MST Mk2

It is not a Ford, it is not an Escort, it is an MST Mk2.

I knew they'd been making reproduction shells for a while, but now they have complete cars.

Eat your heart out, '69 Camaro

MST builds MK I Escorts, too. Just need to fork over a large chunk of my 401K.

Edit: Choosing whether I wanted a Mk I or a Mk II would be a problem, too.

I compared the overall dimensions of a Mk I Escort to an ND Miata and the current MINI Cooper. Length of the Escort is the longest by 2.5-4.1 inches. The Escort is the narrowest by 6.2 inches and the real kicker....it's the lightest by 520 pounds over the Miata and 900 (!!!!) over the MINI.....there's where the fun comes from. A 200-250 HP, 1820 pound bundle of fun.

I watched the whole video.  Some amazing terrain and great film.  I have never seen anything from that presenter before but I really like him.  My favorite part of the video was that he said they offer left hand drive too.  Oh, how I wish I had $80k to drop on a car.  He did however point out that being all new metal and all new mechanical you could probably do more daily driving in one of these if you wanted w/o the big fear of otherwise 40 year old parts failing.  Wouldn't that be fun!  

I have never driven an old Escort but I did get two chances to drive a Opel Ascot and I image they are similarly fun.  It was a yellow one like this and it left a lasting impression on me.  I searched for one for years but they were rare here and lets just say, "the didn't age well, mechanically."  

In reply to John Welsh :

Ascona.......nothing from that era aged well. I had a '72 Datsun 510 that had rust holes in the rockers when I bought it in 1976. By the time I sold it it was "see-through". But lightweight cars were plentiful and fun. A 100 HP was the high end version of many cars that had curb weights below a ton. I remember the first time I drove a 1st generation Scirocco.....what a hoot.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I noticed the engines you mentioned in the 3.0 thread in the video. Seems like a killer package in one of these. Always liked the Mk2 but the import options haven't made sense to me yet.

Needs less Escort and more Capri.  

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

In reply to John Welsh :

Ascona.......nothing from that era aged well. I had a '72 Datsun 510 that had rust holes in the rockers when I bought it in 1976. By the time I sold it it was "see-through". But lightweight cars were plentiful and fun. A 100 HP was the high end version of many cars that had curb weights below a ton. I remember the first time I drove a 1st generation Scirocco.....what a hoot.

Depends on the car.  If you are talking about cheap, every day transportation like an Escort or a 510 or other cheap sedans like that- yea, a good bet that most of them just rotted away.

If you are talking same size, but a higher starting market, like the Alfa GTV or BMW sedan/coupe- those survived in pretty high numbers.  It would be interesting to check this theory- but I bet there are more Alfa GT(v)s still on the road than Escorts, even though there were probably an order of magnitude or two more Escorts produced.  The only country that would realistically have a lot of Escorts left would be England- and they are rare enough that someone is building brand new ones.

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

There was an awesome build thread titled Windy's New Project where someone restores/modifies an Escort.  It came up that you could still find clean, cheap Escorts in places like South Africa, and I think some places around India/SEA of all places.  Ten years ago...

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

Start looking.............

How Many Left?

Shavarsh said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I noticed the engines you mentioned in the 3.0 thread in the video. Seems like a killer package in one of these. Always liked the Mk2 but the import options haven't made sense to me yet.

Not an expert, but I'm fairly sure those were initially made specifically for Mk2 Escorts.

A little searching on YouTube will find you many videos.  Frank Kelly took advantage of the downtime last year to produce a series of videos on his car ("Baby Blue") featuring the engine, the trans, the brakes, etc.  Worth a look.

Guarantee he isn't running a stock 2.5 Duratec and NC transmission   But it is wild to think that when these were new, Ford teams were making 240hp from their 2 liter engines, with 70s brake and suspension.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I got to watch the Rothmans Escorts in a round of the 1979 WRC. It was jaw dropping for those of us that had never seen a rally car from outside of North America.