The Ford EXP is a polarizing car…it’s a two-seat Escort with one of the most…uh, unique…styling treatments up front. If you squint a little, it looks like a very surprised early Fox Mustang. They weren’t anything to get that excited about, like most of the other FWD four-banger coupes coming out of Detroit in the early 1980s. But manufacturers were bent on selling them to the masses, so they incorporated anything they could do to hustle the little cars off of the lots.

This ad is pretty long-winded at just under three minutes in length, but in those three minutes Ford does just about any and everything possible to sell one. From over-describing the 1.6L four-cylinder under the hood (and not mentioning it’s 80 horsepower at all) to using a Dodge Omni as cannon fodder for it’s claimed 46 highway MPG, you can almost feel the desperation clouding the air. They point out the “true MacPherson strut” front end (compared to what, a fake?) and it’s gauge package, which “monitors performance”. No, Ford, they didn’t monitor performance, they monitored vitals. Performance was monitored via calendar. The best part of this commercial, though, is watching the little frog-eyed golf cart plow through the snow like it’s nothing. Maybe there’s one redeeming quality for the EXP…it’s the perfect winter beater.

Click play below and try to not cringe too hard while listening to the rip-off version of “The Hustle”…