Back in '94 there were loads of things going on at my house. one of them was finding a good vehicle for my mom who was tired of having to drive my dad's then operational 1984 Chevrolet K-5 Blazer. We went looking around for about 2 weeks, then we settled on a small Ford. Since it was either the miniscule Escort or the large Taurus (we weren't really interested in the Tempo, because were were trying to get a station wagon) we decided to go with the one that was easy to park, and even easier on the wallet.

We went for a 1994 Ford Escort LX Wagon with a Ford built 1.8 liter four cylinder. The ratings on it weren't something to get excited about, at 88 horsepower and 108 lb-ft of tourqe, but it was enough to get it going. It also had the four speed automatic instead of the 5 speed manual. This made for some rather dramatic on ramp episodes since we would need to bury the gas in the floor and hope for the best. 45...47...50...WHOA!! from fourth(about 2000rpm) to second(somewhere north of 4500)...60....85....90 ok slow down now!!!!

This brings me to the transmission. It wasn't the most reactive thing, but it got the job done with relative ease. Sometimes when it got confused, such as 1/2 throttle on a slight hill, we'd need to tap the brakes and be on our way. Other times, when we would need to speed up, it really didn't get the message. But, it was one of the most reliable things on the car and probably still is.

The only gagues you were allowed to have were either the standard cluster(Fuel, Vehicle Speed, Engine Temp) or the sport cluster(Fuel, Temp,  Vehicle Speed, Engine Speed) When you turned on the lights, the gagues became backlit with white dials, red warning areas, and orange needles. When the lights were off they were white on black, which made for very easy to reading even in direct sunlight. The odometer ad trip meter were backlit green on black, but, like everything else, went to white on black with the lights off.

On the subject of outward visibility, the windows were large for such a small car, and the pillars were just plain thin. The thickest pillar was the C-pillar(the pillars farthest to the back) at only about 5.5 inches thick. The thinnest, the A-pillars(the front pillars) at only about 2 inches thick. If you needed to check your blind spots, you could easily see out of the left rear passenger's window and all the windows on the right side and about to the middle of the rear window. In my mom's new Tahoe, visibility took a back seat to utility. The A pillars are about 3 inches thick, the B-pillars are about 5 inches thick(the passenger side is even thicker at about 6.5 inches) and the C_pillars are about 5 inches thick. Add in small windows,  poorly placed(seat mounted) shoulder belts, small windows and a passenger side second row head restraint that completely blocked the passenger side cargo window.

The suspension was fantastic. Yes, by today's standards it would be terribly harsh and crude, but it told you what the road was like, what the car was doing, and kept it controlled, moderately, in the turns(Now we have an '05 Tahoe and it turns onto its door handles in spirited driving.). After 16 years, the front suspension went out and the back had lost any rebound it had when new. The front suspension would bottom out when going over railroad tracks and it would make this scary thunk as the,I'm guessing, front struts did something Ford didn't think about when they designed the car. The back, you could sit on one corner of the bumper and hear this soft, muffled thud as the shock absorbers hit full compression. we got the front fixed, but the back felt like it could take a few more years. When it got more advanced in age, it developed a strange hate for speeds above 55mph where it would start shaking violently and make this downright alarming sound that came from the suspension. Tire rotations and balancing would not cure the anomaly so we just went with it.

The electrical system was one to rival that of many Hondas and Toyotas of the day, as well as some pre-'93 Mercedes-Benzes. The only problems we had with it were at about 6 or 7 years old, the radio stopped picking up any kind of signal. This was later repaired and was simply a loose wire that went to the antenna.Some older problems were at about 14 years old, the gague cluster lights went out, but not the warning lamps. Amazing durability for something that old.

The climate controls in it were very simple. Two levers, a knob, and a button. it took some force sometimes to move the lever that dictated where the air comes out of. One funny thing to me, if you looked to the inside of the passenger front foot well, you could see parts of the climate control system moving when you moved the levers.Since many of today's cars have super efficient climate control systems, it's a wonder how we got by in the mid 90's. It's also almost inheard of having actual levers that require you to use your forearm and some muscle to move levers instead of your finger in a system these days. If you were on PANEL and wanted recirculated air, you would need to move the lever all the way to the right(Defrost) and rip the thing back to the left. if you didn't do this, it would get stuck somewhere between the two and do something weird that would completely confuse the driver.

Just below the climate controls is the radio. If you're looking for a simple radio, then look elsewhere. It had a small display that showed the time and volume level, a cassette deck, and two rows of buttons(all the same size with different labels), each about half a centimeter tall and a centimeter wide. After that there were two larger buttons in the lower row in the corners that controlled the volume up/down on the left, and on the other end, the seek up/down on the right. There were two additional buttons on the cassette deck to rewind or fast forward but that was it. One special function the deck had was if you pressed both the RR and FF buttons at the same time, it would reverse the tape without you taking it out and turning it over manually. Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the way of noise cancellation in the cabin, so you heard everything including the radio. The engine noise was intrusive, the road noise was annoying, the chassis had many squeaks and rattles, and the wind noise never let you forget how fast you were going. This made for a very informative drive if you wanted to know what the car was doing in real time, but made it nearly impossible to hear the radio above 40 mph. Anything under 75% of maximum capacity, and it was instantly drowned out by the roar of the engine, and forget it at highway speeds.

The gear selector was a console shift, meaning it was on the floor inbetween the front seats, and behind a small storage bin and two shallow cupholders under the radio. All it was was an indication strip on the left and a stick of what seemed to be fairly resilient plastic pipe topped with a rubberized plastic handle with a large button on the side. Behind that was a handbrake lever that was more rubberized plastic and a button on the end. on top of the housing for that, there was another small storage bin.

The front seats we had were the "deluxe cloth" models. They were low and had no thigh support, but there was an amazing amount of foot and leg room that offset the seat hight to a large degree, but the draw back was still noticeable. The seats themselves looked rather flat and, at a quick glance, like they would offer no back support what so ever. Not true in the slightest!! After about five minutes of sitting, the seats would give just enough to give you the right amount of back support while the side bolsters were high enough and the seat narrow enough to hold you in the seats should your mother get a fire in her eye and drive like a woman possesed.Something that made the seats feel amazing, since the engine wasn't the most refined thing in the world, was when you stopped at a light and had the thing in gear still. The engine would hit just the right RPM that made the entire car shake, and made the seats feel like massage chairs. The perfect thing to lean back in after a 16 hour drive.

The back seats were nothing to write home about and somewhat of a let down from the front. It was a simple 60/40 split bench that was slightly higher than that of the front. One bad thing was that there were no such thing as head restratints in the back unless you went for the Escort Wagon's slightly more expensive counterpart, the Mercury Tracer Wagon.

To fold down the rear seats, there was a simple button jutting out of the top of the seat to the outside seatback. To give some perspective, it was about 4 inches away from the side windows and B-pillar. If you are 4 feet tall, then the top of the seat back would hit the back of your neck in a spot that would make you feel as if you're in bed and make you fall asleep in about 10 minutes. Any taller and it would start to hit lower and lower in the neck, up until if you tried to stretch, it would hit between the shoulder blades and and your hands could easily hit the rear window. That would remind you that you're in a sub compact with a wheelbase of 99 inches and a total length of somewhere around either 140 inches or 170. When the engine bay takes up a good amount of the total length, it get's somewhat confusing to remember just how long it was.

If you were going on a camping trip and wanted a neat place to store sleeping bags, you could store on in each of the rear seat footwells. It could hold enough supplies for about 6 people(or 8 if you really pack it) on that same trip, but you would need a second car to hold people, as the rear seats would be folded and it would struggle to 45mph. Hold it to the floor and wait about 40 seconds and you might be there.

The interior had average build quality, no passenger airbag, and you might sometimes hit your head on the roof getting in, but in the 16 years we had ours the interior's only sign of age was the dirty seatbelts(not cleaned in the 16 years of ownership) and dusty seats and dashboard. And, it showed it's age in a "yeah, so what" manner that annoyed my dad into selling it as a trade in.

In the time that we had it, it had a colorful ownership. From going to Walmart, to going on a road trip, to going autocross racing, to going hunting(my dad got desperate at his truck died in 1997), it did it all and more.

Ours was taken hunting by my dad, but he immediately got it stuck in a pile of sand when he tried to go 4-wheeling in it, and on the same trip, he beat in the oil filter door when he bottomed it out on a root, causing an audible scrape, but nothing more. Wow, an economy car with built-in skid plates!!

My sister took it autocross racing and almost took out a crowd of people when she learned the hard way that it did not have antilock brakes.

Some problems with it were the heater core(twice), the radio(once), the climate system(once), the radiator(once), the suspension(once), and the gague cluster backlighting(once after 16 years of use). The heater core, radiator, climate system, and radio were under warranty, but the suspension went out 11 years after any warranty the car came with expired.We didn't really care for the gague cluster because after that, we used a small flashlight.

Some notes:
If you canot find the oil drain plug or oil filter, they are hidden behind a door that can be hard to find at times.

If you think that Ford has changed the displays in any way from the mid 90's, that haven't. The only thing changed it the outside, but it is still the same green digital display, as confirmed by my friend's 2003 Ford Excursion, and my other friend's mom's 2006 Ford Freestyle.

The turning circle is an amazing 31.5 feet that you don't realize until you need to do a U-turn in a 42ft TC Chevrolet Tahoe or Dodge Ram 1500. small car can only dream of circles that small as the only on that I've seen come close is the Chevrolet Aveo at 36 ft and it's about the size on the interior part if an Escort. The term "subcompact" has been getting smaller and smaller.

The cargo area's floor is nothing more than a peice of carpet and very thin thing that collapses after about a decade. Under that is the spare tire, which is a comapct spare, and a jack. It's convenient unless you have tons of stuff in the cargo area.I'd reccomend a peice of plywood or something to put under the carpet to help with the floor.

The headlights actually get what's in front of the car, as well as to the side, and what's infront of the car that's more than 6 inches off the ground.The beams themselves are even, but if you have things in the cargo area and an expired rear suspension, oncoming traffic might think you have your high beams on when you really have your lows. The high beams have longer reach and an improvement of intensity.

For comparison the Tahoe's low beams have the bad tendency of only getting what is only about 30 feet in front if it, but only if it's on the road and 6 inches tall. I don't think you'll be able to see a deer if the lights only go 30 feet and have a harp angle at which the light goes down.The high beams are brighter and they do go farther, but they just make this horizontal beam of light that lights the way if what they are illuminating is anywhere from 4.5 to 5.5 feet tall.

If I get an Escort and need brighter lights, I'll probably put on a pair Hella Rally 3000 Euro Beams for the outer lights and a pair of Hella Rally 4000 Pencil Beam Xenon lights. After that, if I would want to blind anything that's already not in my line of sight, some Hella FF 1000 Dynaveiw cornering lights.
Amount Paid (US$): 12760
Condition: New
Model Year: 1994
Model and Options: LX, Automatic, 1.8L, Station Wagon