diesel escort?

[COPPERHEAD85]

just saw a ford escort diesel....i thought the guy was B-s ing me till i looked at it..........totally factory..............50 mpg

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

a n/a 2.0 made by mazda. produces a wopping 52HP. and yes, they get great mileage.

 

[Original_Ranger84]

There is one that was flipped over and trashed at one of my mud holes, some juniors had a party, got drunk, and flipped over one of the kids cars, that kid now drives a ranger.

 

[COPPERHEAD85]

just thought it was kinda odd.

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

not really....a lot of small cars got little 4 cylinder diesels in the 70's and 80's. fuel economy was in high demand then, diesel was cheaper than gas, and all the diesels got way better mileage than their gas brothers and sisters.

not till the 90's, when the US slammed the poor little diesels with all kinds of emissions requirements (an engine that only puts out 50-some horsepower can only sacrifice so much to emissions), and the price of diesel started to climb, did the diesels start to disappear.

there have been diesel tempos, escorts, and rangers of coarse...but there have also been diesel VW rabbits, buick centuries, chevy celebrities, the old dodge ram 50's, pontiac grand prix...the list goes on and on.

 

[COPPERHEAD85]

x-inlaw had one of the rabbits,seen quit a few of them..........didnt know about the rest......thanks for the history lesson sludge.........

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

its what i do

 

[therieldeal]

hey and they are still made... vw sells TDI's now (turbo direct injected) and they still get 50mpg but can actually get out of their own way (and last forever)! my parents own several. one is a 2000 jetta with 230k, one is a 96 passat with 315k, the other is a 98 bug with 120k.

but yeah, the escort diesels are pretty cool. a buddy of mine used to own a small "fleet" of them back in the early 90's. he turbocharged them himself to give them some more nut... they ran great and lasted forever even with boost.

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

ya, VW is still on the ball. a small, 4 cylinder diesel is the only economical diesel to run these days. i get a laugh out of guys that have to drive around big, honkin' diesel pickups because "they get better economy than a gas engine" (read that: my penis is far too small for my liking). while that may be true in some cases (not all, by far), they still get crap mileage and with the price of diesel being as high as it is, they arent saving any money over a gas engine.

ive heard of those older rabbits breaking 60MPG highway. on top of that, they can run veggie oil which most people can obtain for free. if i could get my hands on an old VW rabbit pickup (yes, they made a FWD pickup based on the rabbit) with the diesel engine i would promptly set it up to self-heat and filter the veggie oil and have huge veggie oil storage tanks under the chassis and perhaps in the bed.