Attractive Ford Escort

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32166, 9 December 1969, Page 22

Attractive Ford Escort

The smallest ear in the British Ford range is the Escort, and since it was introduced the model has sold most successfully in many parts of the world, and has proved itself a more than worthy successor to the popular Anglia. The Escort is available in several forms. The de luxe 1098 c.c. car and the Super

1298 c.c. are'both assembled in New Zealand, ahd the Escort GT and Escort Twin Cam are assembled overseas. This test deals with the 1298 c.c. car. Comparison of the Escort and the Vauxhall Viva tested last week is inevitable. Suffice it to say that the two cars are very similar in many ways, although the 1298 me. Escort has slightly better performance than the 1159 c.c. Viva and rides more comfortably. The Escort has a better elutch than the Viva tested, but less sensitive and heavier brakes.

Anyone choosing between the two cars would have to drive them both and think very carefully. The 1300 Escort, as it is known, costs $2253 in this country, the sterling deposit being £272, plus the now universal 50 per cent repatriation. The smaller 1098 c.c. Escort is $2087. LARGE BOOT The car has a particularly large boot for its size, and under the bonnet engine accessibility is good. A block of fuses with a transparent I cover is fastened to the engine bulkhead, but the Continental system of positioning f the fuse-block inside the car out of the way of dirt and spray is preferable. The Escort has individual front seats which are sufficiently shaped to give a rea- ■ sonable amount of lateral support, and are comfortable for long periods. With the dri- :

ver’s seat adjusted for a person of average height, there is just adequate leg and headroom in the seat behind; the back-seat passenger behind the other front seat is rather better off for room. The heater is powerful, but the horn is quite the opposite.

A very practical feature which others should copy are the vertical tabs of plastic on the transmission tunnel beside the front seats: the seat-belt buckles can be “parked” neatly on these when the belts are not in use, which keeps them from getting tangled and from being damaged by having the tip-up front seats slammed down on them. VISIBILITY

Visibility is generally good, but it is not possible to see the rear extremities of the car when reversing. The onespeed wipers are rather slow, and could sweep closer to the right-band screen pillar. The rear-vision mirror is of a good size—it is supplemented by a door mirror—but the shiny black surface of the rear parcel shelf frequently reflects annoyingly in the rear window.

Another black mark must go to the non-swivelling sunvisors. As in the case of the Ford Capri tested a few weeks ago, these are an undesirable economy, not that Ford is the only manufacturer to pare pennies by fitting them. The padded dash has a neat, mock-wood facing, there

is no glove-box but there isa large parcel-shelf in front of die front passenger. The adjustable outlets for the simple but successful facelevel vents and demisters are on the sloping top of the dash at the centre of the car. DASH LAYOUT

Reading from the passen- ' ger’s side, there is a rocker switch, on the dash for the two-speed heater fan almost in front of the passenger, and the heater and ventilation slides themselves are in the centre of the dash above a very large ashtray. Further to the right is the rocker switch for the wipers, and the choke and cigarette lighter knobs are low on the dash and just to the right of the steering column, where they are hard to reach when wearing a seat belt. The ignition switch on the other side of the column—so positioned to facilitate the fitting of a steering lock—is also a long stretch when belted in. The rocker switch for the lights is at the extreme right of the dash. The instruments and warning lights are positioned in a neat nacelle in front of the driver, where they are clearly visible through the top half of the steering wheel. There are gauges for fuel contents and water temperature. A stalk on the right of the steering column works the dipswitch, headlight flasher, indicators and horn. A foot-button above and to the left of the clutch works the screen-washers. The pedals are well-spaced, but the accelerator could be slightly higher, and so more on the same plane as the brake pedal, and also a little larger, so as to facilitate heel-and-toe operation of brake and accelerator. The short gear-lever is ideally positioned, and the change is one of the best available at any price. It is i smooth, precise, and so light and unobstructed by the fully-effective syncromesh that it is truly a finger-tip change. The 15in steering wheel is well positioned, and as in all modern Fords has heavilypadded spokes. SMOOTH ENGINE

The ignition switch is of the “safety” type which must be turned to “off” if the, engine does not start first timq. and which prevents accidental operation of the starter when the engine is running. The Escort’s engine is smooth throughout its rev. range, and never sounds strained.

The engine is fairly flexible, but as with most cars of this capacity the gears must be used to get the best from it, and it will not pull happily below 25 m.p.h. in top or 15 m.p.h. in third. At the other end of the scale, it will rev happily to 40 m.p.h. in second and more than 60 m.p.h. in third, arid the car cruises comfortably and quite quietly at speed. The performance is brisk on the hills or on the flat, and in the city the light and direct steering, allied with the good lock, makes the car particularly manoeuvrable. But on the open road the steering feels rather dead. Engine and road noise is perhaps a little better than average for this class of car, and wind noise is low—the non-opening front and rear quarter-lights are almost certainly a factor in this. The handling is particularly safe, being characterised by marked but not excessive understeer almost to the limit. But it would require a particularly desperate manoeuvre to provoke oversteer on a dry, sealed surface, and if one enters a corner much too fast it is merely a matter of jiggling the wheel a little to permit the front tyres to grip as they are straightened up a little.

Roll angles are restrained, and the car is just as safe on shingle surfaces, the quick steering making it easy to bring the tail back into line if it slides wide under power. The car is well behaved on rough surfaces. The brakes are drums all round, and as mentioned before they are rather heavy for a small car and feel particularly lifeless in comparison with disc-drum systems and some other all-drum arrangements. In spite of this they always worked well, pulled the car up straight in a panic stop from 55 m.p.h., and showed no signs of dis-

tress—other than a little smoke—after severe use. The handbrake easily locked the rear wheels in a 20 m.p.h. downhill stop. The Escort is an attractive car in many ways, being almost equally at home in the city or on the open road where it has the particular virtue, by reason of its good ride, seats, and noise level—apart from whine in third gear—of not feeling like a small car. TECHNICAL

Engine: Four cylinders,- inline, water-cooled, overhead valves, cross-flow cylinder head with bowl-in-piston combustion chambers, 1300 c.c., bore 80.933 mm., stroke 59.992 mm., 61.5 b.h.p. (gross) at 5000 r.p.m., torque 751 b ft at 3000 r.p.m., flve-main-bearing crankshaft. Transmission: Diaphragmspring clutch, four-speed gearbox with syncromesh on all forward gears, floor change. Suspension: Front, independent by coil springs and MacPherson struts. Bear, live axle on semi-elliptic springs. •rakes: Drum brakes on all wheels. Steering: Back end 'pinion, 3.5 turns lock to lock, lain wheel (collapsible), turning circle 29.7 ft. (Test car made available by Hutchinson Motors, Ltd).

FOR THE FIRST time Jensen has started to export the four-wheel-drive FF model to Europe.