Junkyard Find: 1988 Ford Escort GT
Published: June 18th, 2014
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Ford’s first American-built front-wheel-drive compact car was so much better than the miserable Pinto it replaced that it sold in huge quantities. The first-generation GT wasn’t especially quick, but it looked cool (by 1980s standards) and probably swiped a few sales away from the Civic Si and Volkswagen GTI. Nearly all of the pre- Mazda Escort GT s wore out, depreciated to oblivion, and got crushed during the 1990s, but I still see the occasional example in wrecking yards these days. Here’s one that I spotted in Northern California in December.
It looks much like a contemporary Fox Mustang, which was a pretty quick car by the last 1980s.
The 1.9 liter engine made 108 horsepower, which wasn’t bad in 1988.
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It fits right in with the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe and Taurus.
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Who wouldn’t want a “carefully selected” interior?
There must be a story behind this afterthought-looking warning sticker on the HVAC controls.
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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This is an early 1988, with the older rear end. 1988 1/2 got the newer tails. Reason for using the same model year designation was to apply CAFE credits for whole '88 line.
Hi everyone if you all know of an escort for sell im looking for one. Please let me know thank you.