My non-Ferrari cars(mostly 80s Fords)

Thanks. Was your LX a hatch or notch? By the way, I love your avatar and I wish I lived in your state.

Thanks for looking and responding. Both Probes are 1989s, the first year for the Probe GT. At the time, they were cutting edge technology.

Thanks. They are a lot of fun for the money.

 

I live in northeast Ohio, which is a complete sea of blue, and I am drowning in it!LOL

It is a great car to drive and is highly underrated. Ford's answer to the 3 series BMWs of the day. 200HP, Hurst shifter, adjustable Koni shocks, just a great car to drive. It struggles to find a large following because it is not a V8 ( for the American car fans ) and it is domestic ( not popular with the foreign car guys ). So it is kind of stuck in limbo in between both. But that makes it a great buy for the money.

While the XR4Ti is a cool car, I never owned one back in the day, so I don't have that emotional bond to those cars. But, who knows, if a nice example of one shows up, and I have the room, I will probably weaken and buy it.

The thing about Escorts that most people don't know is that they were awesome in the snow. Mine went anywhere in it. In college, ( I went to Grove City College, about 60 miles north of Pittsburgh ) I had tickets to a Rush concert in Pittsburgh. It snowed a foot the day before and the day of the concert. Like an idiot, I still decided to go. There were accident everywhere. That little car went up and down icy hills and never gave me a problem. The only things on the road were 4X4s, and me in my Escort. I made it there and back with no problem. I have owned WRXs and Audi Quattros, and they were great on the bad roads, but the Escort was better. Amazing little car.

 

WOW! Someone got a great buy! That's the thing about these Fox body Mustangs, their prices are all over the place.

 

Thank you very much.

See. You learned a valuable lesson. You can NEVER kill the blue oval!LOL

As to how I found the cars, well the M3, SVO, and the Bullitt Mustang I bought new.

As for the Escorts, I actually own a third one (white), and it is currently being restored (can you say upside-down?). All are GT Turbos. A few years ago, I decided I wanted one like the one I had (black). So I googled Escort GT Turbo and I found the website Ford Escort Owners Association (FEOA) (Ford Escort owners assoc). I posted a wanted ad and a nice guy called me and said his friend had a white one in need of restoration. I bought it and was planning on changing it from the original white and paint it black. About a year later I googled it again looking for parts and an ad for the gray one popped up. Long story short, I bought it too. It needed some mechanical work and it had a dent in the right front fender. So I fixed those problems. Then about a year after that, I was on the feoa site, and I saw this guy's post and low and behold, his avatar was a picture of the left trunk lid sticker that says Escort GT Turbo, and the paint was BLACK. Bingo! An exact, data plate correct, copy of what I had. So I pm'd the guy and he said it was not for sale. I kept bugging him and he finally relented and sold me the car. I immediately decided to paint the white one white and keep it data plate correct.

The EXP is basically the same story. My first car was an EXP without air, black. I got on expln7.com and saw a post with a pic of an 84 EXP Turbo, black, without air. Same thing, I pm'd him, he said it was not for sale. I kept bugging him until he gave in also. It's amazing what people will do to not have to talk to me anymore.LOL So I had the black repainted but the interior still needs redone.

I saw the 85 Mustang GT (1800 miles) on cars online.com. After I bought it, he told me of another guy who had an 82 Mustang GT (2700 miles). I contacted him and I not only bought that off of him, but also the 2006 Hertz Mustang, the 88 all red/red interior Mustang GT, and the 7-UP Mustang.

All the other ones I found on Craigslist or sites like carsonline.com. Probably the strangest place I found one of my cars was where I found my 308. I found it on lemon free.com. I was bored and I got on that site. I very rarely check that site, but I had no where else to go, so I started typing in Mustangs, Escorts, Probes. I thought, just for giggles, I would type in 308 Ferrari, just to see what reject message I would get. I punch it in and low and behold, my car pops up. I almost fell over. Some broker had the car, and I don't think he knew how to market the car. I called and eventually bought the car. I still can't believe I found it there.

Another interesting story is how I got the police car home. This was before the internet. My Dad is a car collector, and he used to get Autotraders from all over the country. One was from Florida. I was looking through it and I saw an ad for the FHP car. I thought it was so cool. So I called on it, my Dad and I flew down, saw the car and bought it. We flew back home. I tried to set up transport to get it back to Ohio. The earliest I could get a truck down there was three weeks. No big deal, or so I thought. Thursday, I called the seller and told him three weeks. He said no way. His wife ran off with her boyfriend to Europe and he was leaving Sunday to chase her down. I had to have the car out of there by Saturday. So I called a friend of my Dad's who was an Ohio State Trooper and asked if he would fly down and help me drive it back. He said sure. I took the license plate off my Dad's 69 Mach 1 so I had something to put on the car. We flew in to Melbourne, FL airport at 10pm Saturday night and left his house with the car at midnight Saturday night/ Sunday morning. Remember, it still had the two tone tan/black paint trooper paint job, which is illegal to drive with in Florida, with fictitious plates. We started driving up I95 North going strictly the speed limit.(55 MPH at the time) People would fly up behind us, slam on the brakes, and after they got up enough courage, they slowly passed us. Fortunately, we did not see any Florida troopers. As soon as we hit the Georgia state line, I hammered it. Literally, two miles into Georgia, my radar detector goes berserk. I was doing about 80mph. He was hidden in a group of trees in a turnaround. Uh oh! So I pull over. Remember, all I had for the car was the title. No registration, and fictitious Ohio plates. The trooper came up to the driver's side window and in a complete southern drawl, he said "I thought you boys were the pooooleeese (police). We started explaining our situation, and he wasn't even interested. All he kept saying is "This is nice, what a nice car." Then he asked, "Can I see under the hood?" Sure, I said. He looked and said again, "This is nice. Good luck with it and have a safe trip home." He never asked for my registration, never ran my plates, never asked for my license, and he didn't even tell me to slow down! Whew! We flew the rest of the way home. The West Virginia turnpike was a blast with all the curves and little traffic. We left Melbourne FL at midnight, and we pulled into my Dad's driveway in Ohio at 1pm, thirteen hours later. What a strange chain of events, but it created a fun adventure for me. A lot better story than the truck picked it up and delivered it.LOL I hope the statute of limitations have run on the things I did.LOL

Sorry this post is so long, but it is a fun story.

 

Thanks. Your g/f's car sounds nice. Post some pics when it gets done. I would love to see it.

Thank you. I did know the SVO had the same motor. It is a strong running motor.

If I ever decide to sell the M3, I'll let you know. However, it would be the last car of the collection I would sell. The M3 and the black Escort GT Turbo are my two favorites.