Junkyard Find: 1986 Ford Escort GT
Ford sold Escorts in North America from the 1981 through 2003 model years, with the ’91 and later cars based on Mazda designs. I’ve never been much interested in the 323/Protegé-derived Escorts, instead keeping a junkyard lookout for the increasingly rare Dearborn– designed 1981– 1990 machines and especially the hot– hatch Escort GTs. Here’s a once-mean-looking black ’86 Escort GT in a Colorado Springs self-service yard.
Read more
Rare Rides: The 1991 Mercury Tracer LTS, Put It on Your List

Rare Rides has featured Ford’s compact Escort offering previously, in a first-generation EXP from 1986. Today’s Escort hails from the model’s second generation and wears a Mercury badge instead. It also has three important letters on the back: LTS.

Let’s check out a sporty economy sedan from the good people at Mercury.

Read more
Junkyard Find: 1986 Ford Escort L

I try to mix up these Junkyard Finds so that you won’t see five 1990s Oldsmobiles in five consecutive weeks. This week, after a 1990s Volvo and a 1990s Honda and a 1970s Plymouth, it seemed time for a really old car or maybe something from 2000s Detroit.

Then I remembered that Sajeev has been complaining about insufficient recognition from other writers of his weird love for Ford products of the 1960s-1990s, so I opted to open the floodgates for his bitter tears with the nicest fleet-grade mid-1980s Escort I’ve ever seen in a junkyard.

Read more
Junkyard Find: 1983 Mercury Lynx L Wagon
Before the North American Ford Escort became a Mazda 323/Protegé sibling, the folks in Dearborn masterminded a Mercurized version known as the Lynx. Escort wagons are rare now (though I have shot a couple during my junkyard wanderings), so I did a double-take when I saw this optioned-up ’83 Lynx wagon in a Phoenix self-service yard last winter.
Read more
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Thankfully I don't have to deal with GDI issues in my Frontier. These cleaners should do well for me if I win.
  • Theflyersfan Serious answer time...Honda used to stand for excellence in auto engineering. Their first main claim to fame was the CVCC (we don't need a catalytic converter!) engine and it sent from there. Their suspensions, their VTEC engines, slick manual transmissions, even a stowing minivan seat, all theirs. But I think they've been coasting a bit lately. Yes, the Civic Type-R has a powerful small engine, but the Honda of old would have found a way to get more revs out of it and make it feel like an i-VTEC engine of old instead of any old turbo engine that can be found in a multitude of performance small cars. Their 1.5L turbo-4...well...have they ever figured out the oil dilution problems? Very un-Honda-like. Paint issues that still linger. Cheaper feeling interior trim. All things that fly in the face of what Honda once was. The only thing that they seem to have kept have been the sales staff that treat you with utter contempt for daring to walk into their inner sanctum and wanting a deal on something that isn't a bare-bones CR-V. So Honda, beat the rest of your Japanese and Korean rivals, and plug-in hybridize everything. If you want a relatively (in an engineering way) easy way to get ahead of the curve, raise the CAFE score, and have a major point to advertise, and be able to sell to those who can't plug in easily, sell them on something that will get, for example, 35% better mileage, plug in when you get a chance, and drives like a Honda. Bring back some of the engineering skills that Honda once stood for. And then start introducing a portfolio of EVs once people are more comfortable with the idea of plugging in. People seeing that they can easily use an EV for their daily errands with the gas engine never starting will eventually sell them on a future EV because that range anxiety will be lessened. The all EV leap is still a bridge too far, especially as recent sales numbers have shown. Baby steps. That's how you win people over.
  • Theflyersfan If this saves (or delays) an expensive carbon brushing off of the valves down the road, I'll take a case. I understand that can be a very expensive bit of scheduled maintenance.
  • Zipper69 A Mini should have 2 doors and 4 cylinders and tires the size of dinner plates.All else is puffery.
  • Theflyersfan Just in time for the weekend!!! Usual suspects A: All EVs are evil golf carts, spewing nothing but virtue signaling about saving the earth, all the while hacking the limbs off of small kids in Africa, money losing pits of despair that no buyer would ever need and anyone that buys one is a raging moron with no brains and the automakers who make them want to go bankrupt.(Source: all of the comments on every EV article here posted over the years)Usual suspects B: All EVs are powered by unicorns and lollypops with no pollution, drive like dreams, all drivers don't mind stopping for hours on end, eating trays of fast food at every rest stop waiting for charges, save the world by using no gas and batteries are friendly to everyone, bugs included. Everyone should torch their ICE cars now and buy a Tesla or Bolt post haste.(Source: all of the comments on every EV article here posted over the years)Or those in the middle: Maybe one of these days, when the charging infrastructure is better, or there are more options that don't cost as much, one will be considered as part of a rational decision based on driving needs, purchasing costs environmental impact, total cost of ownership, and ease of charging.(Source: many on this site who don't jump on TTAC the split second an EV article appears and lives to trash everyone who is a fan of EVs.)