Sierra Pick-up body and Chassis on Retro Rides

[Andy Smith]

As the title - There is a Pick-Up body and chassis for sale on RR

Andrew

[Adrian Southgate]

Cheers Andy.

[Adrian Southgate]

Sadness, raped for escort parts and probably the ID too.

Guys, here's a link but if your going to post on there be nice, I'm in contact and don't want to screw it up.

LINK

[Adrian Southgate]

Sadly these little toys of ours are now worth more for the parts than the complete vehicle, That's the reason my Phaeton will be a non ford when its rebuilt. I'd love to save them all but it's impractical, no space, no money to spare and no time to go fetch them.

Drophead Sierra's are rareish but no more than any other Dutton these days. Less fun than a sports with all the drawbacks of a ragtop, and ugly too... I'd still have one for the summer.

[Big Vern]

Ade,

"raped for escort parts"  were mk1 escorts not raped to build kit cars?

Why do people get so upset? Sierra's have no intrinsic value as Sierra's - if you've tried to sell one then you know this already. A restored MK1 Escort is now worth upward of £6000 a Dutton Sierra maybe £300.

I agree its a shame relatively good ones are chopped up when the body/chassis could be re-used on an SJ410 chassis for example.

That said former mem sec Mark Young broke at least 4 Sierra's that weren't all bad (have seen worse one's on the club stand) the body/chassis units all cut up and scrapped :-\

[1midz0wwbl268]

Vern, the difference was that most of the escorts broken up were most likily never going to pass an mot again, where as most of the Duttons getting chopped are getting  chopped because they happen to have very desirable and sellable ford  parts, purely on the grounds of making money from the parts  not out of any interest in the car .  if you buy a dutton for say 300, sell the parts for say 600, scrap the remains,  what you have done is to purely for profit to destroy a car that could have been restored . thats my take on it, i dare say some will disagree  

[Big Vern]

"most of the escorts broken up were most likily never going to pass an mot again"

Actually urban myth Martin. Then as now they were broken up because they were CHEAP to buy.

As a 20yr old kit car is generally worth little, they get broken up to restore the donors which are now worth strong money. Been that way for the last couple of decades.

Plenty of perfectly good MX-5's are being broken up now for kit cars, many of which don't seem to be getting completed, just because the donors are cheap. Some of the mx-5's I've seem get broken have nothing wrong with them, they even have MOT's why, as you said  "destroy a car that could have been restored"

[James Doulton]

Good point, Vern, but maybe not a popular point of view amongst Duttoneers!

As for the destruction of old Escorts or salvageable MX-5's that are stripped to power kit cars, then isn't that a case of taking an undervalued and pretty mundane car and turning it into something spectacular?

In the days when Escorts were being converted into Phaetons then they were taking a 0-60 in 15 sec Escort (i.e. 1300GT) and converting it into a 10 second car which would embarrass a 2 litre Capri. Similarly with the MX-5, which is a nice modern car, but put the engine into a Phaeton and you can go hunting Audi TT 3.2's - the sort of cars that normally eat MX-5's.

As for turning Dutton's back into Escorts, that is just barmy. If you want a nostalgic Escort then that's fine but put a Zetec in it for goodness sake. Otherwise you will have a nice looking old, slow car. Put a Zetec in and you have a sports car, about the same as an MX-5!

[Big Vern]

Straight original mk1 escorts that haven't been turned into rally cars or Mexico clones are now really rare and fetch five figure sums! Why wouldn't you strip a dutton to rebuild an escort?
T'was originally in response to Martin B who thought breaking a dutton was wrong (to my mind no more wrong than breaking the donor to build it! ) just playing devils advocate :-)
Ps if you think mx5's are boring then you need to come out in mine :-0

[1midz0wwbl268]

Vern, what i think is wrong, is when breakers buy a dutton, that is restorable only with the view of removing the escort parts and in many cases the vin, not to restore an escort, but to provide a sorce of parts to sell on, especially when their aim is solely to profit from it, 

i have no problem with an escort owner who would purchase a dutton, to do up their escort as long as they then decided to restore the dutton  afterwards, using whatever parts they had availible , if i was in that position, i would most likily want to keep the dutton, do it up as a fun summer car, once the escort was done.

[Big Vern]

The point I was trying to get across Martin is that the dutton has little or no intrinsic value. They are broken up and the parts sold on for a profit. Just as with many perfectly good but unwanted cars. The government had a scrappage scheme running a while back where they paid people to scrap good but unwanted cars! Scrap yards retrieve usable parts to keep to return other worthwhile cars to the road which is recycling and should therefore be commended. After all only those repairing escorts or escort based are going to buy the retrieved parts so its not like these cars are crushed and all the useful parts lost :-(
While I respect your enthusiasm for the mark you are one of a very small band. So many cars get offered here yet there are few takers - we all moan that these cars end up in the hands of the classic breakers but none of us put our money where our mouths are and buy them up to stop them falling into the hands of these 'villainous' breakers!

[Paul Sheridan]

Moralistic issues have no place in business, if you earn money from buying and selling parts, the cleaver people find and exploit any avenue they can, that is the way of things.

[James Doulton]

I agree that business is amoral (and sometimes immoral) and I can work with that. What I can't really get my head around is wanting a restored 1300 Escort. An RS2000 maybe.

It just seems such a waste of effort to recreate such a mediocre car. The standard Mk1 1300 did 0-60 in 20 seconds, that makes it extremely slow by modern standards. Why wouldn't you put the same effort into making something special, like your Phaeton will be - if it ever sees the light of day again!

I can understand people restoring old Consul Capris or other Capris because they were always a bit special and something that people aspired to. But Escorts - these people need looking at.