Hey. I came from a household that at least 80% of our cars were Fords for most of the time, and many of them were Escorts, and I guess I'm the only one here with this kind of "history", so I would like to ask you guys which Escort you had that you liked most, and share some history about it.

My dad had a black '85 MK3 XR3, replaced by a black '88 MK4 XR3 Cabrio, and then a '93 MK5 XR3, the first brand-new car we had.

The dates, generations and versions might look strange for you guys, as the things were a little different, not to say bizarre, here in Brazil.

The three XR3 looked like exactly the same as the European equivalents, but both the MK3 and MK4 had a 1.6 Renault Cléon-Fonte engine, as Ford of Brazil had bought the local operations of Willys-Overland, which in turn was developing a version of the Renault 12 (later sold by Ford as the Corcel) with this engine, and as Ford of Brazil didn't had any small engine of their own at the time, they basically used the Cléon-Fonte in almost all their passenger vehicles.

The MK5 didn't had a Ford engine either, the lower trims kept using the 1.6 Cleon-Fonte while others used the 1.8 and 2.0 VW/Audi EA827 coupled to the MQ transmission from the Golf, as the local operations of Ford and VW had a joint-venture called Autolatina at the time.

I was 7yo when my father told he was replacing the Cabrio by a new XR3 that wasn't Cabrio, but was brand-new, better-looking, better interior, faster, et al, but I wasn't convinced nor happy, as I really loved that Cabrio, and in fact I started to hate the MK5 even before it came home. But the first time I saw that car in our garage, I was really amazed by how beautiful that car was, the interior had velour Recaro seats, sunroof and a cassette player with a fancy equalizer, by that time and the reality of the Brazilian car market, that car was really in another league, and the "ESCORT 2.0i XR3" badge on the trunk lid had a lot of "street cred", lol.

I must confess, the car was kinda a *****. Even brand new, it had that noisy front suspension common to these Escorts, and a point of rust appeared below the rubber of the back windows 6 months after, repaired by Ford shortly after. We had that car for three more years, but I still remember the exhaust sound and even the smell of that car.

Unfortunately I don't have any picture of these cars, but this one I found on Google was almost identical, but showing the expected wear and tear. The colour was named "Barcelona Red"

And you guys, which one is your favorite?

Back in 1994, my uncle had a mk2 escort 1.6. Very rough around the edges, but back then it didnt seem to matter. I passed my test in 1995 and in 97 bought a 1991  MK5 Escort 1.6 lx. White over grey with boot spoiler. Kept it standard but loved that car. Bought a diesel Vauxhall after that, but missed my 'scort so bough a 92 Orion off my parents. It was a 1.4 but i put nice wheels etc on it and loved it too. Family grew and grew and for the last 15 years ive had Transit mini bus, Toyota Lucida Emina, and now a Zafira Diesel. So when this mk6 came up, the wife and i knew we had to get it. Still got the Zafira for family trips, the Escort for fun and when just a few of us need to get anywhere, and a Suzuki 125cc 1987 to ride to work on!