FORD ESCORT XR3

This eighties icon was first registered in November 1981 and is a very early example of an XR3. The car arrived at our workshops as a bare body shell and a collection of parts. A real passion project for the cars owner, our brief was to turn it into the best XR3 in the world.

Once the body was assessed, work began on removing all of the oxidised material and replacing either with new panels (where available) or fabricating replacement pieces. Possibly the biggest challenge was the badly corroded sunroof area, no longer available, we had to create the tooling to make a new sunroof roof skin and source new parts to make it all fit and work. Special note here: “not all Escort sunroofs are the same!”

The process of acquiring all of the missing parts was a herculean task – many had to be sourced part by part from the used market and some even had to be manufactured in house as they just are not available anymore. Correct OE spec electrical connectors are a particular problem but we can make them here. Every nut, bolt and washer was accounted for, and either replaced, or cleaned and sent for plating in the correct finish.

The original CVH engine was rebuilt, as was the matching 4 speed gearbox for which driveshafts are now quite hard to come by. Early thoughts had been to convert it to run on twin carbs, but for the sake of originality the factory twin choke set up was retained.

Once the body returned from paint, the build could commence. Sound deadening, wiring, new hard lines, restored crossmember and suspension components, drivetrain installed etc. Now it starts to look like a car again. Another stumbling block was the lack of availability of an original Ford exhaust system, so in order to avoid an ill-fitting aftermarket system, a new item (copied from an OE Ford one) was fabricated in stainless.

Dash, door card etc were repaired and reconditioned to as new. Seats rebuilt and upholstered in “new old stock” fabric to give the cabin a showroom fresh appearance. The engine bay was finished with new recreated stickers matching what would have been there as it rolled out of the showroom, also the supplying dealer sticker and number plates were replicated to continue the illusion of new.

When the car was finally finished, we sourced a few period adornments for the cabin as may have been found in the car of any self respecting boy racer circa 1981! Can you spot them in the photos?