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Mk1 Ford Escorts - share the love


Dick Longbridge

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More ramblings :

In 1975 we moved to  Llanmiddleoffuckingnowherech in mid-Wales everyone had a Ford of some sort as that was what the local garage  sold- Johnny Jones of Felinfach. MK1 &2 Escorts everywhere. When my Grandad died , my Dad rented a MK1 Estate from Jones the Garage to attend the funeral in Birmingham as it was thought the Series 1 Land Rover was not suitable. All 5 of us plus the dog travelled in luxury to Birmingham in that  1300 deluxe.

We inherited my Grandads Triumph 1300, which my Mum drove back to Wales so Me and my brother came back with my Dad in the Escort- the scenic route. This entailed much sideways action across the Cambrian mountains including some Forestry Tracks. I remember us helping him clean it up before it was returned, this confirmed my Dad was Roger Clark and all Escorts rally cars to the 11 year old me.

Assoon as I was17 I of course got a ... Mark2 Cortina, then a Zodiac, then a Land Rover, then Renault16s and a 17 Gordini- then company cars XR2, Passat XR3i. 
I just couldn’t be bothered with Escorts,  years of reading Car had convinced me they were rubbish and overpriced, until...

About the time my everyday car was a V8 S2 Land Rover, I needed something that would do more than 8mpg for a couple of weeks and bought a £25 H reg 1100 XL 4 door with a bit of bronze paint left on it. Then my mate Dave crashed his Mk3 Cortina 2000GT onto a roundabout , the stars had aligned. We went halves on a a tin sump and pickup pipe and engine mounts  from European Rally Spares in Banbury and created a death trap.  A Capri was sourced for some disc brakes and beefier struts, then a 2000e Corsair gutted for its gearbox and diff, by this stage we’d managed to make a quick little car, which we were constantly being asked to sell- so we did. Cleared up the 3 scrap cars we’d cannibalised and started looking for the next one.

Again it was a 4 door, light blue this time, when we put the Capri struts on the 1600e Rostyles rubbed on the arches so with tin snips, and a hammer and brick , some Mk2 like Forest arches were formed and covered in brown parcel tape, before rattlecanned blue, this one was even faster and sold straightaway.

over the next couple of years we did about 20 , not all Mk1’s of course and never kept one for more than a couple of weeks, great fun to blast about in , but not good as a regular car.

Much later I did make a nice solid 2 door Twin Cam lookalike with a 1600 x-flow and Lotus steels, to keep, because  it was an immaculate shell.30E34BD3-6226-49E2-8C1E-51F95F50E3D5.thumb.jpeg.8c1dd5637bd354e872d63935ebd4519a.jpeg I gave in and sold it after 6 months

It’s the only Escort I have a picture of, judging by the age of my Oldest and MrsN’s Mk2 Granada, must have been 1989 

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8 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

its simply an Age related plate given to the vehicle when it was registered on import :)

back when local VRO's where a thing still, I think you would get a number plate from wherever the VRO was, but these days its just pot luck what location marker you get from the DVLA on an age related plate when registering an import

 

Although I do believe when you rob an existing vehicle of its plate, the replacement age related one you get is issued according to where the vehicle was robbed of its plate, (but im still waiting to verify that one, it might just pot luck now with that as well)

 

 

as for escorts, I agree I much prefer the stock ones with steel wheels and tyres that have actual side wall and Suspension that does not look like its collapsed and broken! and in stock guise I do think they are pretty good looking cars

but they really dont do anything for me In modified form

(and I dread to think how many lovely old early retroreflective number plates have been binned of off Escorts for some wanky £20 wrong skinny font silver on black pressed plate)

 

 

I also have my own much more personal vendetta against escorts 

Ill post this one and see if anyone can figure out why!

15253928717_7102ad75ab_h.thumb.jpg.1e4aa7293ef72a498bcef381da3078b6.jpg

The fact that RS1600 decals were never a Ford item ?

PtrdSdN.jpg

 

LVX xxxJ were reg numbers used on some works competition Escorts and also on some late 1970 publicity Escorts (all types) and the first of the Mk3 Cortinas.  Also on the 2000GT saloon car racers, several of which were subsequently converted into Uren Savages.

AalHTbH.jpg

BDjtrMq.jpg

Don't know specific details of LVX 250J though. 

The Roger Clark / Tony Mason RS1600 (Top Gear youtube from about 25 years ago ) had a similar number.

yOQm6iP.jpg

0Is2DsT.jpg

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Vans.

Mk1 and square-front Mk2 vans (and estates) very similar from the windscreen back.  Front doors also look to be the same but they're not - differences at the front of the door shell and the hinges are completely different between Mk1 and Mk2 so not interchangeable. 

Edit - correction, (see below), Mk2 van / estate front doors till around late 1977 are interchangeable with Mk1 2-dr.  Later Mk2s not so.

I think rear van doors are very similar to Anglia 105E van doors - but I really don't know if they were actually the same. 

yxeOr4Y.jpg

RPUD6IF.jpg

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9 minutes ago, JeeExEll said:

Vans.

Mk1 and square-front Mk2 vans (and estates) very similar from the windscreen back.  Front doors also look to be the same but they're not - differences at the front of the door shell and the hinges are completely different between Mk1 and Mk2 so not interchangeable.   

Not entirely true. They changed the hinges around 1977-78 along with loads of other stuff. I bought a 79 estate to donate parts to my 77 and the doors wouldn't fit - but the ones off a yellow MK1 2 door saloon did

Escort018

 

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1 hour ago, bunglebus said:

Not entirely true. They changed the hinges around 1977-78 along with loads of other stuff. I bought a 79 estate to donate parts to my 77 and the doors wouldn't fit - but the ones off a yellow MK1 2 door saloon did

Escort018

 

Didn't realise early Mk2 doors were the same till late 77.  Guess that was when they changed the strut tops too, recognise usually by earlier F O R D on the grille rather than Ford oval badge.

Handy to know if you spot a scrappy early Mk2 van / estate still with good doors.   

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1 minute ago, JeeExEll said:

Didn't realise early Mk2 doors were the same till late 77.  Guess that was when they changed the strut tops too, recognise usually by later Ford oval on the grille rather than F O R D.

Yep. mine was a F O R D badged car, engine size on the wings and loads of differences to the later ones. I feel the early cars came in better colours too, although mine was boring Venetian Red

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I think if you were dead set on one you’d be as well like above importing one from SA with a rot free body and building it to spec you want. Buying one from the U.K. would put me off because you could end up with something that a blokes learnt to weld on and under the gloss is made from biscuit tins. 

Although I like a standard one, a 1.6 Zetec engined one would make an interesting daily prospect, reliable but economical and not too much power you can’t chuck it about. You could try and build it so it looks fairly factory.

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42 minutes ago, JeeExEll said:

Vans.

Mk1 and square-front Mk2 vans (and estates) very similar from the windscreen back.  Front doors also look to be the same but they're not - differences at the front of the door shell and the hinges are completely different between Mk1 and Mk2 so not interchangeable. 

Edit - correction, (see below), Mk2 van / estate front doors till around late 1977 are interchangeable with Mk1 2-dr.  Later Mk2s not so.

I think rear van doors are very similar to Anglia 105E van doors - but I really don't know if they were actually the same. 

yxeOr4Y.jpg

RPUD6IF.jpg

Yes Anglia doors are the same, something I only learned a couple of years ago on this very site, same time I found out Sherpas and J4s have the same back doors and rear bodywork.

Reminds me of the only 2.0 van we did, a blue Mk2 with Capri Ghia engine, struts, wheels, diff and front seats,steering wheel and carpets, in red!. I created a cross braced roll cage from wood with pipe lagging taped round it- genius.

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There's a shitload of period competition-mod info on this link I saved ages ago.

https://www.doublegmotorsport.com/rsprep/prepindex.html

It's in pdf form and covers both Mk1 and Mk2s, 13 pdfs.  Probably of limited use these days given the price of everything but still interesting.

jI7rqyO.jpg

Chapter 12 includes general tips on how to kit out your Mk1 Granada estate as a service barge  :-)

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Mk2 RS1800 was available through any Ford RS dealer (selected  Ford dealers only) if you had some money.  Very limited production run though, up to 1978 only. 

Most buyers went for the 'more glamourous looking' RS2000 droopsnoot and maybe tuned the Pinto instead with cam and carbs and head, etc.

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My favourite car aged 10 was a then 10 year old silver with vinyl roof 4 door gl WEN***T which lived a few doors down.I loved the shape and was obsessed by that car; I tried to talk my dad into buying it when they got rid of it for £virtually nothing.
 

A few streets away around 1991someone else’s first car that year was a brown coloured 1100 mk2 2 door in what I assume was Base spec. (Round lights, black bumpers, almost nill bright work) I remember they paid 75 quid for it and scrapped it later than year as the engine started smoking.

Around this time (1990) I also pulled a boot badge off a mk1 that was in a local  scrap yard , that curly “escort” script they did on the back. I’ve still got it. Because I refuse to pay what a whole car fetches Nowadays that’s the closest I’ll come to owning one.

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6 hours ago, bunglebus said:

That van, and the cabrios reminded me that many people have chopped the back off of vans to create pickups...

Great to see all the custom vans and pickups (and the others too).

I remember an article on a cutdown van that had the lower roof from a saloon/estate grafted onto it, which looked much better.

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8 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

I also have my own much more personal vendetta against escorts 

Ill post this one and see if anyone can figure out why!

15253928717_7102ad75ab_h.thumb.jpg.1e4aa7293ef72a498bcef381da3078b6.jpg

 

8 hours ago, garbaldy said:

/\ Because it was once lhd ?

 

8 hours ago, Dj_efk said:

Because it’s badly parked?

 

8 hours ago, garbaldy said:

Because colour ?

 

20210216_194328.jpg

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In 1973 I decided to treat myself to a new Ford Escort as I had passed my final exams the year before and with a

year of saving ,BRW283A4D6EFE6D_000145.thumb.jpg.4196eac4a4e74001d3f797f135b39225.jpgthe proceeds of the sale of my 1300 Cooper S and a small bank loan I bought one. No photos sadly

but I still have the invoice

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9 minutes ago, garbaldy said:

20210216_194328.jpg

no one has figured it out yet

tho a couple of you where on the right path kinda!

(to be more specific the "Vendeta" is against that one in particular, but the reason why could easily happen to/with other Escort although thankfully im not aware of any others!)

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46 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

no one has figured it out yet

tho a couple of you where on the right path kinda!

(to be more specific the "Vendeta" is against that one in particular, but the reason why could easily happen to/with other Escort although thankfully im not aware of any others!)

I'm going to guess that someone platebummed an Invacar in order to have an Essex plate to transfer to another unpleasant blue deathtrap? 

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18 minutes ago, Amishtat said:

I'm going to guess that someone platebummed an Invacar in order to have an Essex plate to transfer to another unpleasant blue deathtrap? 

Bingo! surprised it took yall this long to figure it out :mrgreen:

quite amusingly quite a few Invacar blocks coincide with various Ford vehicles (it seems Ford had its centre of operations or what have you In Essex, and Invacars where all made in Essex and registered there, aside from a small handful of private examples)

 

but as you say it sadly lead to LVX250J an Invacar Mk12 being robbed of its number plate because the above LVX-J rally escorts

its doubly a shame as LVX250J (now JBY503J) is the only Invacar Mk12 I know of in regular road use but its forced to run around on a miss leading age related plate (and also it hid the LVX201J-LVX300J block of Invacars from me during my research at that point in time)

do wonder if some day I can find the owner that escort and kindly ask them if they would be willing to return/sell the plate back to the Invacar!

 

(the extra frustrating thing, is it should not have been allowed to have been robbed of a plate in the first place, since the rules state that to transfer a plate off a vehicle the the vehicle needs to be of a type that requires an MOT, but Invacar Mk12 is MOT exempt as All invalid vehicles under 306Kg do not require an MOT)

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