Sometimes, a good idea can be recycled or repurposed to good effect. “Sampling”, the practice of using parts of a previously recorded song for use in a newly created one, was especially popular when I became of music-buying age in the late 1980s. Granted, progress was eventually made as regards the regulation and clearing of rights for these purposes, and as an artist myself, I know the awful feeling of having had something I’ve created ripped off without my expressed permission. Nonetheless, some of my favorite songs of my teens and twenties include samples of one song or another, most of which I hope were cleared legally, though I’m certain this was not always the case.
It’s true, though, that for every good reuse of a riff or beat, there was a bad one. James Brown’s “Funky Drummer” contained a fantastic break beat in its middle that seemed to be the gift that just kept on giving, featured in a seemingly countless, subsequent hit songs and underground classics. Also, Bob James (the same artist that wrote and recorded the theme for the TV series “Taxi”, titled “Angela”) covered Paul Simon’s “Take Me To The Mardi Gras” as an instrumental. Samples of the opening beats and chimes in James’ version have been used to great effect on songs whose genres included hip-hop, house, pop, and rap. According to Whosampled.com, James’ “Mardi Gras” has been sampled, literally, over four hundred times.
And then there was Billy Squier’s “The Big Beat”, with its anthemic drums that Brooklyn-based rap group UTFO purposefully incorporated into the second verse of their mid-’80s classic, “Roxanne, Roxanne”. I find that, often, the quirkier and less ubiquitous the sample, the better I tend to like the song. Both of these tracks are on my MP3 player. In the other column, I’ll present the Bowie-sampling “Ice Ice Baby”, which has only ever been a guilty pleasure of mine, at best.
How does all of this relate to the very last, North American iteration of the two-door Ford Escort? Here’s how: it has always reminded me more than a little of the Fifth-generation (1990 – ’93) Toyota Celica notchback. There’s the shape of the rear quarter windows. The strangely pinched and concave shape of the rear panel. Pretty much the entire side profile. These cars aren’t twins, but you can tell that one ended up shopping at the same clothing store as the other.
It has seemed as if a bunch of Ford board members were sitting around the big table in 1990 and decided that the “beautiful, new” Celica notchback should be the styling inspiration for the new Escort coupe…to be introduced for the 1998 model year. I don’t dislike the looks of this generation of Celica notchback, but when the Escort ZX2 came out for ’98 (with the “Escort” prefix dropped for final-year ’03), and despite the ZX2’s more “finished” looks compared with the previous Escort hatchback, it looked dated almost immediately.
The (Escort) ZX2 arrived to replace two hatchbacks in Ford’s lineup: the preceding, more utilitarian Escort three-door and the sleek Probe. I’ll concede that the Probe “experiment” wasn’t entirely successful. I loved my used, ’94 base model when I owned it, but the reality is that most folks shopping for a sporty car at Ford dealerships in the ’90s would have preferred even a base, V6-powered Mustang for roughly 6 – 8% more money than a 2.0L, four-banger Probe. Even though the Celica-fighter Probe was a completely different kind of sporty car than the Mustang, apparently many folks didn’t want a “Ford Celica” as Probe sales tapered off fairly quickly after a fairly strong 89,700 total for the first year of its ’93 redesign. Most of these Ford shoppers wanted a Mustang.
The Probe’s sales numbers had spoken. Yet, Ford went ahead and trotted out a (successful) house-brand Celica knockoff for the ’98 model year. I don’t think the ZX2 is unattractive. It’s not low, lean, and athletic-looking like the Gen-2 Probe, but it has its charms. Its styling isn’t the worst use of “sampling” of prior themes, nor is it the best. It’s just okay, like Mariah Carey’s Cameo-sampling “Loverboy” from 2001 – with both the car and the song certainly not the worst things on the road/radio back then, but nobody’s true favorite.
I also thought it was curious how Ford stylists managed to give the early (1998 – ’02) ZX2 a blend of 5th-generation Celica styling with the Gen-6 model’s quad-light frontal look. (Our featured car has the ’03-only front fascia with its mesh grille above the bumper.) It only seemed to solidify in my mind exactly where Ford appeared to get its inspiration for their Escort coupe’s exterior design. As with much good artistry, though, my favorite expressions of it usually seem to involve some kind of real inspiration. The use of some samples have simply seemed more inspired than others.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Thursday, February 15, 2018.
Related reading from Aaron65 and Mr. Tactful.
Amen, brother!
(See what I did there?)
I don’t actually, but this wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t get the joke or reference.
It’s a reference to another of the most sampled songs ever:
https://www.whosampled.com/The-Winstons/Amen,-Brother/
Back on topic… I used to have a ’93 Probe GT. It was fun to drive but incredibly unreliable. I remember the final drive from the repair shop to the auction to unload it, thinking “maybe I should keep it”… then the Check Engine light came on and I knew I had made the right choice.
Oh, my gosh – how did I not know this?! 🙂 This sample was (is?) everywhere. Thank you!
Rarely day goes by when I don’t learn something new here on CC.
Wow, I’ve never noticed the close resemblance of the ZX2 to the Celica!!! Very likely because I never saw very many of the ZX2 even when new, and hardly any at all this many years later. I guess you can learn something new every day. Thanks Joe for another excellent piece!
Also, it’s funny we both published pieces on 2-door Fords photographed in Whole Foods parking lots at night.
Thanks, Brendan – and I think it’s kind of an awesome double-coincidence! You have my word that I didn’t “copy”. LOL
All of the snow on the ground in these pictures, taken just last Thursday, is pretty much all gone. It’s close to 60F today and rainy. That’s Chicago for you.
First the 2 door Crown Victoria from this morning and now this – it appears that we are on a “coupes that are almost kind of attractive” day.
The ZX-2 is another car I wanted to like. Those thin roof pillars reminded me a little of that style that was briefly popular very early in the 60s before the Thunderbird-style roof took over in the industry. I had never made the Toyota connection before, but now that you have pointed it out, the comparison is impossible to miss.
This is a design that should have worked, but somehow didn’t. The body was too fat, the wheels too dainty, and about 50 other teeny little things that keep this design from working. And I love the sampling analogy.
JP, you hit the nail on the head when you said “50 other teeny little things”. The devil was in the details, and this car, while not unattractive, had elements that just didn’t come together in a way that they could have. The Probe was a lovely-looking car if a bit derivative – the ZX2 just seemed retrograde.
When I put that top-bottom shot of the red Celica and ZX2 together, it just seemed to drive home the point that the execution of the styling of the newer car had just missed the mark.
No, obviously it was modeled on an earlier Ford model.
Joseph, it’s almost like you were listening in on a conversation at my office last week.
Less than a week ago, I was talking to a co-worker, and we looked out of his office window and saw a Ford ZX2 parked two stories below. He said to me “it’s almost like Ford took a combination of all their cars of the ’90s to make that car.” From the angle we saw it from, it definitely looked like a combination of the Ovoid Taurus and the Contour.
And now your piece here adds the Celica to that mix, which I hadn’t noticed before, but in looking at your comparison shot here, it’s plainly apparent. Well, at least the ZX2 can now be remembered for SOMETHING… otherwise it would be awfully hard to think of anything memorable to say about it.
To your point, Eric, this car does have a (very) strong “Ford family resemblance” shared with other stablemates of its time – much like Brendan’s 2-door LTD also shares certain visual similarities with other Fords of its day.
I never noticed the resemblance between the Celica and the ZX2 before, but it’s definitely there. At least the ZX2 looks better than the early EXPs.
I’ll take the EXP over the ZX2 any day.
At least the goofy looks give it personality.
Having driven a ZX2 of a friends for a few days. I can’t find one thing about them that would make it worthwhile
I’m also a fan of the styling of the EXP (and the bubble-back Mercury LN7). I think that maybe more than a handful of them might have survived if they weren’t two-seaters. In that respect (utility), the ZX2 has the EXP squarely beat.
There is quite a fan base about modifying and hot-rodding these. It almost makes me want one…
I always thought that the “inspiration” for the front end came from the SC Lexus coupes. I never noticed, at least not consciously, how closely it resembled a Celica.
Since the other 2 door Ford featured today drew a lot of criticism for it’s lines and proportions, I’m going to say that I always thought that in profile views the ZX2 looks like the hood and trunk lid are nearly the same length. I never cared for the wing Ford stuck on 98% of the ZX2s, either. I wonder if that was done to make it less obvious that this car looks almost the same front end length and back end length?
I totally see the Lexus SC connection. In fact, when I was writing this piece, I toyed with the idea of making that reference, but then I decided (for the sake of keeping consistent with my premise) to keep the comparison limited to different Celicas in some form.
Love the Bob James mention! Big fan of his Touchdown album.
Unknowingly, He, David Axelrod and others sure did a lot for hip-hop.
Yes – Axelrod is also great! I discovered him after one of those long, tangential chains of one internet search after another. Sometimes, I think I could spend half of an entire morning on Google or Wikipedia if left to my own devices.
I think Ford was looking toward their partner Mazda when they came up with the front end of the ZX2. This is the 1993 Autozam Clef:
What is almost interesting is how this Mazda looks somewhat like the 97 Mercury….Tracer? The Mercury had inboard (faux) vents/tiny grilles(?) that would have gone where the inboard lights are on this Mazda. Even the profile looks like that of the Mercury.
I always kind of hoped somewhere along the way I’d end up with a ZX2 as a good used commuter car. Never happened. Always liked the look of these.
Great write up! Never noticed how much the ZX2 looked like the older Celica. I always thought the ZX2 looked cramped and long in the tooth next to a Focus ZX3. It was a 2dr Ford Cavalier.
While I’m glad the Probe didnt replace Mustang in the 1980’s, I was very disappointed when Ford dropped the Probe. The Probe was my favorite car to rent & I love its look, especially the GT. Seeing that less than 20,000 Probes where sold in ‘97 it was a logical business decision for Ford to make. While I liked the 1998-2002 Ford/Mercury Cougar, it never measured up to the Probe.
The ZX2 had a good year or two from its’ spring ’97 intro until the Focus hit the showrooms in spring ’99. Once it had the Focus as internal competition it became a fleet queen (although never exclusively by company policy as the ’00-01 Escort sedans were).
Thanks, Paul! My ’94 Probe was a really good car. When I was researching numbers for this piece, I did notice that prices for the base (“Cool”) ’98 Escort ZX2 started at about $1700 less than the base ’97 Probe – a 12% reduction. This must have helped the ZX2’s relative success.
Probe had to be the worst name ever put on a car. A coworker had an unreliable one and used to call it the anal probe because it was a pain in the ass owning it.
That’s funny!
Agreed – absolutely terrible name. The space connotations just didn’t happen as Marketing had wanted.
My ’94 Probe was a reliable one, though – the base model with the 2.0L four. From what I’ve read, experiences with these were either great or poor.
In 2005 I was shopping for a commuter car and saw a nice ZX2 on the used lot of a Ford dealer. I was thinking maybe it might be an appealing alternative to more common small cars, so I test drove it. It was a base engine 5 speed. Whatever sportiness the bodywork was portraying was not backed up by the chassis. It felt really cheap and totally like its econocar inner self, so I rethought that idea very quickly.
In the end, I decided I couldn’t do an economy car. It would be bad for my spiritual health. I bought a 99 Firebird Formula (LS1, 6 speed).
I thought the ZX2 could had borrowed some styling cues from the European Puma. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2OV7Zz4VsM
Wow, they couldn’t even sample a good-looking generation of Celica? The fifth-generation was probably the most awkwardly-proportioned generation of Celica. The notchback was probably the worst, and y’all seemed to lap them up – here, the hatchback was vastly more popular.
I hadn’t noticed the Celica resemblance but now I can’t un-see it. Same with the resemblance to the Lexus SC and Autozam Clef mentioned by previous posters. I think the ZX2 falls apart towards the rear… it seems too high and awkward and cheap-looking.
Now, a second-generation Probe… That’s damn good-looking car!
Will, by my recollection, the notchback (to your point) seemed to be more popular here in the States. I had a college friend who had a blue, ’90 notchback that ended up getting totaled – and then he bought a (same-bodystyle) black ’92 to replace it.
I’ll second on the 2nd-generation Probe. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was the truncated rear panel which seemed slightly at odds with the organic curves on the rest of its shape.
In 2007 when the ’08 Focus came out, it really shocked me that Ford made the same mistake they had done a decade before, replacing 3- and 5-door hatchbacks with a trunked coupe that wasn’t at all sleek due to its’ aged hard points. The difference was that fleets would still buy a few sufficiently cheap 2-door cars in the early ’00s but not 10 years later.
Holy cow! Never saw that resemblance to the ‘spaceship’ Celica coupe in the ZX2. as for that Celica, to me the hatchback always looked better. My sister owned a ZX2 at one point which replaced an early Jeep Wrangler when she lived in the US.
That is one very rare car around here these days. What few survivors there are tend to look like this.
Thanks, everyone. I realize I was going out on a limb with this premise (with which even my partner disagrees), but I’m glad to find out that I’m not the only one who sees the visual similarities between these two cars.