Almost everyone who’s gotten behind the wheel of a car or truck has a story about their first vehicle. Maybe it’s a love story. Maybe it’s an action-packed romp of daring automotive abuse. Maybe it’s a heart-wrenching drama that ends in tears. And maybe, as was the case with my first car, it’s a dark comedy.
Buy American
My first was a gray 1982 Ford EXP, a hand-me-down from my father. In the 80s my dad was a hardcore believer in the “buy American” ethos that was prevalent among US car buyers in those days. When the time came for him to replace the Chevy Chevette that he’d been using for his modest commute to work, his choice was the ill-conceived Ford that we’ll be examining today.
Around the time that I got my driver’s license, dad decided to upgrade(?) to an L-Body Plymouth Turismo and forced the EXP’s keys into my hands, completely ignoring my pleas for the used VW Quantum wagon I’d found for sale at a reasonable price. To this day I am left to ponder the mysteries of my father. The man was blindingly intelligent, held a PhD, and yet was powerless when faced with the machinations of both used car salesmen and questionable mechanics. Somewhere between these two malevolent forces he’d been convinced that the Ford EXP was a pinnacle of engineering excellence and worthy of being eternally preserved. That he was delusional on this point would become painfully clear, much to my dismay, during my turbulent three year affair with the questionable Ford.
Looks Like a Mustang, Goes Like a Slug
The EXP put on sporty pretenses; it was a two seater with low slung bucket seats and primo, angular 80s styling. In reality it was a mangled Ford Escort with the rear seats torn out and a gutless lump of a 1.6L four cylinder engine mated to a 4-speed manual transmission that one had to abuse in order to get anything resembling performance. Instead of being a true 2-seater, the place where the back seats would have lived was a shelf that extended into the trunk area. People could still sit there provided they didn’t mind intense discomfort and a lack of safety equipment. In my misspent teen years, many of my less fortunate friends found themselves inhabiting that miserable space, sans seatbelts, seatbacks, or cushions. Calling shotgun had definite, tangible value when riding with me.
Despite my preference for the practicality that the Quantum would have offered, I was initially excited to have the little Ford. It looked kind of cool for its day, like a Fox-body Mustang with a grafted front end from Mad Max’s Falcon XB interceptor. The manual transmission gave some illusion of sporting airs as I pushed the tachometer to the redline and thrashed the thing around the streets and backroads of my small town in Central NY. My passengers were somewhat less thrilled with my driving style, particularly those who wound up riding in the cargo area. It had a sunroof, a tape deck for my constant diet of Black Flag, Skinny Puppy, and Ministry cassettes, and the cap covering the hub of the steering wheel could be popped off to reveal a hidden storage space for, uh, valuables. What more could a 17 year old ask for?
The Troubles Begin
Problems first appeared during the winter of 1989 when I was working as a pizza delivery driver. And by “appeared” I mean “crashed into view like an anthropomorphic juice pitcher screaming ‘OH YEAH!’” I’d noticed the car was beginning to get louder due to some growing holes in the exhaust, which I’d patched with old Folger’s coffee cans and hose clamps. These bodges worked for a while but inevitably failed as the rot progressed forward to the catalytic converter and onwards towards the engine. As the exhaust began to fail entirely, so too did the thermostat, leaving me without heat. Finally, the rot that afflicted the exhaust had also eaten through the footwells on both the driver’s and passenger’s side.
The combined effect of this was a car that had become a crucible of suffering. I had to drive during a typically harsh Central NY winter with the windows down due to the exhaust fumes entering the cabin through the holes in the floor, but there was no heat to compensate for the open windows because of the stuck thermostat. I have vivid memories of driving a pizza to some house out in the country and speeding through a puddle of slush, which then splashed up through the holes in the floor and straight into my face. I pleaded with my father to write the EXP off as a lost cause; clearly it wasn’t worth repairing in its wretched state and hey, that VW was still available. Dad was unmoved, insisting that the EXP was a “good car” and deserved mending, and so it went into the shop. New buckets were welded into the floor, it received a new thermostat and new exhaust from header to tailpipe, and back on the road it went.
Escalation
Some time later the brakes went, forcing a series of harrowing emergency maneuvers involving the shoulder of an on ramp, the emergency brake, and much cursing and hyperventilation. Then came the incident that arguably should have killed it off. It happened the following winter (why was it always winter?) when I was driving home from a typical misadventure in the hills surrounding Ithaca, NY. The road home was entirely rural and avoided population centers. Somewhere, maybe 15 miles from my parents’ house, I noticed the oil pressure gauge began to drop, eventually flatlining. In my youthful ignorance I failed to appreciate the significance of this until, moments later, the power fell off precipitously and the car sputtered to a halt at the side of the road; its anemic little engine having been transformed into a useless, cast iron brick. In a stroke of what initially seemed like good fortune I’d come to rest across the road from a farmhouse, where I knocked on the door and explained to the pair of eyes peering through the blinds that my car had broken down. I immediately heard the “click” of a deadbolt after which the porch lights went out; the universal symbol in rural America for “get the [bleep] off my porch before I get the 30-06.” Thus, I began trudging down the road as snow began to fall, my Converse Chuck Taylors soaking through before I found another house where the occupants gratefully allowed me to use their phone to call for help.
Surely my father would now see reason. The car was dead, toast, destined for the crusher, right? Dad again disagreed, “It’s a good car, we’ll fix it,” and back into the shop it went for an engine rebuild and new oil pump. Both times the EXP had gone in for major repairs I’d been loaned other cars to get to my job. The first was a 1979 Toyota Celica belonging to my brother, the second was an ’82 Celica that belonged to his wife. Driving these was an eye-opening experience for me as both ran flawlessly, were fun to drive with slick transmissions, responsive engines, and actual handling characteristics. It really hammered the point home that the EXP was a sad joke when compared to comparable offerings on the import market.
The Final Nail
The EXP eventually returned and continued to soldier on in decrepitude. During my senior year of high school I left home and drove it through a blizzard for an extended stay with a friend at her university to further my education on binge drinking. Remarkably, the car handled the trip without issue. In fact, the little EXP survived without any major catastrophes until the following summer, when I noticed that the right rear wheel had developed significantly more camber than the left rear. Further inspection revealed that the strut tower had rotted through and the strut was pushing skyward, rather rudely intruding into the cargo area. At long last, with even my father’s mechanic stating that a repair would be a waste of the money my dad was so eager to give him, dad finally admitted that the car was a goner. I found an electric-blue, first generation Toyota MR2 that was within our price range and my father immediately shot this down, much to my disappointment. He eventually consented to a silver 1988 Nissan Sentra, which would become a trusted companion over the next several years as I furthered my college career. The EXP, one of Ford’s endless missed opportunities, was shuffled off to the great pick and pull in the sky. Dad eventually shrugged off his “buy American” mindset after witnessing the relative durability of my little Nissan and for many years after would become a loyal Nissan customer. In time we concluded that “EXP” had been an abbreviation for “EXPENSIVE”, or quite possibly “EXPLETIVE”, considering the number of f-bombs it had inspired. Despite its distinct lack of durability, it lives on forever in memory.
The Beaters That Made Us is an ongoing series exploring the vehicles that forged our staff’s love of cars, their dedication to automotive journalism, and, maybe, contributed to their drinking habits.
