If you were a car enthusiast in the 2000s, you were almost certainly well aware of the sensation around tuner cars sparked in part by The Fast And The Furious. It seemed like just about everyone was bolting up wild wheels, underglow, and aftermarket stereos to their cars. Gamers got to build the tuner cars of their dreams in Need For Speed: Underground and Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition, while car manufacturers began offering their own interpretations on tuner cars. Back in the late 1990s, Ford predated the tuner craze with an Escort. The rare and forgotten Ford Escort ZX2 S/R was a factory-grown tuner with a lineup of mild go-fast parts and a 0-to-60 mph time that was halfway decent for its era.
Last time on Holy Grails, reader r1ma78 reminded us that General Motors of the 2000s was bonkers, but in an endearing way. The General was willing to sell Americans cheap speed from economy cars like the Chevy Cobalt SS to genuine roadsters like the Saturn Sky Red Line. Enthusiasts with families got something a bit special as well. In 2006, the Chevy TrailBlazer SS came with a 395 HP 6.0-liter LS2 V8 ripped right out of a Corvette for $10,000 cheaper than a Corvette. This was an SUV that you could tow your trailer with or race to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds. If you wanted a bit more refinement, you were able to get the same firepower with a Saab badge in the rare 9-7X Aero.
This week, we’re staying with domestic automakers and with cheap speed but implemented in a different application.
In the 1990s, compact performance cars were a popular segment and the market was only growing. As the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1999, the compact performance market of the late 1990s was populated with Japanese cars. The Honda Civic entered its sixth generation in 1998 and, in 1999, would get a new Si model featuring a 1.6-liter four making 160 HP capable of getting the car to 60 in 7.1 seconds. Over at Toyota, 1999 marked the start of the Celica’s seventh generation. Here in America, our performance model was the GT-S featuring a 1.8-liter four making 180 horses, making it faster to 60 mph than the Honda at 6.6 seconds.
Even domestic automakers were churning out their own interpretations of the formula. Chrysler and its brands had the Neon while Mercury tried to market its Cougars. And while not nearly as spicy, General Motors had the Chevy Cavalier and Pontiac Sunfire twins on deck.
As the Los Angeles Times reported back then, Ford was squarely in fourth place in the performance compact segment, trailing behind Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. The automaker knew it and was brewing up something it hoped would entice young buyers away from the Japanese brands and into a Ford. That car was the Escort ZX2 S/R.
Ford’s World Car
In 1967, a freshly-formed Ford of Europe launched the Escort. The name was first used on the Ford Squire in the UK back in 1955. That Escort was a stripper version of the aforementioned Squire. When the name made its return in 1967, it was applied to a vehicle replacing the Anglia. It was notable for being the first passenger car to be built by Ford of Europe and the Escort went on to be a smash-hit in Western Europe, especially in the UK. Just six years into Escort production, Ford moved two million copies of the vehicles. The rear-wheel-drive Escort would go on to become a rallying legend respected the world over.
Here in America, we had to wait until 1980 to get our own Escort. As Hagerty writes, when it came time to give the European Escort its third generation and replace the Ford Pinto, Ford conjured up a plan for its European and North American arms to share resources and spread out costs. Europe would get a new Escort while America would also get an Escort. Initially, the two vehicles were supposed to have a common architecture and components, not unlike the global platforms you’ll find today. However, during development, the two vehicles diverged, becoming two very different cars. By the time development ended, the European Escort and its American counterpart were really distant relatives, largely sharing parts like an engine and an automatic transmission. The vehicles were otherwise so different that the cars didn’t even share body panels.
Despite that, when Ford started its marketing blitz for the new Escort, it advertised the vehicle as a “World Car,” a pretty fresh concept for America’s automakers at the time.
Ford believed in this marketing push so much that 1981 Escorts got a little globe on their fenders. Every time you hopped into your Escort, Ford wanted you to know that your car had some European influence in it. Ford says that the Escort went on to become one of its best-sellers in the 1980s.
The first-generation North American Escort sold from the 1981 model year to 1990. Along the way, Ford sold a performance-oriented Escort SS and Escort GT. The Escort was even spun off into a two-door two-seat coupe called the EXP, which looks a bit like a Foxbody Mustang if it were described through a telephone.
The Escort would get a second generation for the 1991 model year. Ford kept the idea of the World Car alive with the second generation, but instead of partnering with its European division, the new Escort rode on the Mazda B platform and included the BG Mazda 323/Protegé as a sibling. This would spawn one of our early entries in the Holy Grails Cinematic Universe, the Mercury Tracer LTS.
The Grail
Today’s car takes us to the third and final generation of the North American Escort, which made its debut in 1997.
According to the brochures I could find, Ford stopped leaning on the World Car concept with the third-generation Escort. The car still rode on Mazda B platform bones, but Ford marketed the car as one that was smart, would save you money, and was safe due to its improved safety cell construction.
Honestly, the brochure looks like something from a high school art project with wavy text and pages plastered with pictures of people doing activities not at all related to the ownership of an Escort. Here, take a look for yourself:
This Escort was available in a four-door sedan and as an adorable wagon. In 1998, the Escort ZX2 was introduced as a sporty coupe, replacing the Escort GT and slotting into the sort-of-place also once occupied by the Ford Probe, which ended production in 1997. The ZX2 came with a 2.0-liter Zetec four making 130 HP and 127 lb-ft torque. For a compact coupe from the 1990s, this wasn’t too bad, but it’s not our grail.
Debuting in March 1999’s SEMA show was the Ford Escort ZX2 S/R: a tuner in the style of The Fast And The Furious two years before the movie even came out. It was a collaboration between Ford Racing and the company’s Small Vehicle Center Product Development. This is a vehicle that both Jack Trade and Rootwyrm have nominated as a grail:
Ford’s attempt to cash in on the early Fast N Furious craze, it’s more impressive to me for being the last of a nearly two decade spanning attempt by Ford to offer a U.S. domestic market pocket rocket.
From the EXP performance models of the ’80s to the Escort GTs then ZX2s of the ’90s to the just plain ZX2 of the early ’00s, Ford may not have always been successful, but it took a pretty worthy, long-term shot at it.
The S/R version was basically a pre-fab hot hatch(ish) street racer, an Escort coupe with a ton of Ford Racing Performance Parts bits but from the factory (though I recall dealers had to install some of it?). You could even get them in yellow.
I looked at one in the early ’00s…but ended up passing in favor of a Mustang GT b/c I always wanted RWD and a V8. But part of me knew that come 20 years later, the ZX2 S/R would be way more rare, cool, and though I didn’t know it then, dare I say autopian?
Hope Adrian’s feeling better/back to his normal and not sick curmudgeonly self; it’s hard to tell…
Amazingly, I could find just one press photo, so most of what you’ll see here will be from the very few for sale ads I’ve found archived on the net.
The bright yellow coupe (which also came in black and red) was given a shopping list of mild upgrades. Under the hood was a Roush intake system and a recalibrated ECU. The engine also punched its exhaust out through a Borla system. This was good for a modest power increase to 143 HP and 146 lb-ft torque. Backing up the power was a B&M Pro-Edge shifter, Centerforce clutch, Eibach Pro Kit springs, Energy polyurethane bushings, P205/55ZR15 Goodyear Eagle F1 tires, Tokico shocks and struts, and all-wheel disc brakes.
The suspension parts lowered the car an inch and the other platform changes meant that when MotorTrend tested the ZX2 S/R, it did 0.08g better on the skidpad than a stock Escort. In terms of straight-line performance, a regular ZX2 hit 60 mph in 7.8 seconds while the tuner ZX2 S/R did it 0.2 seconds faster. Not bad for the mild improvements under the hood.
At the time, MotorTrend already found the regular ZX2 to be faster than many other under-$20,000 cars on the market and this one was just a touch faster. According to MotorTrend, the extra go-fast bits were just $1,495 on top of a regular ZX2, which was $11,660 for the ZX2 Cool and $13,340 for the ZX2 Hot.
MotorTrend noted that Ford also planned to offer a Dynamic Suspension kit, which consisted of 500-pound rear and 300-pound front coilovers. These would be fitted to adjustable, race-spec struts plus an adjustable rear anti-roll bar. Ride height would be adjustable through the spring seats while a camber bolt kit allowed two degrees of negative camber front and rear. Ford even planned on a more hardcore suspension bushing kit featuring racing polyurethane bushings with steel inserts, urethane engine mounts, and a limited-slip differential.
Sadly, as The Drive points out, these extras were never produced. Thankfully, the aftermarket picked up the slack and offered up turbos, camshafts, headers, ECU tunes, and so much more for the Escort platform.
Apparently, these cars are pretty rare, too. Ford produced 110 of them in 1999 and another 2,000 examples in 2000, then the model was killed off. Basically, Ford toyed around with a tuner car just a couple of years before the style would really take off. This Escort was just a body kit, wheels, and underglow away from fitting right in with the modding craze of the 2000s. Aside from the MotorTrend test, which was just a few paragraphs, I couldn’t find any other professional reviews.
The good news is that you can find these for sale, but they might have high mileage or a bit run down. I found just one for sale for $3,500 and it’s not in the best shape. So, if you can find one of these in good shape, know that you’re not only getting a rare and forgotten car, but you’re probably also finding a gem!
Do you know of or own a car, bus, motorcycle, or something else worthy of being called a ‘holy grail’? Send me an email at mercedes@theautopian.com or drop it down in the comments!
(Top image: Seller via Smart Motor Guide)
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The ZX2 was a decent enough car. I’ve had a few Escorts, and they all got the job done (but weren’t amazing at it!). My sister looked at one as her first (self bought) car. Even had a poster of it on her wall! But, made the smart choice and got a V6/5 speed 2000 Cougar. Being Dad’s favorite, he insisted that she get studded snow tires for it! So she could safely get to work. That was an odd sight and sound! Low profile, front wheel drive studded tires.
I love that a Local Engineers plate cover is on it. I swear only construction workers and teenage girls drove these things.
What recourse would a (less than knowledgeable) customer have upon delivery? I’m sure you can look underneath and see the Tokico branding on the struts. Look under the hood and see that the intake is different. But, how could you tell if they installed the new bushings and clutch until it was too late? Any evidence of pushback from duped customers (lawsuit)? Probably not enough of them to realize they had a group claim against Ford?
Hindsight and all, was it possible to say “just leave it all in the trunk, I’ll take care of it”, or would that void the warranty?
I remember paging through the FRPP catalog (yeah, I had ’em hardcopy back then) at the time and seeing all the stuff. Was grouped in a special section even, so you can understand the model for which it was intended.
And I always wondered about that B&M shifter, as Ford was flogging it at the time as an upgrade across the lineup. Seemed kinda dangerous for a daily driver in the hands of your average guy (e.g. me).
Rare and Grail can be incongruent… this is one of the these times.
Absolutely. What a horrible car.
Your take on the effect TFATF had on the culture is kind of backwards. It wasn’t “a tuner in the style of The Fast And The Furious”. The Fast And The Furious was in the style of the tuner. We had been modding imports since the early to mid nineties, years before the movie. When the rumors started swirling, it was “Hey, they’re going to make a movie about tuned imports and stuff.” Cool. It was the movie that took it from the dedicated car guys and blew it up to the general public. Nothing wrong with that, but the movie didn’t start anything. That said, from memory, the ZX2 was a decent performance buy that punched above its weight (price). Probably the best performance you could buy for its price and it was down right cheap. So, respect to it. And I’d never even heard of the SR. Ford never really got in on the tuner scene much. Yeah the Cougar and this, but that’s about it.
Yeah, the article is a little odd that way. People have been tuning and “ricing” smaller cars since back when Vin Diesel still had a full head of hair.
Imho Ford was not in that scene at all until the Focus SVT and maybe the Contour SVT
The “Dealer Installed” performance game has a long history.
A little more difficult these days, due to rules and regs, especially in California.
For example, a dealer of early “grail like” cars:
https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/royal-pontiac/
Around the time of the S/R, Toyota was showing off more TRD parts and accessories, and one was an available supercharger for the V6. A blown 4Runner I think was on one of the auction sites somewhat recently. At the time the mags featured a TRD Solara so equipped; there was a Corolla too that I want to say had similar upgrades as the S/R ZX2, but I can’t find that story at the moment.
This is just wonderful and exactly what I’d hoped it would be – thank you for the excellent research Mercedes, I learned so much as always!
I’ll own my choice (don’t blame Rootwyrm!)…I get the view that this isn’t really a Holy Grail-worthy car. But for me, Grail-ship is partly contextual, and that’s what puts this car over the bar.
The very fact that Ford had killed all the other Escort models by this point but kept making the sport coupe verison but now as a standalone thing is so wonderfully odd.
And then for Ford to hot rod it up without telling anyone (I love how the only pics of it are the same handful of press stuff) is just the icing on the cake. Aside from the one I looked at in the showroom, I’ve never seen another (the wheels are a dead giveaway) on the road since.
And while we expect companies like Mazda or BMW to give us incredible stuff nearly all the time, the fact that this was from Ford, a company that goes hot and cold on good cars, makes it all the cooler.
Surely the strangeness of the whole affair is worth something in our consideration of its essential Autopian-ness?
In the wasteland that the sport tuner field was in the late 90s these were fine, I suppose. The SVT Focus (or Celica) would wax this, but that did come somewhat later and was more expensive. While I suspect these were a kind of limp wristed response to the Neon R/T and ACR basically having this entire market to themselves for the second half of the 90s, I can still see the argument for why you would want one of these instead since those were already starting to fall apart by 1999 and with these you were basically getting a Japanese car with a larger dealer network.
I think more pressing is that that EP Si that Honda came up with years after this collection of parts bin and aftermarket stuff Ford ran off as a test would struggle to fight this off.
I take pride in my knowledge of obscure FoMoCo products (and others), but gotta admit this one I forgot about. The S/R’s engine enhancements weren’t necessarily eye-popping, but bet those suspension upgrades made for a fun little thing to throw around.
I sort of think I track small sporty cars pretty well, but I don’t think I forgot this one, I don’t think I ever heard of it. Read the car mags pretty religiously back then, I don’t think this car made much of a splash when it came out.
Definitely didn’t make much of a splash. My memory is something like reading one line in C/D’s “Charting the Changes” annual issue, and/or reading that MT review, filing it away in my teenaged brain as “a souped-up ZX2, that’s kinda cool,” then forgetting about it a week later.
They did indeed. I had a little old lady neighbor that bought an sr for herself and a standard zx2 for her grandson. I got to drive both back to back and the sr was more fun but not as fun as the svt contour I got to drive a couple years later.
I’m with you on the first generation Escorts, I test drove a young used ’82 in baby blue 2-door (or should we say 3-door?) with blue vinyl and cloth interior. Smooth, quiet and spacious, it made ’76 Monza Town Coupe I was driving at the time seem extremely crude and cheap in comparison. I wasn’t out of college so it was a financial no-go then, but I think an Escort would be a wonderful affordable classic today.
I never sat in an EXP but I have a feeling the roomy spacious headroom might have gone away.
I was not a fan of the Mazda based cars that followed, they just didn’t seem… Fordy?
The ZX-2 was effectively a Japanese car since the 93-01 Escort, Tracer, and ZX-2 were based on the Mazda B platform and the performance models with the DOHC engine had a Mazda B engine and IIRC the transaxle was also a Mazda part. Ford got a good deal from their arrangement with Mazda.
It makes me sad to see such lackluster cars like this one being held up as a “grail”. Here’s a real grail for you – 1988-89 Mazda 323 GTX… a car built exclusively to homologate the model for Group A rally racing.
Why should one person’s preference in what car excites them personally make you sad? A lot of people find the narrow definition of only sports and racing cars being worth having sad.
Yeah, all Ford Escorts suck
Also, in a few days you’ll see a 323 (not GTX) in Shitbox Showdown that’s a ripoff!
(I happened to be reading old articles)
The 110 1999 S/Rs were almost all sold in Southern California. I was a Ford dealer tech in San Diego at the time who also did PDI (pre delivery inspection) on the weekends and I remember when these debuted the ads for them even mentioned it was exclusive to this area. Between my time as a tech and a PDI guy I drove at least 10 of these, which means I have personally driven about 10% of total production!
A friend’s sister had a 2000 ZX2 with some of the dealer-offered bits the S/R came with. It was a sporty car, but it lacked the excitement my friend’s Integra had when the VTEC kicked in. The ZX2 ended up getting totalled in a head-on accident with a fullsize pickup in 2002 and did shockingly well, allowing all the occupants to walk away.
I had a 1998 (non S/R) that I taught myself to drive stick on when I was a senior in high school. It wasn’t the fastest car but it sounded great with a cat back & handled amazing with a few bolt on suspension parts (i.e. a rear sway bar from a previous gen escort wagon (13mm -> 22mm if I’m not mistaken)).
I had one during a formative time in my life and I look back so fondly at that time… I wouldn’t be as big a gearhead today if it wasn’t for that car.
Thank you so much for writing this & taking me down memory lane!
The numbers are no longer eye popping, but 0-60 in 7.6 seconds was very impressive for a non-turbo compact car in 1999. It’s still pretty good today when you consider that this was an econobox with basic go-fast bits added on.
I had a ’99 Escort wagon briefly and I kind of loved it. Its two downfalls were the seats (absolute torture devices) and the SPI engine which was mostly “meh” but shook like crazy at idle and sounded agricultural.
In my dream world I would have dropped a Zetec in it, the 15″ wheels from a ZX2, and the seats from an MX-3 which I hear were direct bolt-in replacements.
Can confirm! I went from an ’83 Lynx GS to an ’89 Taurus SHO and was AMAZED at how refreshed I felt after long drives!
My wife had a 1994 Ford Escort wagon in a color I can only describe as almost pink. She paid very little for a low mileage one around the year 2000. While I couldn’t use the word sporty in any sense, it did exactly what it was supposed to do, didn’t ever break, and got shockingly good gas mileage. It was a damn decent car.
Too bad the SR hp boost didn’t make it to the Focus, and that they never sold the RS over here until the last one a few years ago.
meh. Lukewarm.
Performance wise, the Neon ACR would hand the ZX2 it’s ass.
The Focus SVT was a great car, and just overshadowed the ZX2 by a large margin. IMHO these were always ‘also ran’ cars that were never great at anything and owners either got them for a deal or are ford fanbois.
Can confirm. A friend’s sister had a ZX2 and another friend had a Neon ACR. The ACR was just so much more fun to throw around, though I will admit the ACR also sounded more “tin can” inside than the ZX2.
As the former owner of a 2000 Focus SE, I jonesed hard for a SVT Focus. Unfortunately, by the time I could afford one, they had all gone on to their second or third owner and were either beaten piles of crap or still too expensive for me to afford.
Haha fun era back then. Friend bought the S/R and I had a 98 Plymouth Neon DOHC 5speed. I did intake, axle back exhaust. We went to Great Lakes dragway in southeastern Wisconsin and I would run consistent 15.6 quarter miles. SR? 16.5s.. although it sounded more ‘tin can’ like, the neon was a really fun car… I still have it in my garage with 60,000 miles!
Did you go to N2k? N2k1? N2k2?
That’s funny I remember those but no I did not attend. I just go and run the car with my buddies… We would run whatever we had including crappy pick up trucks fun times!
I owned a 2000 ZX2! (not the S/R version), that I bought new. If I remember correctly it cost $12,000.00 !
Anyway, It was Silver with a grey mouse hair interior and it was an automatic. And while it was zippy to drive, I soon tired of it , it was too small, and traded it in for a new 2001 Ford Eddie Bauer Explorer.
(Which I soon tired of as well and traded it in for a new 2002 Volvo V70. And I have always had a Volvo in my fleet ever since))
(◔ૂ◔) Man… I sure have pissed a lot of money away on cars over the years…..
((sigh)) (´c_`)
ZX2’s were not too bad! They had the Zetec motors so they didn’t suffer from the random (unavoidable) valve seat drop of the other Escort/Focus motor.
I do remember that the ZX2’s (and last year Contours, and Focus SVTs) had some higher mileage issues with their VVT system. Couldn’t tell if it was related to oil change intervals, oil quality, or both… but I remember they start driving REAL bad when there is a problem and the parts (even back in the early 2000s) weren’t cheap to replace. There’s probably much cheaper/easier fixes for it nowadays though…
*immature snicker*
That’s the only good kind even though (Ford) Escorts suck too!
I really liked my (vanilla) ’03 ZX2. I think Ford started selling them as ZX2’s from 2001-2003, but before that they were sold as Escort ZX2s, and you could rearrange the letters in the badging to spell ‘SCROTE’
This is your regular reminder to clean you damn interior before posting a for sale ad.
Maybe we can get AI to filter car ads to remove anything where people don’t throw away their junk, and also filter out “manual transmission” from ads for cars with “manumatic” shifting.
Holy Grail? This is Jesus’ spittoon.
Not sure if that’s intended to be laudatory or as a pejorative, but either way I must commend you on your imagery.