> Very nice car
> >
>
> But thats gonna be slow :)
Yeah - ISTR Richard Kilpatrick mentioning that the 2.3 was the one to go for in terms of a balance of power and economy. I mentioned that to a mate and he suggested that a 2.3 V6 sounded like the worst of both worlds - the bad fuel economy of the V6, and the not-very-much power of a not particularly big engine. I then sort assumed that the 2.3 was a 4-pot engine, but being
12-valve it obviously isn't (unless it's got 3 valves per cylinder). So what are these 2.3s like then Richard?
Peter
-- "Diamonds are what I really need - think I'll rob a store, escape the law, and live in Italy. Lately, my luck has been so bad, you know the roulette wheel, it's a crooked deal, I'm losing all I had."
Bigger RS2000 lump. US market inspired, 16v, four cylinder. 150bhp, 'reasonably' torquey (gets bogged down a little with the auto unless you're doing 70 - doesn't like doing 50, likes doing 90, that's what the overdrive switch is for). Surprisingly quick in the Ultima, which is a true lard arse, and with the revised Scorpio bugeye suspension, it could take the Supra. Worryingly.
Also delivers a consistent 27-28mpg in normal use; will crack 30 on the motorway, drops to around 23 with heavy town use, heavy loads or 110mph+ belting down the motorway. But it'll do it. Considerably more reliable than the Cosworth lump, too.
Not that my girlfriend wouldn't jump at the chance to upgrade to a late-R Cosworth Scorpio Estate.
Sounds good. So they basically got it wrong, saying it was 12v then?
Peter
-- "Diamonds are what I really need - think I'll rob a store, escape the law, and live in Italy. Lately, my luck has been so bad, you know the roulette wheel, it's a crooked deal, I'm losing all I had."
The 2.3 engine in the Scorpio is actually a Cosworth design, project HBA, with balancer shafts. Cosworth engineering's site list it as destined for DEW98; the RWD platform derived from and to replace the Scorpio and now used on the LS/S-type/Mustang and T-bird. Of course the
1998 Scorpio replacement never happened - to Ford of Europe, the S-type fulfills that role nicely.
With sump-mounted balancers - and they really do work, the 2.3 is a very nice engine indeed. A new design, and rarely credited to Cosworth engineering ;)
A 12v Scorpio is a 2.9 Non-Cosworth, usually. They are around. I didn't think that the 2.3 V6 made it into much at all, though perhaps, like the
2.0 Cologne V6, it was in some non-British market cars.
Richard (Cosworth engineering's site is amusing - 4.0 Cologne block (from the US market; Aerostar and Explorer amongst others) with the 24v heads? Yes please!).
I've got a vague recollection of seeing a 2.3V6 Galaxy.
Anyway, in short, the fact that it's been called a 12v, hence implying one of the older and slower V6s, could mean that it might be had at a pseudo bargain price. That is, if the people bidding don't know that the 2.3 is actually a bloody good engine!
Peter
-- "Diamonds are what I really need - think I'll rob a store, escape the law, and live in Italy. Lately, my luck has been so bad, you know the roulette wheel, it's a crooked deal, I'm losing all I had."
Well it's still got 6 days to go, so time will tell. Just keep sssh about it, they might not notice :-)
Peter
-- "Diamonds are what I really need - think I'll rob a store, escape the law, and live in Italy. Lately, my luck has been so bad, you know the roulette wheel, it's a crooked deal, I'm losing all I had."
-- "Diamonds are what I really need - think I'll rob a store, escape the law, and live in Italy. Lately, my luck has been so bad, you know the roulette wheel, it's a crooked deal, I'm losing all I had."
I ain't Richard but I have a Scorpio. The 2.3 is the one to have, if you have a choice - very refined four pot DOHC. The 12v is a 2.9 v6 pushrod engine that has a thirst and torque but not much power. The 24v is a 2.9 v6 QOHC that is thirsty but kicks ass.
All of them have excellent road manners and comfortable interiors, with few vices (the HBC has gone on that one - they cost the best part of a hundred quid and are a weak point, the fan stops blowing and works intermittently, but it's trivial to fit yourself.) Acceleration is good but they really start to show pace at higher speeds, when the lighter weight competition is starting to run out of puff.
All of them are as handsome and attractive as Danny De Vito undergoing colonic irrigation, imediately after ten rounds with Mike Tyson.
They are quite cheap, 500 notes is a bit less than I'd expect it to finally go for, but they aren't really worth much because of the looks. Who wants an executive motor that looks butt-ugly? I reckon the BMWRolls will go the same way and with any luck I can buy one at a bargain price. Can't see the headlamps from the drivers seat.
Haven't had a 24v, but I can assure you that the 2.9 12v is not thirsty for the application and capacity. My old Granada Scorpio did 33mpg consistently when driven legally. Driven illegally it dropped, but it wasn't significantly worse than the 2.3 until stuck in traffic for long periods.
Would that my 3.0 Supra returned similar economy when driven similarly sensibly. Not that I indulged in that today; I finally settled on a new radio, a JVC 998 MP3 one from eBay (£159 new, £84 on eBay, poorly described, turned out to be mint and boxed but was indeed used) and my road test involved 110+ up the A720 with Laibach on full blast - I don't /think/ the Battenburg Mercedes M-class on the opposite carriageway caught me; I braked damn hard when the line of sight was blocked by a truck and they didn't chase me...
I'm biased since my gf's car is one, but I think that the last 6 months of production facelift models (like the one being discussed) look better, and the estates especially look quite good actually. The design has aged far better than it had any right to, even if the last of the 'Granada' Scorpios looked more elegant.
Amazing how many of these last models have acquired the incorrect 'silver' lights...
(Differences, FWIW, are black instead of silver lights, a smaller, part-painted grille moulding, nostrils beside the foglights, and there were some minor suspension revisions IIRC; part of the evolution to the Jaguar S-type/Lincoln LS 'DEW98' platform. Also the saloons have revised taillights and a sharper bootlid, amazing mods for a car with six months left to live).
Very late ones are still ending up with £4K plus at a lot of dealers; we paid £3K a year ago when autotrader was full of identical ones for about £5K; we'd probably sell it for that still since there are so few well equipped RWD estate cars that are sensible to run.
The balancer shafts in the sump add height to it, perhaps too much to mate it to a transverse layout (though the Scorpio website seems to imply that it was made transverse for the Explorer of all things; I think they must be thinking of the Galaxy - a vehicle I know very little about).
Admittedly, the front end is an acquired taste - personally I don't consider it *that* ugly, but I must admit I really actually quite like the rear end of the Scorpio (big wide lights/reflectors, yank-stylee).
Yeah, but they do seem to fetch more than one might expect for an old Ford scrapper.
Peter
-- "Diamonds are what I really need - think I'll rob a store, escape the law, and live in Italy. Lately, my luck has been so bad, you know the roulette wheel, it's a crooked deal, I'm losing all I had."
Nah, never a fan of the late Granny Scorpios (or the Mk3 Grannys in general) - the front headlights were just plain, boring and ugly.
Peter
-- "Diamonds are what I really need - think I'll rob a store, escape the law, and live in Italy. Lately, my luck has been so bad, you know the roulette wheel, it's a crooked deal, I'm losing all I had."
I own one so consider me biased, I like the front looks but find the back is a bit too american for my tastes. But to be fair the looks are a major factor for most magazines / people. I don't care how ugly my cars might be, as I don't plan to have sex with them and bear children for me.
My view is the reverse, they seem to sell for very little bearing in mind the quality of the ride and equipment. Once you've driven this type of car, moving to a more mundane sort is quite marked, the seats are all wrong, the handling is suddenly too light and unsteady, the doors have to be slammed, or don't shut properly, etc.
A lot of it is gadgets, but to drive one about for a while and get to know it is revealing. Course, you have to be able to get insurance, this is higher than it maybe should be based on the original price of the car, I suppose. Don't know, it might be because the car is also basically heavy and can travel rapidly enough to make it far more of a concern in a shunt.
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