These days you wouldn’t get away with marketing an estate car with just two passenger doors but back in the ’70s it was common practice: the BMC 1100, Allegro, Alfasud and even the Range Rover were all offered in three-door form.
Ford was also a fan of the three-door estate and indeed offered the option on the first four generations of the Escort, only discontinuing it when the MkV arrived in 1991. The Mk3 was offered in both three and five-door format, the three-door known more popularly as the Kombi in Europe.
Today, MkI and MkII Escorts are highly prized both by the concours buffs and the classic motorsport and retro modifying scene, meaning that values have rocketed. Our sister title Classics Monthly recently featured the restoration of a plain white automatic two-door MkII which might sound unappealing but is in fact a highly prized model on account of its larger than standard transmission tunnel. Indeed, said owner had used it as the basis of a really neat Twin Cam replica.
You might think the humble estate might have escaped the Escort price inflation but as you’ll see below, that’s not the case. Their rarity alone makes them a rare car these days, since most were ground into dust on family duties and a standard one is an unusual sight.
