Junkyard Find: 1981 Ford Escort GL Sedan
By the early 1980s, Ford needed a replacement for both the image-challenged and obsolete rear-wheel-drive Pinto and the minuscule, German-built Fiesta, and so a Detroitified distant cousin of the European Ford Escort came into being for the 1981 model year.Here’s a rare ’81 sedan, photographed in a Northern California self-service wrecking yard.
I have seen quite a few first-generation Escorts in the Ford sections of junkyards during my travels, including this 1981 EXP, this 1984 wagon, this 1986 wagon, this 1988 GT, this 1988 GT, this 1988 GT, this 1988 EXP, and this 1990 Pony. In 1991, the Escort went to a Mazda chassis.
This car has the 1.6-liter SOHC four-cylinder, rated at 65 mighty horses in 1981. Curb weight was just about a ton, so acceleration wasn’t as poor as you might think (though it still required a great deal of patience on the part of the driver).
Most affordable econoboxes came with a four-on-the-floor manual transmission in 1981, though plenty of Toyota Corolla Tercels had five-speeds by this time.
The original purchaser of this car wasn’t pinching all the pennies, in spite of the lack of an automatic transmission (still considered a luxurious option during the Late Malaise Era); this car boasts both air conditioning and cruise control.
Plenty of LTD and Granada buyers skipped the cruise control in 1981, but this Escort has it.
The telltale moss and rust around the windows indicate that this car sat for years, maybe decades, before arriving at this place.
Friendly Ford in Fresno no longer exists, but at least this car will die within 150 miles of where it was sold.
Before there was social media, the American ideal of a “United People” seemed possible. This junkyard is in San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley, so there’s some sort of message here for the nearby employees of Google and Facebook.
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Even though the North American Escort didn’t have much in common with its European counterpart, Ford played up the “world car” schtick in 1981.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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The next-door neighbor (retired guy) bought an '81 Escort L four-door, with the four-speed and a/c like this one. It was my first attempt at driving a manual, and after numerous attempts to start off, and instead stalling, he, and I, gave up. It would be two more years before I'd learn how to drive a manual, this time my then-girlfriend's '77 Datsun B-210 hatchback with five-speed. A year later, he traded the Escort for a Chevy Cavalier four-door, this time with an automatic.
Seats look fantastic for a near 40 year old car.