Despite not being a great era for performance, the ’80s saw an uptick in manufacturers pumping out coupes with sporting intentions in mass quantities. Chrysler was turbocharging everything that moved, Pontiac started making the Fiero a competent performer right before they killed it, and Ford was slapping 5.0 badges on Mustangs like their house was burning down. But they also began their dalliance with cheap, economy-minded performance in the Ford EXP, starting with the super-weird (and rare) early ’80s version before morphing the yawn-inducing Escort into a great looking coupe with OK performance. This 1988 example here on eBay benefits from a recent repaint and an owner who believes in using OEM parts for replacement purposes – Motorcraft all the way. Plus, the factory body kit and sport seats look to be in great shape; now, it just needs the correct Marchal fog lights to be perfect.
Mustang wheels look great on this EXP. Not much of a performer, but pretty good looking in a very 80’s kind of way. Particularly unusual to see a lower-mileage manual transmission model. Impressive. Wouldn’t be surprised to see this go for close to the $4K BIN.
A buddy had a Mercury LN7 (an ’85 I think) circa 1990. He claimed it ‘handled like it was on rails’. I suppose it was OK based on standards of the day, but it was a gutless wonder otherwise. Couldn’t get out of it’s own way. I would imagine this one, with the added weight of all that body cladding is even slower. I don’t remember one this cladded up, though. Really resembles a 5.0 GT.
Looks damn good for 760,000 miles!