Rusty But Trusty

Sellers who pack their listings with unrelated keywords are mostly an annoyance, but every so often the perp does give it a little thought, and you unintentionally find an interesting car, thanks to their efforts. Even if you were just fuming because listings for Lexuses are filling up your search results. Regular readers probably are already familiar with the Merkur – based on the European Ford Sierra, with the 2.3-liter Lima four, turbocharged, two spoilers (one is not enough!), and other awesome 1980s styling cliches. Going for the manual transmission got you an additional 30hp to 175, so do not go into an automatic lightly. This first-year 1985 Merkur XR4Ti is for sale for $3100 in Pacific Beach (near San Diego), CA.

Wait a minute – for this price, you can usually expect fading paint, missing bits of trim, and tasteless modifications. This car is absolutely stock, and is said to have recent work including new clutch, smog check, valve job, timing belt, waterpump, thermostat and housing, turbo, front brake rotors and pads. Isn’t this the kind of owner we all aspire to be? Someone who relentlessly pours money down the intake of a classic car, knowing in his heart it will reward him if he just keeps giving.

Perhaps a good question would be, “after investing all that money, why are you giving it up?” Not to insinuate there’s some problem with the car – fun cars are for fun, but when the fun (or the money) runs out, it can be time to move along. So the refrigerator white is not the most inspiring color for the car, but you get California sunset plates and shiny paint on a car that looks to have been carefully stored in a tidy warehouse.

Here’s the recipient of most of the attention. Eighties turbo lag should be fun in a rear-wheel drive car on a slick surface. Things look to be in reasonably clean driver condition, not out of line for a car with 120,000 miles. Barring any disasters, it should be ready to drive for several miles to come.

Here’s the interior. You owe it to yourself to take a look at the other interior shots in the listing – the seats show nary a tear, stain, or sunburn, and the carpets are in similar shape. This is the way you want to buy one of these – with obvious signs of the owner’s care for his best beloved.

Tags: american, Feature, german, hatchback, merkur, xr4ti

This entry was posted on January 25, 2014 at 5:00 am and is filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.