Sounds awesome. Is it still alive? 👍

@@rickydub6950 Sort of alive. The shell which had a full roll cage ( one of the conditions my father put on allowing me to build it) eventually rusted and I took out the drive train, suspension and brakes and put them all in a Dutton Phaeton kit car which is still alive. The body shell alas went to a Skegness grass track racer, not one of my wisest decisions!

@@duckpuddles at least its heart lives on 😁

Great tale!

i loved the cotton ball fight :)

I think we need more of Mrs Big Car

Mrs. Big Car surely was a surprise appearance. 😀 Not what I expected. Quite a lovely person.

The early USA Ford Escorts had the front wheels held on by the leaf spring suspension spring. When that spring broke, the front wheels came off. Very 'inconvenient'/dangerous! The water pumps tied up at only 25K miles. In a further bad design, the water pump was driven by the timing/camshaft belt instead of conventionally by the fan belt. So the tied up water pump broke the timing belt and the camshaft stopped spinning while crankshaft was still spinning. In still further bad design, this was a 'crash' 'interference' engine wherein when camshaft stops the pistons crash into open valves destroying the engine internally and creating a very expensive repair! Escorts left a very bad taste in the mouths of thousands of Americans!

Never cost more than a $1000.00? I don’t think so, I have come of age way before you and know that Escorts could be found for a $1000.00 or less but they were probably barely drivable. I seem to remember that I sold my Escort for $6500.00 in 2005 it was secondhand.

@@A-FrameWedge A colleague of of mine bought an early 90's US Escort - secondhand - for $600, but it was missing the grill and bumper! He had to fix up a lot, but he thought he got a deal.

Those aren't real Escorts. They're just other cars badged as Escorts, I looked them up. Companies love to do this in the American market (all markets really).

Glad you like them Robin!

A million panel beaters employed because of side impact bars.

I take it you never changed a clutch in one. Cast iron bell housing & gearbox. And the head was cast iron as well.

The mk1 mondeo also had bumpers that seemed to be made of glass and would break up into shards with even very minor knocks. Plus the rust proofing was not great. It's no wonder they would start to look tatty so quickly.

And I thought Screwfix was a dating app ! 🤣

I thought of Pretty Woman/Richard Gere/Julia Roberts.

@@iedco4 I thought Snap on Tools were something you bought in a sex shop.

@@jamesreynolds2867 😆😆

"I'm going for a ride inside the escort!"

"The Model T numbers are phenomenal given the era" it was era of Ford monopol for mass production of cars so why its suprising that plenty of them were made and sold as it was also the cheapest car of that time? WV Beetle are in this topic much more impresive and "With 21,529,464 produced, the Beetle is the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single platform ever made.".

Must be a nightmare to go through all the data for all the different model variations to research the information for the video and still get every detail correct. I think you do a fantastic job on these videos, this is one of your best! People will always be quick to point out errors, but please keep doing what you do. Great to see Mrs Big Car too. I'm with her on the Mk5 Escort, I had Mk2s and later I had a 1992 Mk5 1.6LX and I actually really liked it! How about The Talbot Matra Rancho story?

Absolutely superb documentary, would expect nothing less! Kept me engrossed (and thanks to gags such as the "Ford Exploder") also amused 🤣 I still remember the day my uncle pulled up outside our house in his classically coloured red and black Mk III XR3i, complete with gleaming clover leaf alloys and twin circular spots... He worked for Crystal Ford in Hull at the time, and during the 80s and 90s he leased so, so many of the classic performance Fords of that Era. Certainly got the 10 year old me far more excited than Dad's Volvo 440! Nowadays I appreciate each equally for their respective invitations, but it was the Escort which I'd obsess over, until I discovered the Lotus Carlton 😏 Keep up the great work my friend!! 👏🇬🇧

@@robsterbob580 I kick myself about getting bits wrong, and do try my best, but without someone else fact checking it's hard. But fact checking would take a LONG time! The Matra Ranco was a fun looking car. Maybe!

@@BigCar2 maybe you're being too hard on yourself. On the other hand, could we have more brummie accent and Mrs. BigCar

@@j.chiari4222 My Brummie accent has long since disappeared to I don't know where. And if I try one, it's just fake.

Thanks for the correction!

I had to rewind and watch it again. I initially thought it was a bit "raunchy" that the panties were showing... ... but alas it was just the rear hem of the skirt LOL

Yes !

Ford memories.

The Orion was an awkward looking car, as if the boot was an afterthought. In the UK most people buy hatchbacks, or at least they used to before the obsession with ridiculous crossovers that don’t do anything different to a normal hatchback, but its trendy to be seen in one. I also think the Audi A3 looks awful in saloon format.

The dog bone grate was ugly though, Im glad that got changed by the late 70s.

My nan has one...as a 1:50 toy car. Full metal, with plastic glass and interior. Probably from the time when my dad and uncle were still boys. Although she never bothered to read its name on the floor, she maintains it's a Zhiguli (a.k.a. VAZ Lada). I love that dog bone grille...

@@vaclav_fejt My parents had a late 70s ghia so the dog bone grill looks inferior to the straight one really on the mark 2.

It certainly was. If you can get hold of a Mark 1 Twin Cam now (with the Lotus engine) they're worth serious money, £20,000+.

The Mk5 RS 2000 would have deserved a mention, the only really good Mk5 Escort aside from the Cosworth.

Never buy a car named after a prostitute...

@@charlesharper2357 xh0itickctjiojijkv0 ot6ki9jokbjj jicjjit9th0tj to ocgjij6oji0tjtjthttjcjititctjhtjj0tc c. Tcotg0cd jocktbj0kit jioctojjih j0 jtktjhi tji ki

@@charlesharper2357 io otioji ttio ji9ccffct j9to titjbi0tjhctcttjhtgjcc0vti jdcj0ttototoc0cjbj kitjicthitbvgjvi9 j0k fji

@@charlesharper2357 Funny but rubbish comment as it is one of the most successful designs ever.

Why the need to own so many? Did dealers push you to upgrade?

The cotton wool balls won me over. :-)

Need to see more Mrs Big Car.!

Barry from auf wiedersehen pet introduced me to the Brummy accent, even though he was from Battersea.

The Escort and 911 were my favourite Scalextric cars.

...and Ronnie Corbett!

Not the best in my opinion, but one of the best for sure. I would also like to see it back in some form.

Bring back the sealed beam round headlight which fitted just about every car.

yeah agreed. the stupidly named and impossible to google _'Honda 'e'_ just ain't doin it for me. too little and too damn late. although I guess some of those charger reboots look alright.

Is Mrs. "BC" from Rome, or Grease" I didn't know that people from back then knew how to time travel.

Not only that: the "F series" is a huge category all by itself - not a single vehicle. Not even looking at the older versions - we can see that there's a HUGE difference between the current F-150 & F-750 - and yet they're both "F-series".

@@carlpeters8690 And since when are F-trucks classified as cars? None of them have a car body available (model t has)

I remember referring to the Explorer as the Exploder when it first came out because of the BadYear tires that they put on them.

When he first said that at 0:44 I thought it was a jab at the Ford Pinto!

No, they were actually Firestone tyres, not Goodyear. Quite a scandal back in the 90s.

It should be illegal for two people in one house to both have such beautiful voices.

I thought the same thing. Very very nice voice.

Thanks Darren.

My dad bought my stepmother a '69 or '70 metallic green Escort mk1 when we lived in South Africa. She had a mid-60s Mini estate wagon with an 850 CC wagon, it was a real dog. I remember they were shopping Opel's at the time when they bought the Escort. My dad had brought his '68 Pontiac LeMans over to South Africa from the US when we moved there in 1968.

Thanks Jaco!

Which film? The original film used Mercedes Benz vehicles. One of the later films re-used them.

@@shebbs1 The first one used ford's the lost world use mercs

Thx Reno!

We like each other quite a bit off-camera as well!

4 doors and estates aren't worth much prices of mk1 and 2 escorts are driven up by the rally boys still wanting 2 door shells, that's why even povo spec cars have value as long as they don't have 4 doors.

@@popuptoaster True, but even though estates and 4 door saloons aren't worth that much compared to 2 door cars, they're not so common, as most rusted away years ago like mine did. You can't buy an estate for a few hundred quid like back then. The survivors go for 4 figures now. My 1979 Escort 1.6 4 door cost me £100 back in 1991. You can buy a brand new Escort Mk2 2 door shell now. There's a company that makes them.

Ted Frith-1992 American Ford Escort Owner. I'm a proud owner of a 1992 American Ford Escort GT 'Cayman Green Limited Edition' 2 Door Hatchback. I owned my car for 28 1/2 years and exhibited it in car shows in the Southeastern Michigan Area. I won a total of 170 plats, ribbons, and trophies for my car shows participation in United Street Machines Association and Mustang Owners Club of Southeastern Michigan. It certainly gets the. Lions share of attention at these shows and it was almost featured in a made in michigan movie in 2010. I'm sharing this letter to you know i"m enjoying my Ford. Escort and it still draws a lot people in car shows in local car shows in my area in Michigan. Keep up the old car stores on my cell phone because they are an inspiration. to anyone who loves them. Thank you very much,, Ted Frith @ gmail.com P.S. Let me know how I can on 'My Classic Car' with Dennis Gage and 'My Car Story' with Lou Constable. Keep up great old car

Me neither!

I'll have to find another good way to have her in a video!

Agreed! Love her personality and her voice/mixed accent is very endearing.

@@lukerinderknecht2982 She has the most wonderful accent, doesn't she! Very articulate, yet cheeky and sincere. Wonder where she hails from?

@@residentelect Big Car posted in some of the comments here that they're both from the UK but have lived in Seattle for quite a while.

@@lukerinderknecht2982 Oh wow! So they are ex-pats' living the dream in the USA! 😁 That makes sense because he has previously stated he worked on the Microsoft Ford Sync system. Thank you for the update buddy. Hope you and yours are all safe and well at this very worrying time?

Thanks John!

Glad you liked it!

Not the same escort as what was being built and sold in Europe.

Thanks John!