The Complete Catalogue of the Ford Escort Mk3, Mk4, Mk5 & Mk6 All Escort Variants from around the world, including the Orion, 1980-2000

by Williamson, Dan

• ISBN13: 9781906133887
• ISBN10: 1906133883
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2021-01-12
• Publisher: Herridge & Sons Ltd.

Summary

Can any other car match the Ford Escort’s credentials? Not only is it one of the world’s best-selling vehicles – around one million were produced – but it also achieved that figure in a shorter time than all of its rivals. None of those rivals come close to the Escort’s outstanding success in motorsport, and few approach the Ford’s everlasting appeal. 

The Ford Escort began as a small car in 1967, with conventional three-box saloon and rear-wheel-drive layout; those now-legendary machines were reviewed in The Complete Catalogue of the Ford Escort Mk1 & Mk2. But it was with the all-new front-wheel-drive hatchback of 1980 that the Escort took over the world, dominating markets in many European countries, the USA and South America.  

There were Escort vans, Escort estates and, before long, a four-door Ford Orion saloon. And, of course, there were the sporty specials that make the Escort such an everyday hero: the XR3, RS1600i, Cabriolet, RS Turbo and RS1700T.  

Another new Escort arrived in 1990 but it was panned by the press. Yet the public was undeterred, and the now medium-sized Ford’s sales continued, buoyed by faster Ford superstars such as the RS2000, RS Cosworth and Escort WRC.  

Each of those cars is detailed in The Complete Catalogue of the Ford Escort Mk3, Mk4, Mk5 & Mk6, where humdrum hatchbacks and Fords we’d rather forget rub shoulders with world-beating legends.
 

Author Biography

Ford Escorts have been a fixture in Dan Williamson’s life for longer than he remembers. Early childhood spent sliding across the seats of his dad’s GT-engined Mk1 instilled an anorak-level addiction to fast Fords. Like most Escort enthusiasts, his condition is incurable. Dan was given his first car when he was 15, a 1972 Mk1 that’s perhaps best described as a long-term project. It currently shares garage space with a ’71 Mexico, a 1600 Sport and a variety of other Fords, from modern STs to a pair of RS Cosworths. Dan trained as a newspaper reporter before becoming a motoring journalist in 1997, working for the UK’s leading automotive publishers – a role that involved driving (and owning) many of the models in this book. Today he’s an editor and contributor to a variety of magazines, including Fast Ford and Classic Ford. Dan lives in rural Lincolnshire, where he dreams about discovering a barn-stored RS1800. Don’t we all…