It would have been the way forward for Ford though. I don't think it looks that bad myself. If Ford had have introduced an Escort with a hatch and FWD, say towards the end of the Mk1 they could have kept pace with VW.
Instead they stuck with pre-war technology and even on early skaters had the cheek to offer top of the range cars on carbs and with 4-speed boxes, whilst VW had a car that went round corners on rails had a 5-speed box, leccy ignition and could carry a decent load in 1976.
Just as well they didn't for us, but pretty poor vision by FMC.
It would have been the way forward for Ford though. I don't think it looks that bad myself. If Ford had have introduced an Escort with a hatch and FWD, say towards the end of the Mk1 they could have kept pace with VW.
Instead they stuck with pre-war technology and even on early skaters had the cheek to offer top of the range cars on carbs and with 4-speed boxes, whilst VW had a car that went round corners on rails had a 5-speed box, leccy ignition and could carry a decent load in 1976.
Just as well they didn't for us, but pretty poor vision by FMC.
I agree. I recall a road test in CAR in 1974-5 comparing an Alfasud Ti and an RS2000 - the Sud would take any corner in the dry 10 mph faster! FWD is very good if it's done right and Alfa were one of the few to actually do so.
To be fair to the Mk111 Escort - yes, Ford were 5 years behind VW, but even the 1300 Escort 111 with a four speed and VV was such a massive improvement over the Mark 2 Escort 1100/1300 - which was a 13 year old design that wasn't that wonderful in 1967. Imo the ordinary Escorts were wobbly old things and only the RS models drove properly. I had Alfasuds as well as a 1974 1100 Golf and the Escort 1300 wasn't in the same league. Drum brakes??
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