Ford Escort Mk III Car INSURANCE

Mk III Ford Escort 1980-1986

Everyone was very excited about the new Mk III Ford Escort as the car was already loved by the public. It was hoped that the Mk III Escort was going to rival the Golf, the designers had hoped that the new look would boost up sales and take the car into a higher market place.

The Mk III was a huge change from the previous versions, one of the biggest changes is the change from rear wheel drive to front wheel drive. A hatchback version was also created with some trademark styling. Most of these changes help to reduce drag when traveling at high speeds down motorways or A roads.
A new and powerful engine had been produced, it had an over head cam shaft to beat the tappet noise from the previous engine. You could get the new engine in a 13 or a 1.6.

The suspension has also been upgraded, making each wheel have its own suspension system, all the old version had a leaf spring setup.

The Escort Mk III was voted European Car of the Year in 1981. From launch, the car was available in Popular, L, GL, Ghia and XR3 trim.

The Mk III did have some bad press due to the new suspension system which turned out to give a hard ride when on bumpy roads. It wasn't until 1983 that the issues were sorted out by Ford Motor Company.

A brand new three speed automatic gear box was available on the 1.6, in 1982 Ford released a 5 speed manual gear box, this became the standard box for the 1.6 but any car along the range could use it.

The well known Escort XR3 was launched from the start of the Mk II range to rival the Golf GTI, they where both hot hatches for the younger driver. The XR3 grew up very fast but it did start out like with a tuned 1.6 CVH engine which had a webber carb fitted to it. It looked allot more sporty than the normal MK III and had harder suspension to give it that sporty ride and feel. At the beginning it didn't even have a 5 speed gear box.
Despite this ford cracked it and the buying public started to fall in love with it. The public loved it even more when the car was released with the first fuel injectors, this made the car the XR3I but the new kid on the block was the launch of the RS Turbo version.

Ford also started to produce the Escort with a new diesel engine which was built in Dagenham and it was very economical for its time, it was very common for owners to get 70 miles per gallon of fuel. At first it was you could only get it on some models ut that soon changed.
The performance of the Diesel engine was not to great, it only turned out 54 BHP and it only had a top speed of 90 MPH.

When the Ford Escort Estate was launched it only had 3 doors but later on the 5 door version came out. In the same year as the 5 door Ford launched the saloon model of the Escort, it was named the Orion, it had all the same items as the hatch back but had a more up market image. The Orion was sold up to 1993.

Editions: Ford Escort Mk II - Ford Escort Mk III