This is the one that started it all!
In 2010, my brother brought this little guy home from a hobby shop out in BC. I didn’t build car kits at the time, but he knew I had a thing for “loser machines”, and thought I might enjoy giving this one a whirl. He was right. Now I have about 25 cars in my stash!
Way to go, Lee… 🙂
It seems as though the EXP came about when someone at Ford asked: “How can we make an Escort uglier, slower and bigger, not to mention less practical?”
The answer, the EXP/LN7, was all that and more (or less, depending…)!
This little kit is from 1982, and there are actually at least three flavours of it. This is the first, a stock EXP. The second is an EXP done up like the race car that was campaigned in the early ’80s. (I have it, too, but unbuilt.) The third (which I MUST get, but haven’t yet) is the Mercury version of this car, the LN7.
The kit is simple, but has a full interior (including rear seats, which the EXP didn’t have, being a two-seater). and engine. It is small, but its four-dot wheels and awkward styling pack a massive retro punch. The fit was very good, and the detail, especially on the dashboard, was excellent.
The EXP below was painted using Future mixed with Jaquard pigments, over bright red primer. It is not a stock colour, but I wasn’t as worried about accuracy on my cars then as I am now. It was a fun, fast project, and it’s certainly different!
Enjoy!
The box; it is very excited about the future of motoring, as heralded by the EXP. So sad…
The interior, straight from the “world car” Escort. Driving excitement starts here. Kinda…
Hood up: normally this meant a breakdown on a real EXP.
From the front: Weird bug-eye headlamps were replaced later in the 1980’s with flush-mounted units. So long toad!
From the rear: the awkward styling continued even at the tail end!
Really? These wheels were trying to play on those of the Porsche 928. Fail.
The Sprue Lagoon 