In 1982, Ford tested the market for two-passenger sport compacts with the EXP, and it didn’t get the results it expected.
There’s an unwritten law in the Motor City that two-passenger cars have a limited market. They’re boutique products, essentially, with a low ceiling on their potential sales volume. Most Americans want a rear seat, the thinking goes, even if it’s cramped and tiny, even if they seldom if ever use it. That was the sales secret of the 1964 Mustang, it was said: It was a sports car but with a rear seat, unusable as it was. Ford set out to defy the conventional wisdom (and its own experience) with the 1982 Ford EXP, a two-seat coupe with a sport-compact flavor.
Ford’s market studies at the time showed that more Americans really were shifting to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Meanwhile, the number of single and two-people households was growing, and these younger buyers were voicing a preference for non-boring vehicles with personaliy and flair—say, a sassy two-seat coupe, for example. Ford was so confident of these findings, in fact, that it included them in the original EXP sales brochure, complete with charts and graphs.
After a short run of pilot cars in 1980-81, Ford formally launched the EXP as a 1982 model. Sharing its platform with the Escort sedan, Ford’s first World Car introduced the year before, it rode on the same 94.2-inch wheelbase. Actually, the EXP shared pretty much everything with the Escort, including its front-drive powertrain and suspension. In essence, the EXP was an Escort repackaged to sacrifice seating capacity and utility value in favor of styling and sporty-car glamour.
In its original form, though, the EXP was slightly slower than the Escort, as it was 100 lbs or more heavier, further taxing the 1.6-liter, 70 hp engine. And with all its standard equipment, including power disc brakes, an upgraded interior with full carpeting, digital clock, and other goodies, it was considerably more expensive, too. The EXP’s list price at introduction was $7,387, nearly $2,000 more than the base Escort hatchback at $5,462.
For ’82, there was also a Mercury version of the EXP rebadged as the LN7, with a few upgrades to bump up the price a few hundred dollars, but it was dropped after ’83. In 1984 came an EXP Turbo Coupe with 120 hp and a price tag of nearly $10,000. A 1986 refresh replaced the EXP’s original frog-eyed front fascia with a standard Escort nose, while the name was changed to Escort EXP. In that general form the two-seater remained in production through 1988, when it was discontinued.
Did the EXP debunk the conventional wisdom about the marketability of two-seaters in the U.S. market? Well, no. Dearborn hoped to sell 200,000 EXPs and LN7s in 1982, but the total came to 133,000, and then plummeted from there once the initial demand dried up. The ’80s market had somehow become saturated with two-seaters—Honda CRX, Pontiac Fiero, Toyota MR2—and EXP sales limped along at the 25,000 per-year level from ’83 on. In contrast, the plain-Jane Escorts generated volume of 300,000-plus per year. The EXP’s slot in the Ford lineup was filled by the Mazda-based Probe, a front-drive sport compact with a modest rear seat.
1988 Ford Escort EXP
I worked with a guy who had one for a short period of time and said it was too small.
He said “You don’t get in it…you put it on..”
“…Mustang, it was said: It was a sports car but with a rear seat, unusable as it was.”
My wife and I proved it was usable at a drive-in movie. Of course I was 60 years younger and 100 lbs lighter but still. ;o)
If it doesn’t have an engine, and it won’t handle, it doesn’t matter what it looks like. Witness the Fiero.
When these first came out, a number of Ford’s PR people claimed (with a straight face) that the hooded, frog-eyed headlamps paid homage to the styling of the original Thunderbird. Um, okay. I don’t see *any* T-Bird DNA in there; to me it looks more like, “We wanted to do retractable headlamps, but the bean counters nixed them.”
And what really made the EXP a joke was that it was supposed to be sporty, yet weighed *more* than a comparably-equipped Escort! With the CRX, Honda shortened the wheelbase and reduced the rear overhang to make it lighter than the Civic it was based upon, while Ford instead stuck to the same wheelbase and overall length for the EXP.
There is, however, one EXP that piqued my interest. In an episode of “Trapper John, MD,” the mother of a young patient drove a convertible version of either the EXP or its Mercury counterpart. I’m not sure who did the conversion, but can only imagine what the added weight of reinforcing the structure did to the EXP’s already flaccid performance.
The EXP and LN7 were introduced as very early 1982 models in 1Q81. We bought an EXP, thinking it might hold it value a little longer… similar to the value retention of the early 1980 (1Q79) GM X-cars. Well, the early X-cars held their value because they were both package and fuel efficient. EXP was neither. It was slow, slower, slowest. But, it was reliable.
Initial plans included a rear seat (um, penalty box), but no one could be seated in the rear while closing hatch.
If memory serves, in theory one could actually bolt in a rear seat from an Escort/Lynx, as the EXP/LN7’s floorpan was the same, and the mounts for the seat and seatbelts were there.
But like you stated, the rear backlight occupied the space where the rear seat passengers’ heads would normally be!
Monogram did a 1/32 scale model kit of the EXP that included the planned back seat. It’s surprising Ford didn’t return it when they went to the bubbleback hatch that might’ve offered marginally more headroom.
Later on GM/Isuzu sold the Geo Storm which in its’ standard form did have a bubbleback and a back seat with effectively no headroom.
Test drove one, I had seen the advertising and expected a sports car, instead it reminded me of the original Mustang ll, slow, poor handling and over priced.
Nothing like paying more and getting less!
And as a bonus the insurance likely cost more because being a 2-seater it was a “sports car” while the standard Escort wouldn’t attract such a premium.
Yeah, but you can’t help but love Bob Glidden’s little rocket ship.