ESCORT XR3 & XR3i

Scourge of the seafronts, legend of the traffic light grand prix, the XR3 was a true 1980s everyman hero. Resplendent with its cloverleaf alloys and jazzy stripy seats, with boisterous bolt-on spoilers and the obligatory spotlights, it was everything a Ford fan wanted at the time, pre-modified by Ford and ready to rock.

Since the Mk3 platform was so radically different from the rear-drive Escorts that came before it, Ford played a blinder by deciding to launch the sporting variant at the same time as the everyday models. The XR3 shared the lesser three-door’s bodyshell, and added ventilated front discs behind those characterful cloverleaf wheels, along with the in-your-face spoiler and body addenda. The 1597cc CVH had a twin-choke Weber carb and produced a handy 96bhp, enabling it to tear to 60mph in a smidge over nine seconds. In the early days of the hot hatch era this was heady stuff, and the buying public lapped it up – over 11,000 XR3s were sold in 1981 alone, and the following year Ford improved it further by adding a five-speed all-synchro gearbox. And then, in 1983, Ford’s Special Vehicle Engineering (SVE) department decided to have a crack at it – the result was the XR3i, the extra letter denoting the new addition of Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection. This enabled a hike to 105bhp, the 0-60mph time dropping to 8.8 seconds, and the suspension was revised and lowered by SVE along with gear ratios being altered. Now the hot Mk3 was a genuine 120mph car, and the motoring world had a new buzzword for coolness: even today, the XR3i name is a symbol for down-to-earth boy racer mischief. And they’re pretty rare beasts these days too – owning one of these in 2019 marks you out as a proper fast Ford fan with roots firmly in the old-school.