'93 Ford Festiva GL

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An Amish Woman

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I'm new to the overlanding community. Got interest threw a very good friend who has a built truck, and is kind enough to include myself a a few other friends to share his gear for trips.

Not wanting to have a car payment for a Tacoma, (even though I want one pretty badly) I figured I would just build off what I have to work with.

I'm from Northwest Ohio. This is my mint '93 Festiva GL. This is my 3rd Festiva. Had been looking for a perfect candidate like this one for a wile and finally found it this past 4th of July in Southbend, Indiana. Has 31,000 miles and gets about 40 mpg on average. So that can't be beat for the low price I paid for it.
Recently just put on a Yakima crossbar and Load Warrior basket onto it. I had bought previously bought for my '04 STI, which turns out, I'm no longer interested into. (sour grapes)

I plan to strip the interior and add Dynomat for more warmth and to kill off the road noise. These cars are very basic with no kind of installation or sound deadening. Or even air bags for that matter. I also plan to put in new speakers and extensively clean the entire interior. Including behind the dash. Easily a weekend type job. So not to bad of a little project. I think I will add a light bar, perhaps a few flood lights for the side and rear, Maybe a set of Maxtrax and perhaps a shovel mount. I also have a Snowboard/Ski rack to carry my board.
I have a cb radio and a Firestik antenna, but I'm not sure I want to mount it to the car. I'm having a hard time finding a solution to mount it to my roof top basket. Anyone have any suggestions for a good solution?

Hope you all enjoy. I'm interested in some suggestions on good sites for parts and accessories. Also comments and criticisms.
 

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Dilldog

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I have seen the Ford Festiva do some incredible things off road. My parents had a 91, and my older brother well he just wanted to see what it could do. My dad and I took it in for scrap in 2010, it had 200K on it and had never had any major components replaced. However at that point all the major components needed to be replaced, hence taking it to the wrecking yard. Come to think of it I think all that was ever done to it was routine maintenance. Honestly for being a budget economy car I was impressed with how well it held up. Please keep us posted on what you do.
 
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An Amish Woman

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Dillon Wilke said:
I have seen the Ford Festiva do some incredible things off road. My parents had a 91, and my older brother well he just wanted to see what it could do. My dad and I took it in for scrap in 2010, it had 200K on it and had never had any major components replaced. However at that point all the major components needed to be replaced, hence taking it to the wrecking yard. Come to think of it I think all that was ever done to it was routine maintenance. Honestly for being a budget economy car I was impressed with how well it held up. Please keep us posted on what you do.
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They really are beasts! I'll link a video fro 11 years ago some friends and I made. We pulled our money together in high school and bought a Festiva from my uncle for like 300$. Most people in the Festiva community are die hard fans, and didn't enjoy it as much. A friends family has a farm, so we made a race track on a bit of land between fields. It was a fun summer project.


I at one point, had one that had 300k miles on it andit was still going strong. It was just to ratty to drive. Sold it for a profit.

I plan to find a low miles BP engine or a BPTurbo even. I've seen people push close to 300hp in a turbo motor. A BP is a direct swap out of like a Mercury Capri or Frod Probe
 
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An Amish Woman

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New addition! Well, kinda new, more new in box. I've actually had it for a year. Finally put it on for this weekends trip to Mad River Mountain.

Also had new tires put on the Festiva a week ago. Tires are rather hard to find in 12 inches. Got these from China on Amazon. Nankang tires

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AnywhereInTX

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Oh this brings back memories. My family had two of these growing up. Hated them as a kid, love them as an adult. Weird how that works...guess it's nostalgia.
 
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An Amish Woman

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AnywhereInTX said:
Oh this brings back memories. My family had two of these growing up. Hated them as a kid, love them as an adult. Weird how that works...guess it's nostalgia.
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We also had one growing up. I don't remember how I felt about it at the time. My neighbors had 2 of them growing up. One being a Festiva Sport! It sat by the river for years until recently it disappeared.
 
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An Amish Woman

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This was taken earlier in the summer. My brother found a weed sprayer bottle and added it to the rack for awile. Everyone that stopped to talk kept telling me it looked like a NOS bottle. Might have to rig up something like that for the future.

Also picked up and added an accessory cross bar for my snowboard mount. The rack is very very loud with the front fairing.
 

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Plasmajab said:
With enough skill and ingenuity anything can. I don't think you'd find this on Moab, but it would be a very economical fire road runner.
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Thank you. I was thinking the same thing also but wasnt sure. Fire roads would work for sure. Seems like what they rally on kinda. Does these Festivas ever get a small lift? Maybe 1 or 2 inches? I love the idea of these going on trails if they could go on easy rated ones with up to 8" rocks.
 
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An Amish Woman

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AZ Trooper said:
stupid question but... are these Festivas 4WD or AWD? If not are the front wheel drive? Are they able to overland?
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They are only 86hp front wheel drive. It's my every day commuter car. I'm actually really close to rolling over 40K miles.

So your typical off-road overlanding...never. But driving to a campground and maybe going down a stone road will prolly all it will ever be. Just looking to have so fun with it. Seeing people faces and getting a thumbs up, shows everyone else enjoys seeing it. I'm content with that. A close friend has 2 built up overland rigs. So I don't really need one.

I am working on an engine swap for it. Bumping it up to 125hp. I'll post pictures of that soon
 
AZ Trooper

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An Amish Woman said:
They are only 86hp front wheel drive. It's my every day commuter car. I'm actually really close to rolling over 40K miles.

So your typical off-road overlanding...never. But driving to a campground and maybe going down a stone road will prolly all it will ever be. Just looking to have so fun with it. Seeing people faces and getting a thumbs up, shows everyone else enjoys seeing it. I'm content with that. A close friend has 2 built up overland rigs. So I don't really need one.

I am working on an engine swap for it. Bumping it up to 125hp. I'll post pictures of that soon
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cant wait for pics. Thats cool.
 
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An Amish Woman

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Not much new to update yet. Been busy with other projects.
I did however have to go pick up some PVC for one of these said projects, so naturally, I took the Festiva. Since it's the most practical car I have.

Looking into buying a rear window louver for it. Someone in the community is reproducing them from the originals that were sold on the Japanese models. They are normally from Australia so having them shipped and sent or (possible getting broke) is like $1,200! No thanks!!

I was wondering if anyone could suggest a CB mount that connects to a rack with round bars that has the capability to fold down?
 

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