Junkyard Find: 1988 Ford Escort GT
June 20th, 2014 5:49 PM
Share
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.
{
"id": "9289480",
"alt": "",
"title": "",
"video_link": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Cpss0BFNoU",
"youtube_video_id": "7Cpss0BFNoU"
}
{
"width": 634,
"height": 357,
"showRelated": true
}
It fits right in with the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe and Taurus.
{
"id": "9289510",
"alt": "",
"title": "",
"video_link": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/cW_i2rEsHi0",
"youtube_video_id": "cW_i2rEsHi0"
}
{
"width": 634,
"height": 357,
"showRelated": true
}
Who wouldn’t want a “carefully selected” interior?
There must be a story behind this afterthought-looking warning sticker on the HVAC controls.
Comments
Join the conversation
Back in the early 90's I worked for Ford Credit in the "Customer Service Department" aka mostly collections. We collected hard on this guy with a Escort GT and was to the point of repoing. Account had been assigned to a Repo Agent several times with no luck. My wife was asked to be the Maid of Honor for a friend of hers from high school. I generally did not pay much attention to the details but lo and behold the groom turned out to be the Customer/Owner of the Escort GT. My fellow Ford Credit employees pushed me hard to repo the car but I just could not do it on their wedding day with my Wife in the wedding. I did take some nice pictures of it with the decorations on it. Evidently the wedding presents/money was enough to bring the payments current and eventually he did pay it off. That would have been classic repoing the car from the church during the ceremony!!!
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.