One thing I remember fondly from my early college years was watching The Price Is Right around lunch time in the TV room with the other residents of my dorm floor. Few things have been a constant throughout my entire life like this game show, starting with sick days spent home from elementary school while nursing a cold, augmented with chicken soup, Vernor’s ginger ale (fellow Michiganders know about this common home remedy), and a comfortable knit afghan on the couch. Even after decades-long host Bob Barker retired from the show in 2007, by which point I had been a working adult for years, I would enjoy watching new host Drew Carey’s rapport develop with contestants in what seemed a very comforting continuation of long-established tradition.
Looking back at those college days in the mid-’90s, though, I now find it pretty funny that a bunch of young adults would gather in the break room in the middle of the day, between classes, to watch new episodes of this ancient game show and actively participate along with the contestants on the program. Granted, it was a pretty wholesome activity, but with some of my siblings’ offspring either being or fast approaching college age, I’m having a hard time imagining them watching TPIR with the same fervor as my dorm mates and I used to. I can remember it getting as loud in that TV room between 11:00 A.M. and Noon as it did during some football games.
I recently watched a 2017 documentary on this game show called Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much, which is the story of one gentleman named Ted Slauson who had an extraordinary memory and had trained for being a Price contestant like an Olympic athlete. Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll just say that I recommend watching it. One of my takeaways from this movie was that he had tried to memorize the prices of vehicles, but also that the MSRPs of similar makes and models of cars could be affected by features and options (besides the ubiquitous “California emission”). Back when I was among fellow students raucously watching TPIR in the ’90s, there seemed to be an abundance of toothpaste-colored Fords in hues similar to our featured car.
There weren’t just Escorts that came in colors like this, which I believe to be “Bright Calypso Green Clearcoat Metallic”, but there were also Mustangs and Probes in “Teal Mist” (an example of the latter of which I owned in this color), Aspires in “Teal”, Rangers in “Bright Atlantic Blue”, and Tempos in “Cayman Green Metallic”. All of these, and more, reminded me of the color of toothpaste. In fact, what the guys and I came to label as the “Toothpaste Tempo” on the show became synonymous with the kind of booby prize you didn’t actually want to win outside of the thrill of successfully testing your knowledge in guessing the prices of things accurately, even in relative terms. You may win it, but would you want to pay taxes on it, and then also drive and be seen in it? I mean, a free car is a free car, but still.
When I stumbled upon our featured car a few weeks ago, the sight of it stopped me dead in my tracks as if it was saying, “Allow me to escort you… back to the ’90s!” Here at Curbside, we tend to celebrate with special affection those kinds everyday cars that were once all over the place, but are present in very small numbers today. Ford sold almost 320,700 Escorts for ’95, most of which were wagons, the most popular body style that year with 116,000 units. In fact, the five-door hatchback was the least plentiful of the four body styles available that year, with 50,200 units moved against 91,800 three-door hatchbacks across Standard, LX and GT trim and another 62,700 four-door sedans. Just one year before, the five-door hatchback was the most popular configuration, with 116,300 finding homes. Undoubtedly, Ford’s “one price” strategy that year for the LX models impacted these numbers, and the wagon represented the most bang for the buck for many price-conscious shoppers.
Meanwhile, over at Chevrolet, the ’95 Cavalier was all-new and priced very similarly outside of the convertible, which Ford did not offer in the Escort line, though the Cavalier wagon did not return with that years’ redesign. With only 151,700 units sold, the Cavalier was outsold by the Escort by a ratio of 2:1. Over at Chrysler Corporation, the exciting, new Neon moved about 300,300 units between both the Dodge (178,900) and Plymouth (121,400) versions. If I had been gifted a new example of one of these three, then-new cars as a present for college graduation, I might have been drawn toward the Neon’s novelty and somewhat revolutionary style. To be clear, all three of these cars looked a bit like Easter eggs and also came in as wide a color palette from the factory that would make Paas proud, but maybe I would have been biased against the Escort only due to its ubiquity on The Price Is Right.
I suppose there are more offensive things than having a paint finish resembling the color of mint-flavored, fluoride-fortified dental cream. This is true especially today, when most vehicles come in a range of exterior colors about the same as a line of midrange office furniture. It’s likely that this Escort, with its model year positively identified using a license plate search, never lit anyone’s fire, so to speak. With its Mazda-sourced mechanicals, it was efficient and reliable, and with four doors and wide-opening rear hatch, it had a high utility quotient. This one looked a little broken down and dejected, sitting alone on its side of the street away from the other cars, but it’s here among us in 2021, doing at least a few things well – perhaps still getting the groceries, including the toothpaste.
Edgewater Glen, Chicago, Illinois.
Saturday, March 20, 2021.
Let us not decry toothpaste!
It’s funny that this ad mentions “dental cream”. I had never heard it called that until maybe five years ago when watching a DVD of vintage television commercials.
I used that phrase in this essay for what may have been the first time in my life, as it can be tricky to come up with synonyms on some days!
Mom was from Chicagoland. It was also chicken soup and ginger ale for me when under the weather. And yes, I had an afghan for the couch as well.
The Escort? Well, never paid any attention to these at the time, and I rarely see them anymore. But the glossy new brochure photos show a rather handsome and cleanly styled car that would look pretty good rolling off the assembly line today with only a few contemporary tweaks.
The cars and the models were the reason I watched TPIR
Dian in a Sunbird!
Rented one of those for my Honeymoon. We had to find a screwdriver and disassemble the console to find a special cigarette that had dropped through some enormous trim gap.
The only memory connection I have with this gen escort, is that the first kid in my highschool class to get a brand new car was given one almost exactly like the one pictured (same color same little spoiler etc). He had moved to the US from England a couple years earlier and they had put him back a year so he got his license as a sophomore.
I do like the color and I don’t think the styling is bad on these but not much else I can think of would draw me to these.
I wonder if your high school friend from England chose an Escort at least in part because it was a model name he was familiar with. This Mazda-based U.S. Escort would have been much different than the U.K. Escort, so I would have been curious to know if his Escort was what he had hoped or expected it to be.
I owned two of these, a ’91 and an ’95, and besides being reliable and cheap to run, they were light, tossable and fun to drive with the 5-speed manual. Against that, they were slow, had very basic equipment and road noise was headache-inducing on anything more than about a 4-hour road trip. I do miss cars like that. Even subcompacts drive like LTDs today.
I’ve driven a few Escorts, and our neighbor still owns one of the final generation. And though I have never lived within 2000 miles of Michigan, I remember chicken soup and ginger ale (Canada Dry, or store brand) as childhood cold and flu remedies. But I’m quite sure I have never seen even a second of The Price is Right. I do remember Drew Carey in his old network sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, but had no idea he’d moved on to that lifetime post of game show host.
I do remember liking the Drew Carey show when watching a few episodes in the ’90s. His humor and demeanor seems the same, which is great. In essence, watching him host TPIR is now a different kind of throwback, added on top of the U.S. institution that is this game show.
I watched “The Perfect Bid” a few years ago, it was interesting as our family too are long term TPIR disciples. Staying home sick from school – at 10am, boom!, ready to go in front of the TV with a big blanket, no matter what the exact ailment was.
Along with the green Escort, as I recall Ford also offered it (and the Probe etc) in that pinkish-reddish shade that looks like what comprises the other color in stuff like AquaFresh…
Too bad the example you found doesn’t exactly look “minty-fresh”! 🙂 It could use a good scrubbing (at least two minutes!) and a little professional “straightening”.
I don’t know why, but this had made me literally laugh out loud when I originally read it earlier today. Yes, that pinkish-reddish shade, along with a white example, and parked next to this one, could complete the “Aqua Fresh” trio.
My son had a ’98 Escort, and sold it for the better part of how much he had bought it for, as a user. Pretty solid car.
My brother and sisters would end up owning nearly a dozen Escorts among them, of various years. The majority were hatchbacks, but 1 sister has a wagon. Yet the ones that all owned were 1980s models, by the time the pictured car had rolled off the assembly line all had moved on to other brands besides Ford, if I remember correctly.
I drove a few of their cars, and even considered buying an 89 Escort GT but I couldn’t fit behind the wheel.
There are 2 of these in my area, as well as a pair of the next generation and one or two of the last generation. I never see the ” spin-off ” ZX2 coupes, except as near runners with high mileages and with automatic transmissions. It’s like those sportier models wound up being wrung out thoroughly by their young owners.
I found Escorts to be like puppies: fun when they were new (quite tossable) but as the individual cars got more miles on them they were less fun.
Their J-car competition? A more ” mature ” design that borders on stodgy.
Nothing screams 1990s like that teal color. In the early part of that decade, our new neighbors across the alley had an Escort wagon in that color, as well as a Camaro, complete with the white, pink and purple tape stripe often seen on the “sporty” teal cars of the time. To top it all off, this couple also furnished the entire house with teal wall-to-wall carpet, bought a teal leather sofa and loveseat set for the living room, and had window coverings made of a white, teal, and pinkish-purple floral pattern to complete the look. We moved away shortly after they arrived, but I can only imagine that today, assuming they still display the same keen sense of style, that both their home and automotive fleet sport a grayscale color scheme.
So much teal!! Wow. Your neighbors seemed to have lived and breathed it, but reading this and thinking back, those colors were seriously in vogue in the ’90s. Even my grandparent’s ’98 (?) Mercury Grand Marquis was a shade of green that wasn’t too far removed from what I’m envisioning here.
You have reminded me that there’s an aqua Chevy Beretta in my neighborhood with lavender and white graphics that I need to photograph. So, thank you!
Haven’t seen The Price is Right in years. I remember watching it at my grandmother’s house. Given that I do most of the grocery shopping in our house, I could probably guess the price of various grocery items, and then make it to the Showcase Showdown.
My aunt had a wagon version of this Escort. It was her family’s third or fourth Escort (her husband also had an Escort). They all gave good, reliable service. In the early 2000s, they decided it was time for a larger vehicle, so they bought a Subaru Forester. They have driven Subarus ever since.
That teal was everywhere on various Fords in the 1990s. I wouldn’t mind a teal Mustang GT coupe. Honda offered a lighter teal on 1993-95 Civic coupes.
I did really like that color of teal on the last Fox Mustangs. I’m envisioning the convertible 5.0 LX with the five-spoke “Pony” wheels. Yes, please.
I guess I am a little older than most of you – when I watched TPIR on sick days they were giving away cars like Chevy Novas and Pontiac Ventura IIs. I felt the same way about those that you felt about the Ford Tempos.
I will confess to loving the colorful 90s on cars. The pinks and purples may have been a little out there for me, but I enjoyed the variety. The Deep Jewel Green on my 94 Club Wagon was one we really liked at our house. But then silver and sand beige were pretty popular too.
I would never stop to take a picture of one of these Escorts, but then I realize that once upon a time I would have gone gaga over a 25 year old car. So I salute you for seeing its worth.
“Every car has a story!” – The Curbside Classic manifesto. I was actually ever so slightly worried that someone was going to come out of one of these buildings and ask why I was photographing a beat-up Escort. I say I did it with respect.
My parents got a helluva deal on a leftover brand new 1991 Ford Escort LX 5-door, on the New Years eve of 1991. It had the 1.9L 4 and a 5-speed manual transmission. It was in a color called Alabaster, which could have also been called Prosthetic Beige. It looked just like the attached pic, only in 5-door bodystyle.
That car was great. It got excellent mileage, was fun to drive with the 5-speed, and was very light and tossable. I learned to drive in this car. Never had any issues with the car either. I don’t think it ever went into the dealer for a warranty repair, just a small recall (honestly can’t remember what it was for at this point).
My brother ended up driving it a few times after he got his license, and it met its unfortunate demise on a snowy road in the mountains east of Albuquerque. It was such a good car that my parents replaced it with a used 1993 Escort GT that ended up being my brothers car. It had the 5-speed, but mated to the more powerful 1.8L engine. That also was a great car until it got totaled in an accident.
I like reading positive associations with these Escorts, which seems to be pretty much unanimous (so far) in the comments. I had a housemate in the mid-’90s who had an Escort Pony of this vintage – black with the dark gray bumpers, and she liked that car. Barb had a lot of class, so her endorsement of that Escort stayed with me.
I never made a connection between bright ’90s cars and minty-fresh toothpaste, but now I’ll never un-make that connection.
I actually like the bright green hues from this era, but wow did they get outdated-looking quickly! The green phase seemed to last only about 5 years, and then it seems that they green cars filled up used car lots awfully fast.
Funny enough most of the toothpastes I can remember using throughout my life were white(or mostly). The Escort color reminds me much more of cool mint mouth wash. It makes sense why I’m so bitter and opinionated, I grew up when cars were vividly colorful, and right smack in my already naturally cynical teen years everything went greyscale. I didn’t particularly like this particular teal shade but I’d rather buy that than quartz charcoal.
Ginger ale and chicken noodle soup was my Mom’s cold remedy as well, though sometimes 7-up was substituted.
Now that you mention it, I could totally have taken this metaphor in the “Scope” mouthwash direction, and it would have fit just as well!
That color palette in the “features and options” ad page looks delicious! 🙂
Like a new bag of Jelly Bellys!
Vernor’s ginger ale. Not pale. Not dry. Had a little kick to it. Bought it at the A&P near me. At Wilson and Ashland? I think it is a Staples now. Would drink it with I.W. Harper bourbon in my Chicago days. Heard they’ve since exported all the Harper to Japan and thereabouts. Good whiskey, good memories. Don’t remember Ford’s Escort too much.
Vernor’s definitely has a bite that people are not expecting. That’s another reason why I love it so much. Almost clears your sinuses.
No memories of the show, though there was something by that name in Australia. Think I might have seen it a few times, it didn’t really stand out that much in my memory – I’m not much of a TV person; haven’t watched it yet this year.
We got these as a Ford Laser in Australia. I never liked this model; the ‘fat sides’ added width to no interior benefit that I could see. Ours all seemed to come with silver plastic wheel covers that made the wheels look too small. I had the use of one as a loaner car while my Cortina was being repaired once. I think Ford was hoping that driving the new car for a few days would get me interested to trade up to a car they could still get parts for!
Didn’t happen. I found the drive experience underwhelming. It rode very nicely but didn’t corner like my (admittedly modified) Cortina, the engine seemed weak and the interior too plasticky. So back to 1974 for another decade or so. I liked 1974.
Nice colour though.
Vernors isn’t ‘ginger ale’ .
I miss it greatly, I used to be able to find it here and there in L.A. .
Escorts were CHEAP CARS so the fact they were preyty damn good at what they did never got noticed .
-Nate
It isn’t?
It’s true what you’ve said about this generation of Escort, and other things like it that simply function well without calling attention to themselves. Bravo for understated effectiveness.
Mazda323 Familia or Ford Laser is how I see and remember these, they were very common back in the day and rental car of choice in the lower price range, Ive been up the Hume hwy in a rental version at a steady 150kmh so they got along ok my father was driving so my license wasnt in danger but the car was quiet and smooth at that speed,
One wit called it the “love handles’ Laser in Australia
I’ve been thinking about this! I see it.
When the ’91 Escort (your Laser) came out, the way the body sides bulged out slightly didn’t seem as natural or organic as it could have.
However, looking at the second-generation Ford Probe that arrived for model year ’93, it also had what seemed a little bit like a more upright greenhouse attached to a bulging, sculpted lower half.
This design language worked on the Probe, but I think it wasn’t quite as successful as applied to this Escort’s / Laser’s smaller proportions.
Still, not a bad looking car at all, to my eyes.
When we bought our 95 Escort in 1997 I described it as sensible shoes since it replaced my slightly cranky 1984 Jetta 5 speed with a newer car with automatic and useful air conditioning. Ours was the same spec as the pictured car except it was the brighter Calypso Green.
Over time and two children it devolved into the “dumpster car” (green and full of trash) but it was generally dependable apart from the accursed transaxle until we sold it to Pick’n Pull in 2012. The engine was a bit noisy and underpowered but we could jam so much stuff into it that unpacking looked a clown car. There were better cars but you could have done a lot worse than these Mazda based 93-97 Escorts.