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Ford Escort / Mercury Lynx
Years: 1981-2003
Bling Rating: 0.3/5
Zing Rating: 2.4/5
Price Rating: 3.9/5
FunCheapFactor: 2.81
The Ford Pinto was a tough act to follow--not to match up to, but to erase all memory of. And the Ford Escort--arguably one of the best compact cars ever built by an American car company--did a darn good job of relegating the Pinto to the annals of car lemon Legendre.
In North America, the Escort was a decent little runabout with acceptable power, acceptable handling, acceptable looks, and acceptable reliability. On other words, it was perfect for the generally non-demanding North American car consumer: good enough. It showed up in GT guise in the second generation, sporting four wheel disk brakes, sports suspension, a more powerful engine, and rear spoiler. Not a pocket rocket, but a peppy commuter.
Over on the European Continent however, the Escort was something else all together: an aggressively styled football hooligan of a car, able to keep up with, outrun, out accelerate, and out handle all comers. This was thanks to Cosworth Engineering, who put together the Escort Cosworth (see photo)--a sought after legend of a compact car still lamented long after production of the original ceased.
In North America the Ford Escort was sold with a variety of normally aspirated and generally under powered 4 cylinder engines, but the Escort Cosworth came with the Cosworth YBT turbo charged 2.2 litre four cylinder engine which put out 227 hp in stock trim and was easily capable of producing much more with a little tuning. And the legend was born...
Over the years the Ford Escort shape shifted and in the second generation was built on the Mazda B platform, the same platform used for the Mazda 323. The Ford Escort lived on to a third generation, eventually replacing Ford's ill fated and ill conceived Probe. By 2001 the Ford Escort was limited to fleet sales only as Ford prepared to retire the Escort name (for now at least) and replace it with the Ford Focus.
For fans of cheap cars, used Escorts are a bargain because they have very little after market performance parts and virtually no performance image, so they're cheap. They also have, overall, fantastic fuel economy in the range of 25-28 mpg. For fans of fun cars, the Ford Escort is somewhat less bland to drive than, say, a Ford Taurus, but nowhere near as fun as many other fun cheap cars.
But if saving money is your flavour of fun, you could do worse than driving a Ford Escort GT. It is a reliable, peppy, economical, and cheap car that can still take a little abuse when it counts.
We've just added a new poll (see right column) and are looking for your opinion.
This poll asks "Which country makes the best cars?" and although it's a fairly loaded question, the answers should be interesting. There are so many great cars made in so many countries and we couldn't ask about them all, so we kept it to American cars, British cars, Japanese cars, German cars, French cars, Italian cars, and of course Russian cars (this, after all a fun cheap car site).
What makes a country's cars the best is somewhat subjective: performance, style, reliability, used values, lack of bling (we consider that a good thing, thus the Russian cars). So we're just looking for your overall opinion. Vote with your mouse and let us know what you think.
My vote goes to Japanese cars: I always loved the Mitsubishi Colt turbo. Then again, maybe it's German cars: the Volkswagen Rabbit is a fun cheap legend. Of course, I have a soft spot for the Renault Le Car as well...
Renault 5 / Renault Le Car
Type: 3/5 door hatchback
Years: 1976-1984 (in N.America)
Bling Rating: 0.4/5
Zing Rating: 3.9/5
Price Rating: 3.7/5
FunCheapFactor: 5.77
One of the original superminis, the Renault Le Car (as it was known in North America; Renault 5 elsewhere) is a living fun cheap car legend. Tough, nimble, quick, quirky, odd, and oddly reliable, the Renault Le Car carved out a peppy supermini performance niche.
Marketed in North America by American Motors Corporation (AMC: remember the Eagle?), the Le Car was Renault's first performance mini. The early Renault Le Cars came with a whopping 55hp generated by a anemic 1.3 litre four cylinder engine, but that would soon change.
Later, that engine evolved into a potent 160hp 1.4 litre turbo charged lump, marking the Le Cars arrival on the performance scene. It had already arrived on the rally scene, and was a familiar site--in turbo, AWD guise--on rally courses around the world.
For the fun cheap car Affictionado, the domestic market Renault Le Car Turbo is a great choice for cheap, fun, and fuel efficient transportation. In most North American markets the Le Car is rare these days, but in certain districts they can be found quite easily, and often, have been driven as grocery-getters and town run abouts, meaning they're still in fairly decent shape.
The Turbo version of the Renault Le Car, while nothing compared to a newer turbo charged car, is nonetheless quick, responsive, peppy, and surprisingly fun to drive. They love to rev, and rev quickly, and corner well with a decent set of tires. While Renault parts are getting difficult to find these days, links to overseas Renault parts suppliers can be easily found online.
In addition to peppy turbo charged engines and reliability that often belies their generally cheapish assembly, the Renault Le Car scores major style points--if you're in to quirky, unusual, and distincively French styling. And if you are, the Renault Le Car just might be the fun cheap car you've been looking for.
Renault 5 / Renault Le Car Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_5
http://www.cardomain.com/MakeModel/Renault/LeCar
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The cars they review aren't cheap, old, used, or beaten. In fact they're all new. Still, The Truth About Cars is an automotive blog no car enthusiast should miss. Sorry, that's hyperbole. You really can skip it, but you might not want to.
Why? Because the car reviews I've read on The Truth About Cars are very much down to earth and mostly devoid of the brain numbing auto-journalist feel-good purple copy that is so common in car reviews these days.
Instead, The Truth About Cars seems to provide readers with opinions on new cars that are truthfully the opinion of the reviewers, not the marketers. And for that, we consider them a kindred blog. I guess we're kinda like kissing cousins, in a way.
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"I'm shrinking, shrinking!"
Back in the early 1980's, having learned from the oil crisis of the '70's, many car manufacturers produced small, fuel efficient vehicles that sold well and did what they were meant to do: move people. But by the early '90's, the same thing happened to cars as happened to computer software: they bloated yet again. They got longer, larger, more powerful, roomier, and thirstier--like they used to be. And this trend (as with software) has been continuing--up to now.
As we've all seen in the past few months, fuel prices have kept climbing and while some manufacturers saw this coming (the Toyota Prius just celebrated it's 10th year of production) many others did not. Turning a blind eye to the realities around them, these car manufacturers kept producing large, fuel sucking cars and truck that no longer fit market realities in North America.
But now, thanks to sagging sales and a measurable consumer backlash, some of those car manufacturers might finally be "getting it" and are once again building smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles as quickly as they can.
We've been down this road before however. In the 60's and early 70's cars were, in general, huge. Fuel became expensive and harder to get, cars shrunk. Enter the era of cheap oil, and cars bloated again. Now we're back to higher fuel prices, and cars are shrinking once more. The more things change...
But as I've said before, now is the time for owners of fun, cheap cars to rejoice: we've seen it all along. And while we may lack a little passing power and have a little rust on the underside, the money we've saved on fuel costs in the last two years alone could probably buy a small condo in Malibu. Or maybe Seattle.
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