Ford Escorts ARE damn good cars as long as you get one built before 97. There were two different engines in Escorts and even early Focus mdels from 97 on. One was called the Zetec and I think the other was the 2.0 Split Port. The one that went into the sedans and wagons after 97 was prone to dropping valves and locking up engines. It must be the Split Port and not the Zetec because I've looked at several ZX2 coupes that all had the Zetec and they were mostly still running and trouble free cars. Now I could have all this backwards since it's been a few years. But I CAN tell you that you won't have any problems from the older 1.9 non interference engines
