided by the people who preside over Ford's fortunes to bring the two closer together, to make the North American one more like the Everywhere Else one. The Fiesta was an early step in that direction. The Escort/Lynx was another. The Escort has been a resounding success in the market place, but less so among the critics. It won the coveted European Car of the Year Award in spite of the fact that automotive writers (the people who vote this particular prize) both here and abroad had serious reservations about its ride and handling. But there is a truth in the automobile business, truer than other truths: it says that the good cars are the ones that sell. The Escort sells. Now we have driven one that also goes. View Photos Aaron Kiley | Car and Driver The XR3 (shown here) that we managed to borrow from Mr. Petersen is the sportiest Escort Europeans can buy. It weighs 2000 pounds, while our own long-term-test (American) Escort weighs 2140 pounds, and its 1598-cubic-centimeter engine produces 96 horsepower at 6000 rpm, 98 pound feel of torque at 4000 rpm. This ratio of weight to power results in zero-to- 60 times on the order of 10 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 17.2 at 79 mph, considerably faster than anything an American could buy in the same size and price class. It's wonderful. You'll find the hood release on the underside of the steering column. Pop the hood and look inside. What you see is a neat little overhead-cam four with a two-throat Weber carburetor, a smooth cast-iron exhaust manifold feeding twin downtubes, the necessary cooling and electrical gizmos, and that's all, folks. Hardly, any of the stuff that the EPA has forced us to cram under the hood of our cars so that we may breathe from our exhaust pipe in relative safety; just the important bits. View Photos Aaron Kiley | Car and Driver But the engine compartment is only about the third thing you admire on the XR3. First there's the exterior. Ford-Europe opted for a much cleaner, more discreet overall look for its Escort, and the XR3 benefits from that, especially at the front. Then there's a nice deep air dam under the narrow European bumper, and a rubbery black "What'll it be, fellas" serving-tray spoiler on the rear deck. Fat Pirelli P6 tires on wide-rim 928-ish alloy wheels complete the picture. As a visual experience, the XR3 attracts a lot of attention. Overtaking, waiting at crosswalks, stopped at traffic lights, it never failed to capture the hearts and minds of the overtaken and/or bystanders. And it isn't just a matter of zoomy looks, either. The aerodynamic aids bring the drag coefficient down to 0.38; a stock U.S. Escort's is 0.40, which was already an excellent aerodynamic performance. (Though how this is possible, with the enormous outside mirrors that jut out from the XR3's doors, will forever remain a mystery of modern science.) One's next impression is of the interior, which would look good in a Porsche and would be a quantum leap upward for most American cars. Gray cloth with red stripes covers the seats; the rear being a folding bench for extra load space, and the fronts being Recaro look-alikes for extra creature comfort and security. The steering wheel is very small in diameter, padded, and almost as fat as the Pirelli outside. Everything about these furnishings exhorts one to sit down, start the engine, and bury the loud pedal in the floorpan—which one invariably does, at least the first couple of times. But there's more. The windows go up and down electrically, and the Whitman's Sampler-sized outside mirrors are adjusted the same way. The sunroof is as nearly perfect as one of those can be. It features tinted glass, it is manually operated, and it both slides fore-and-aft and pops up at the rear, depending upon whether you want sunshine or ventilation. There is also a sliding louvered screen to blank it off completely, if that is your pleasure. There is an AM/FM-radio/cassette system as well, but it plays through two raspy speakers and doesn't really measure up to the other interior appointments. View Photos Aaron Kiley | Car and Driver On the road, the XR3 is a mixed blessing. It is quick, but not really fast. Ten-second zero-to-60 times and a 108-mph top speed aren't going to separate anybody's retinas, but they're certainly brisk in a car of this type. The handling is sort of standard front-wheel-drive-with-fat-sticky-tires understeer—which is a vast improvement over the soft-riding American Escorts—and the roadholding, on smooth surfaces, is excellent. We generated a lateral acceleration of 0.75 g on the Chrysler Proving Ground's 282-foot skidpad, and the car felt stable and reassuring. Lift-throttle or brake-induced oversteer was still there, but to a useful degree: a good driver can correct his line by steering the rear wheels with his right foot. Only on bumpy roads does the XR3 behave like an American-made Escort—but even then there is a difference. The same vigorous pitching and uncontrolled vertical body movements tried to upset the car, as they would on a regular Escort, but the XR3's Bilstein shocks are just as vigorous in their control of those movements. The result is that the XR3 stays on course, but the rear wheels patter over the rough stuff, occasionally lose contact with the pavement, and are snubbed rather viciously whenever they threaten to leave the ground entirely, as on the far side of a frost heave taken at, say, 50 or 60 mph. As unpleasant as this occasionally is, it is a vast improvement over the bump-induced instability and general rough-road raggedness that we've found so troublesome in U.S. Escorts. That this he-man version of our Escort should share its bad habits at all was apparently unavoidable, given the basic similarity of chassis and suspensions. View Photos Aaron Kiley | Car and Driver The combination of unassisted steering, small steering-wheel diameter, forward weight bias, and fat, sticky tires makes for very heavy steering in the XR3. A few minutes on our slalom course or a lot of parallel-parking practice every day would be a real upper-body builder. The car goes where it's pointed without a moment's hesitation, but it makes you work for every degree of steering deflection. In this sense it is decidedly sporty. The brakes are good, but not great. The disc-drum combination suffers from premature rear lockup, which lengthens stopping distance appreciably. The car's personality and general level of performance certainly cry out for discs at all four corners. The clutch, unlike the one on the XR3's American cousin, is a good one. It's smooth, it takes up predictably and gradually, and it accepts heavy-footed driving and quick shifts without protest. As in most front-wheel-drive cars, the shift linkage is less than perfect, but as front-wheel-drive cars go it is acceptable. The engine is strong and smooth, but noisy, starting off at a reasonable noise level and becoming increasingly tiresome as one approaches the 6300-rpm redline. This, however, is a small price to pay in a country where we are afflicted with so many little engines making lots of noise and not much horsepower. View Photos Aaron Kiley | Car and Driver The bad news about this little XR3 that Mr. Petersen lent us is that you and I will never be able to buy one, unless we sell the farm and move to Europe. The good news is that our friends at Ford are going to build an American version that we can probably buy in 1984. It will have the U.S. car's clunky grille, headlamps, and bumpers, unfortunately, and it will suffer to some degree from the horsepower drain that drags down the performance of all American engines these days, but we'd expect much of the character of the XR3 to survive. Equally good news—as reported in the other parts of this Escort/Lynx extravaganza—is that much of the lamentable ride and handling behavior we've complained about in these cars is being set right in 1982. Perhaps the best news of all is that cars like the XR3 are beginning to show up in Detroit's corporate parking garage at last, and just in time. View Photos Aaron Kiley | Car and Driver Specifications Specifications 1981 Ford Escort XR3 Vehicle Type: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 4-passenger, 2-door hatchback PRICE Base: $10,900 (Great Britain) ENGINE inline-4, iron block and aluminum head Displacement: 98 in3, 1598 cm3 Power: 96 bhp @ 6000 rpm TRANSMISSION 4-speed manual DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 94.4 in Length: 159.8 in Curb Weight: 2000 lb C/D TEST RESULTS 60 mph: 10.0 sec 90 mph: 28.2 sec 1/4-Mile: 17.2 sec @ 79 mph Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 8.9 sec Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 8.9 sec Top Speed: 108 mph Braking, 70–0 mph: 195 ft C/D FUEL ECONOMY Observed: 27 mpg EURO CYCLE FUEL ECONOMY City: 33 mpg C/D TESTING EXPLAINED
Scottish Sun
09-06-2025
- Automotive
- Scottish Sun
‘Time-warp' 90s Ford Escort boasting its original radio & number plates sells for 5 TIMES its original price
Motorsport devotee John Phillips originally acquired the car as an early retirement present to himself DUST INCREDIBLE 'Time-warp' 90s Ford Escort boasting its original radio & number plates sells for 5 TIMES its original price Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A THIRTY-two-year-old Ford Escort has sold for a massive £105,750 - over five times its original price. The red 1993 Ford Escort RS Cosworth only had one owner who had done just 12,530 miles in it. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 6 The 32-year-old 1993 Ford Escort RS Cosworth sold for £105,750 Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers 6 Miraculously the original dealer number plates were still intact Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers 6 The car even came with its original radio - complete with tape cassette player Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers It had a top speed of 137mph and could do 0-60mph in 6.2 seconds. In 1993 it was worth £20,000 - equivalent to £43,000 now in today's money. Supplied new in November 1993 the Escort RS Cosworth 'Big Turbo' rolled off the production line finished in the rare colour combination of Radiant Red with a Polaris Grey Hexagon cloth interior. It was described as in exceptional 'time warp' condition throughout, as reported by Luxury Auto News. The original radio still showed the vehicle registration when switched on, the mandatory Vecta immobiliser was still in situ and functioning correctly and the original dealer number plates remained attached. Ahead of the sale, the listing said: "Motorsport devotee John Phillips acquired the Escort as an early retirement present to himself and it was undoubtedly his 'pride and joy'. "It lived in its own garage from the day he bought it, never came out on wet days and was diligently maintained as and when required until his untimely passing in 2009 from which point the Escort remained interred in the same garage until recently removed. "The history file is comprehensive and includes the original grey leather document wallet, the full complement of books and manuals. "Its original tax disc holder, documentation relating to the 'Options' purchase scheme and the dealer handover sheet, plus of course various invoices, MoT Certificates and later tax discs. "In readiness for sale, the cambelt and tensioner has been renewed and an oil and filter change carried out. Fully restored first edition of iconic Ford motor to be auctioned for huge price after £130k spent on its renovation "However with minimal use over the last 15 or so years, we recommend that minor recommissioning may be required to ensure that everything is exactly as it should be. "A rare and desirable homologation special in simply remarkable condition." It was sold for the eye-watering sum by Iconic Auctioneers in Northampton. 6 The interiors have been preserved in impeccable condition Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers 6 The vehicle was diligently maintained by its original owner Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers
The Irish Sun
09-06-2025
- Automotive
- The Irish Sun
‘Time-warp' 90s Ford Escort boasting its original radio & number plates sells for 5 TIMES its original price
A THIRTY-two-year-old Ford Escort has sold for a massive £105,750 - over five times its original price. The red 1993 Advertisement 6 The 32-year-old 1993 Ford Escort RS Cosworth sold for £105,750 Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers 6 Miraculously the original dealer number plates were still intact Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers 6 The car even came with its original radio - complete with tape cassette player Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers It had a top speed of 137mph and could do 0-60mph in 6.2 seconds. In 1993 it was worth £20,000 - equivalent to £43,000 now in today's money. Supplied new in November 1993 the It was described as in exceptional 'time warp' condition throughout, as reported by Luxury Auto News. Advertisement Read more on Motors News The original radio still showed the vehicle registration when switched on, the mandatory Vecta immobiliser was still in situ and functioning correctly and the original dealer number plates remained attached. Ahead of the sale, the listing said: "Motorsport devotee John Phillips acquired the Escort as an early retirement present to himself and it was undoubtedly his 'pride and joy'. "It lived in its own garage from the day he bought it, never came out on wet days and was diligently maintained as and when required until his untimely passing in 2009 from which point the Escort remained interred in the same garage until recently removed. "The history file is comprehensive and includes the original grey leather document wallet, the full complement of books and manuals. Advertisement Most read in Motors Exclusive Exclusive "Its original tax disc holder, documentation relating to the 'Options' purchase scheme and the dealer handover sheet, plus of course various invoices, "In readiness for sale, the cambelt and tensioner has been renewed and an oil and filter change carried out. Fully restored first edition of iconic Ford motor to be auctioned for huge price after £130k spent on its renovation "However with minimal use over the last 15 or so years, we recommend that minor recommissioning may be required to ensure that everything is exactly as it should be. "A rare and desirable homologation special in simply remarkable condition." Advertisement It was sold for the eye-watering sum by Iconic Auctioneers in Northampton. 6 The interiors have been preserved in impeccable condition Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers 6 The vehicle was diligently maintained by its original owner Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers 6 The 1993 Ford Escort RS Cosworth feels like an antique to modern eyes Credit: Jam Press/Iconic Auctioneers Advertisement
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Upstate man sentenced for drive-by shooting, burglary
SPARTANBURG, S.C. (WSPA) – A Spartanburg man pleaded guilty Friday to a slew of charges, including discharging a firearm into a vehicle and burglary. 36-year-old Brandon Kevon White was sentenced to 15 years for second-degree burglary, five years for petit larceny, 10 years for breach of peace of a high & aggravated nature and 10 years for discharging a firearm into a vehicle. In October 2023, it was reported that White participated in a shoot-out between three vehicles as they were driven through Spartanburg County and the city. The defendant was traveling in a Ford Escort driven by another individual. The shooting occurred after both individuals were reportedly threatened by an armed man at a boarding house. White went to a friend's home where he armed himself. Upon seeing the man who had previously threatened him, White shot at the vehicle. Gunshots were exchanged between the defendant's vehicle, the other vehicle and a third vehicle as they traveled through the county. Most of the participants could not be identified. However, White and another gunshot victim were taken to a nearby hospital. At the hospital, White admitted to authorities that he shot at the other vehicles but said he did so in self-defense. Surveillance footage showed the Ford Escort pursuing the two other involved vehicles, with White hanging out of the Escort's passenger window, shooting at the vehicles. In April 2024, officers responded to a burglary on Bryant Road in Spartanburg. The victim reported that he had left his home the day before, and when he returned, the front door was open and the door frame was broken. Several items were missing from the home. In the course of the investigation, the victim told authorities that White was his neighbor, and the victim used to give White a ride when asked but had recently refused to do so. The night of the burglary, the victim reported that he had again refused to give White a ride. When officers spoke with White, he admitted to entering the home after the victim left and taking a television and gaming console. Officials also mentioned that White has a prior criminal history, including convictions for forgery, second-degree burglary, obtaining goods by false pretenses, second-degree assault & battery, common law robbery, stalking, driving under suspension and numerous counts of shoplifting. All of White's sentences were ordered to run concurrently with each other. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Scottish Sun
25-04-2025
- Automotive
- Scottish Sun
Watch pimped-out white van break THREE speed records to become world's fastest front-wheel drive Ford
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A TRADESMAN'S van has made history by smashing three speed records to become the fastest front wheel drive Ford on the planet. The souped up 2001 Escort sped down a quarter mile drag strip in just 8.72 seconds at Santa Pod Raceway in Podington, Beds. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 5 Terry and his fizzingly fast Ford Credit: Smash 5 Cheeky tweaks to the engine made it the fastest front-wheel drive Ford on the planet Credit: Smash Driver and owner Terry Newton, 41, hit a top speed of 168.4mph during his second qualifying pass at last weekend's Festival of Power event. It beat the previous fastest FWD Ford driven in 8.76 seconds at 152mph by a Focus over 20 years ago - and became the fastest FWD Zetec and Zetec stock block. After obliterating the record on Good Friday, Terry said: 'I never dreamed of getting it to go that fast. I didn't think it was possible. 'I hadn't driven since October and we were only going out to check if the van still worked. 'You set off and you just change gears before pulling a parachute but I knew it must have been a decent time as I could feel it dragging the van into the other lane. 'When I found out we'd beaten the record, I instantly cried remembering my seven-year-old daughter Elektra said to go win it when I saw her on Wednesday. 'We matched the record last year but to beat it is unbelievable as it takes so much work just to shave off those milliseconds when you reach these high speeds.' Terry, of Fat Pig Racing, swapped the van with a mate for a Mk4 Escort six years ago - and didn't have high hopes after blowing the head gasket driving it home to Preston, Lancs. The mechanic reckons he's spent more than £100,000 on modifications to make it reach 60mph in just 1.8 seconds, 100mph in 3.9 seconds and 135mph in 5.9 seconds. The two-litre turbo engine, which makes it quicker than a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, burns seven litres of methanol per quarter mile. It provides around 1,100 brake horsepower and could do 230mph but is too powerful to accurately measure without wheel spinning. Terry, who usually drives a Volkswagen Touareg, credits sponsors and mechanics Chris Eade, dubbed the Turbo Doctor, and Graeme Cook for turning the tradie's van into a world beater. He added: 'There's still work to do. I'm hoping to win an event next month against racers from all across Europe with a £100,000 prize pot. 'I got a phone call from world-famous DJ Carl Cox congratulating me as he's a lovely guy who also races in our class with his own team. 'To be the proud owner of the world's fastest FWD Ford is a really special moment. The sky's the limit for this old van.' Sun readers wanting to watch Terry in the Doorslammers event at Santa Pod Raceway on May 16-18 can save 20 per cent on tickets by using code SUN20 at checkout. 5 The tradesmen hit a whopping 168.4mph, beating the previous Ford record of 152mph over twenty years ago Credit: Smash 5 Terry cried at the finish line admitting "I didn't think it was possible" to get a Ford to go that fast Credit: Smash
