Downsizing and the Envirowimps, Part II

There I was, all happy at having finished my post from Sunday night, convinced that there was no way I had missed anything obvious.

Crud.

The 1980 Turbo Trans Am used Pontiac's 301 (4.9L) V8 with a turbo strapped on. It was rated at just 185 horsepower for 1980, with a modest improvement for 1981. However, it wasn't intercooled, and was said to be a miserable engine to drive and live with. It made a pinging noise when accelerating hard, and since there was no boost gauge, this pinging noise accompanied imminent catastrophic failure. What an engine.

1980 saw Ford desperate to meet the dreaded CAFE standards, so they debored and destroked the 302 and made the 225. It made tremendously lousy power, from 115 to 122 tire-smoking, asphalt-terrorizing ponies (SAE net). It also got crummy fuel economy, and based on high consumer hatred of the thing, it was killed after 1982. Horrifyingly, it was available in the Mustang, as well as in other Fox-platform cars, including the Mercury Capri (a rebadged and cosmetically modified Mustang), the Ford Thunderbird, Fairmont, and LTD.

This rather attractive little car is a 1986 Ford EXP. Before pronouncing it "awesome", let's have a look at the previous bodystyle:

I like it, but I can also see how it's an acquired taste. The first generation (second picture) was available solely with a 1.6L I4 rated at just 70 HP. However, it was later offered with a turbocharger, boosting power to 120 HP. Car and Driver managed 44 MPG during their lead-footed testing with a non-turbo model, showing that if nothing else, the car got good gas mileage. Oddly, the car had three available transmissions. The first was a 4-speed manual, the second was a 5-speed manual, and the third was (you guessed it) a 3-speed automatic.


The second generation had a 1.9L I4, with the same transmission choices. It made anywhere from 90 to 115 HP, depending on the year and packages on the car. It's interesting to note that the reason Ford was going to replace the Mustang with the Probe (which started production in 1989, so it's really outside the scope of this particular post) was because they had heard that GM was planning to offer the Camaro and Firebird with front-wheel-drive by 1990. They realized that they couldn't offer three FWD sporty coupes (EXP, T-Bird, and Probe), and since the EXP was selling the least, out it went. Tragic, really, as it could have developed into something really worth taking a second look at...