[Editor's Note: This article originally ran in our January 2016 issues of Grassroots Motorsports. Some information may be out of date. Prices for the XR4TI have remained consistent according to Hagerty, with a No. 1 example fetching nor more than $7000 in 2019 values.]
Let’s pretend it’s 1985. MTV is playing the latest by Duran Duran, your hair looks mahvelous, and your status in life says …
I wonder if things would have gone better if Ford hadn't tried to be so smart and just called them Mercury products. A Mercury XR4Ti and Mercury Scorpio (and no Sable, just leave that as a Taurus) would have probably worked a lot better and saved marketing time & costs.
I'm curious what other things caused consumers to not take home more XR4Ti's.
Or just sold them as Fords. There may have been some concern with cannibalizing Mustang sales, though. However, given how people reacted to the Probe, it may not have happened. Hell, most Mustang fans didn't like the Turbo model Mustangs, either.
They're fun!
They make fantastic rally cars
captdownshift wrote: They make fantastic rally cars
I get to crew for one this month. Tee hee!
Always loved these. Even that crazy bi wing.
One of my cousins friends had a Blue '87 when I was about 10. I will own one before much longer! On my next car to own list!
I would love one.. but all the ones around here have fallen on very hard times.
There are three of them registered for Black River Stages in 2 weeks.
I rented one at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport once, for a road trip to San Francisco. It was in a darkened parking lot, and it took me 20 MINUTES to find a knob or button to light up the dash. When I did it lit up like the cockpit of the space shuttle! Had to laugh. Not so funny was the lack of cruise control. I just couldn't warm up to the idea of the 1500 mile round trip without it. So I traded it in for a luxo-barge (free upgrade). I enjoyed driving it around Phoenix though. Always like the idea of them. By the time I moved back stateside in '91 they were already gone though.
An autocross acquaintance developed one of these for several years and finally won the SCCA Nationals Autocross in D-Street Prepared in 2009. Beating a host of Beemers, Subies, and misc. Some great shots of basically the entire field at speed at http://forum.merkurclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15573
Amusing to see that several cars were actually lifting both inside tires for a moment at the tight corner. I'm speculating that the relatively stiff tire/suspension setup would start losing grip at about that point to act as an anti-roll effect. I wonder if the in-car data would detect the extra roll angle and assume it was just hella cornering, or whether there is a setting you could program in to tell the driver "back off NOW!!"?
Terrible name for a sub-brand, funny looking car with a terrible reputation for reliability. If they'd revived the Mercury Comet name, ditched the silly spoiler and made them reliable, it could have been a success.
Very timely GRM. There is an 88 XR4Ti in my driveway that I keep waffling on what to do with it. Offload it as is, fix and flip or build for me. I seem to change my mind every day.
My dad worked at the Ford/Lincoln/Mercury dealership in '85 when these came out. I remember our family of 5 in our 68 bug struggling to achieve the federally mandated 55mph speed and my dad telling me to look back. A brand new black XR flew up behind us and then leapt into the left lane and passed us like we were in reverse. It looked like the future and made strange turbine noises that I didn't understand. I wanted one bad from then on. I finally got a terribly worn out example of an 85 in 94 before the internet started solving the parts availability issues and it beat me up trying to keep it going. It is hard to separate the good memories from the bad.
Leaning towards keeping it now.
In reply to Jumper K Balls :
They're *so cool*! I think you should keep it at least for a while. In the same way that I should've given the Miata a bit more of a chance, the opportunity to see what one's like with a little care and feeding seems so good.
Doubly so if you have a whack at autocross!
I need to get mine going soon. I had a burst of motivation when I bought it and that stopped just short of getting it running. Now that I have a couple open bays in my garage I'll pull it in and hopefully get it going.
I've always wanted to build a homegrown Sierra RS by putting a 2.3L Duratec from a Ford Ranger (plus turbo kit) into an XR4Ti.
Considering Ford will sell you a brand new 2.3L Ecoboost (complete with turbo, starter, alternator, and wiring harness) for $5500 these days, that's probably the better option:
Bad marketing on Fords part, expensive on list price, and expensive to fix when they broke. But I still loved them although I never owned one. For the same price, but faster and cheaper to own was the SVO Mustang.
LanEvo said:I've always wanted to build a homegrown Sierra RS by putting a 2.3L Duratec from a Ford Ranger (plus turbo kit) into an XR4Ti.
Considering Ford will sell you a brand new 2.3L Ecoboost (complete with turbo, starter, alternator, and wiring harness) for $5500 these days, that's probably the better option:
Dave Clark has an Ecoboost in his rally xr4ti:
http://www.rallyanarchy.com/phorum/read.php?5,106139
I'm always so conflicted when articles like this give XR4TIs attention. First, I'm all like "Cool! Someone is finally giving the XR a bit of positive recognition." Then I'm like "Crap! This going to increase interest and push up prices." Fortunately, the XR seems to have been relatively immune to receiving either positive attention or increasing prices. Still, I'm glad to have gotten mine when I did, and have no plans to get rid of it. And hopefully, the abandoned XR project I'm working on will be done for the $2018 Challenge.
BTW, with regard to the bad marketing on Ford's part, yeah, there is that. Poor marketing, poor name choice, poor dealership choice, poor salesman education, poor understanding of the car in general, poor consumer interest, and all that. But it's frustrating to see all those things still negatively impact the perception of what is a very straight forward and simple, easy to work on, relatively reliable, decent quality, comfortable and capable, inexpensive, fun to drive car. Even in completely stock form, there's something very likably European about them, and if modded in wise ways, they can be quick and fast as well without losing that composed European character. And despite rumors to the contrary, a well sorted and tuned up 2.3 Lima isn't that unrefined. And for the record, parts sourcing isn't all that bad either... certainly not any worse than sourcing parts for most and 30 year old European car (or domestic really).
I’ve seen one here in Edmonton that had a 302 swapped in.
I've always wanted one of these, just so I could correct people when they inevitably pronounce the name wrong.
Had a neighbor with one in our small town that never moved that I could tell. Every time I’ve gone back home in the last 20 years I would look to see if it was there, last year it was not. I was sad. I always thought it was cool.
A very similar article in a 1999 issue of GRM made me seek one out that year. They were hard to find, as were some parts with very light internet back then... even though some were only 10 years old at that point. Lots of mail order with Rapido and BAT.
I ended up driving one for either my daily, or as a fun car for the next decade. I had 4 of them. Had a lot of fun with them. Built up a powerful 2.3, and bought all the genuine RS500 body parts from the UK. Sold off the parts before it was ever finished though... car ended up getting rusty rockers that I didn’t want to deal with. That cladding was good at hiding rust. Lots of good memories and friends made through the Merkursport website. I still kick around the idea of buying another one.... They were misunderstood by many people, and gained an (IMO) unfair reputation of being unreliable. The truth is most people didn’t know how to fix them.
Nice to see other people appreciate them!
Been wanting one for a long time, they're obscure enough that they fit my oddball personality. Because I can't just own "regular" cars...I have to own obscure regular cars. 
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