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'83 Ford Escort Wagon

In the fall of '93, when I had decided to part with the old '77 Jeep Cherokee, I was looking for a car. This '83 Escort was the next vehicle for me. Nothing to brag about, but let me tell you, you can haul a heck of lot in these little wagons! Read on for details! The pictures on this page are from the fall of '93 when I got the wagon. I kept this car until fall of '96. (Notice the old Jeep in the background!)

Brown and in ok shape. It DID have some rust but it wasn't all that horrible. Also, this is a good color for a vehicle this far north....the paint and rust actually come pretty close to matching!!! Well underpowered, most of these early Escorts had the 1.6L engine in them. 4 cylinders, and you wondered if there were THAT many! This particular Escort had the HO engine, so it was supposed to have more power, but I never felt much. Of course, stepping down from a big old 360 AMC engine in the Jeep, this tiny Ford engine was a far cry from powerful! It did, usually, get me from point A to point B, so I can't complain much. Auto tranny, AM/FM radio, and the heater worked fine!

I made a nice set of seat covers for the front seats after getting it. I made storage "pockets" on the sides and back of the cover so I actually had a good amount of storage just on the seats!!!! Handy for those wet-wipes, pens, maps and other such practical items. I have since made seat covers for other vehicles too, but this was my first attempt and wasn't half bad. I made them out of black denim and they were sure durable!

This car USED oil badly. Was a VERY POOR cold weather starter. And mega-underpowered. I still got my money's out of it though. I got it dirt cheap, and didn't have to do much work on it while I had it. I had lots of winter trouble, including it not running much of its last winter(aka, the Winter from Hell!). Mileage was "good" but not as great as some get in these cars. It was in the 26-28 mpg range, BUT if you calculated in the oil usage expense, that would relatively get knocked down to the 23-25 mpg range. I recall a trip that was about 1100 miles round trip and I used a case of oil on that trip alone. It was with THIS car that I learned how to buy oil by the case! NOT good!

In the picture below, you can see that I already had Jamie's crate in the back seat. I bungee corded it down and it was easy to get her in and out from the back door. Now that I have two dogs, this wouldn't be so easy, but it worked fine travelling with just Jamie much of the time. For other uses of this car, read on........

Wanna know what you can haul in one of these? Well......just go to an auction.....and try to fit it all in! That's what I did more than once! AND, more than once, I pulled off getting (most) everything home!

The first auction I went to was a school auction and I got, among other things, a 3'x5' table. Well....it fits in just spiffy! Not much more, but 3 feet by 5 feet will fit just fine!I flipped it on its top and loaded everything else on top of it. Having those 3x5 measurements in mind when I went to other auctions was handy. At one I got a real steal. This was yet another school auction in a pretty run down building. 3 teacher's desks hadn't sold so I offered the auctioneer $1 each for them. DEAL! I had to pick them up the following monday in a two hour time frame. Well....now bear in mind, two of these are those HUGE wooden, heavy teacher's desks, while the other was also huge and heavy, only metal! Guess what the dimensions are? Yep...3x5! Sure, no problem, I can get 'em in the Escort. Well, on Monday a friend and I went over in the little wagon to get them and we found out right away that the "legs" were going to be a problem. So, after "unscrewing" the runners on the one wooden desk, we hauled it back home. I grabbed a hand saw before we headed back. YES...I cut the legs off the other wooden one! Hey, for $1, these are darn nice desks, with OR without legs! The metal desk was a no-go as removing ITS legs would be more difficult and not worth it. Thus, I only took the two desks. Now, mind you also, these desks sit about 30" high on the floor. With the front seats crammed ALL the way forward, I could get one desk in the wagon at a time.....WITH THE TAILGATE CLOSED! Not bad, eh!

Another great use was when I still had this car and was replacing the rear axle on the '84 Grand Wagoneer......I used the back of this wagon as a "toolbox", as I could park it right next to where I needed it. I could just close the rear hatch at night and the tools were kept clean and dry! It even had a nice "shelf" along the rear windows where I could set sockets......very handy!Take a look at the Grand Wagoneer page for a partial picture of this Escort in use as a toolbox!

All in all, this car was decent, but Ford, as most car makers did at the time, had blown it with shoddy engines(too weak and not durable enough to last). Basically, for a small car, Ford HAD done a nice plain jane design...inside and out. I like that plain look and feel.....but a weak engine and auto tranny....UGH! I put lots of miles on this in the few years I had it, and found it to be fairly practical- especially when hauling away "auction spoils"!!!! :)

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