Glimpse into my past

With most everything in recent time posted on RC being of a classic Japanese nature, I thought I should try bring back a little bit of balance and what better way to do so than to show you the second car I owned (the first was a 1978 Chrysler Avenger 1600GL/S).

You’ll have to excuse the quality of the pictures, they were taken back in 2002 with an old AGFA digital camera, as cool and handy as the camera was, it didn’t have a great colour depth, irrespective of that you still get a legible image and so here it is in all it’s glory;

1976 Ford Escort MkII 2door

As you can see, it was in pretty good condition.  There were some cover-ups by the previous owner(s) but certainly nothing dramatic, at least not as far as an Escort goes.  It was 4spd, floor-shift with the optional disc brakes up front.  Not that it could really go so fast that you would need the disc brakes.  I still think putting some spotlamps behind the grille was the best idea.  It kept the car looking clean and then come night-time when the factory headlamps were decidedly average a flick of the switch would illuminate the road and everything else infront of you, including police cars when you forget they were on when driving about in town and you subsequently get pulled over.  It was a fun car to drive even if it wasn’t as quick as my old Avenger.   Here’s a few more pictures of it,

Front

Rear

Rear 3qtr

Front 3qtr, Lamps On

Front 3qtr, Lamps Off

Somewhat sadly, it was a car that I bought together with my partner at the time.  When we split I let her keep it as I had another car also, it subsequently fell into disrepair during her time with it and she sold it very, very cheaply despite the condition of it’s rust to some lucky chap in Auckland (where she moved after we split) who seems to have subsequently allowed it’s registration to lapse and I imagine it’s likely since been crushed.  Which is a shame but that’s sometimes how things go.

So as you can see with having had an Avenger and an Escort as my first two cars, I’m not trying to be biased towards those cars of Japanese manufacture, it’s just they’re what I own currently and as such that’s where my focus has been, especially after finding the Ewan (Hayatonka) as a source of Japanese parts.  Not like the British or American cars where you can phone someone up who speaks and understands your language and as such finding parts is easy by comparison.  I’ll try dig up some photos of my first car.  Though back then I had no digital camera and so finding them may prove difficult.

-Michael