It was a two-door, four-seat estate design, related to the Ford Prefect 100E four-door saloon, sharing the same 1,172 cc (71.5 cu in) Ford sidevalve 36 bhp (27 kW) engine and other parts and the same interior trim.

It was substantially shorter than both the Prefect and the closely related Ford Anglia 100E two-door saloon.

It used the short front doors of the four-door model because the bodyshell was optimized for use as a panel van (which was marketed as the Thames 300E).

The rear seat could be folded flat to convert from a four-seater to a load carrier.

The Escort name was later used by Ford of Europe in 1968 on another small car, and a North American variant was introduced in 1980.