Mercury in German! 1988 Merkur XR4Ti
In 1982, Ford introduced the Sierra in Europe as the successor to the Cortina/Taunus product lines. The then-head of European operations thought there would be a market for an Americanized version and spearheaded an effort to bring the XR4Ti over in 1985. It was branded under the name Merkur (which meant Mercury in German) and was sold at Mercury dealers. It was not a popular product and Merkur was gone by the end of the decade. This XR4Ti looks to be in great shape and needs a new home. Found in Franklin Square, New York, this oddly named automobile is available here on craigslist for $11,900. Thanks, Johnny B, for giving the heads-up here!
The XR4Ti came in one body style, a 3-door hatchback, and was marketed as the performance version of the Sierra. Since GM was already using the Sierra name in the U.S., the decision was made to introduce the car as a Merkur, a brand not used in Europe before the auto came to North America. Within its name, the “T” stood for Turbocharged and the “I” for fuel injection. Due to a lack of production capacity, the XR4Ti was built by a contractor and largely assembled by hand.
Over its five-year stint, just over 42,000 XRT4is made it to North America, and in 1988 sales barely cracked 6,000 units. The market and the dealer network didn’t seem to understand the car, so Ford threw in the towel after 1989. It would be the last vehicle that the company would bring to NA for the next 27 years. With a 5-speed manual transmission, the XR4Ti like the seller’s car should have been good for 175 hp and competing with BMW was a Ford goal.
Chances are if you take this Merkur home, you’ll get a lot of questions at Cars & Coffee, like “What is it?” and “Who made it?”. It seems like an unmolested car with a lot of life left at 88,000 miles. The “Mercury” has all sorts of goodies like leather upholstery, a sunroof, and what may be its original Strato Silver Metallic paint. The seller has a stack of receipts that should account for a custom aluminum radiator, renewed turbo unit, brakes, tires, and sundry of other items. If you’re looking for a car to show off that no one else is likely to have, this Merkur could be it!
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Comments
Seems pricey, but one could quickly end up with the same amount invested by buying a tired XR4Ti with many needs for a few thousand.
I had the exact same year XR4Ti with the 5 speed and enjoyed it immensely. Also had a Ford Sierra with all wheel drive too. These cars made a ton of money for Ford in Europe with a wide range of engines and configurations.
I think it depends on the condition and drivability. I’d pay close to the asking price for an XR4ti if it ran and drove safely and everything worked like they should.
This happens to be my car. Everything works down to every bulb. Original paint with fading silver. Its my daily driver. Was on my bucket list and its time to move on to the next item on list. Nothing but fun and giggles owning her.
My Merkur was a 1985, bought the Saturday they uncovered it in the showroom. We were in Europe in 1984 and had a Sierra rental, drove it from Freiburg Germany across the country, through Austria to then communist Hungary. It was comfortable, well balanced, had enough oomph for the autobahn and that was the preview for the purchase. The first cars, like mine, were the practice series, hand-assembled at Karmann. Great seating, full leather, the turbo had additional water cooling (didn’t help, it coked up on Mobil 1) and numerous other issues. Replacing the crappy trans with a T5 solved a big design issue. OTOH, if I had the parking space and still had the service manual I would consider this, but not sure my spouse would agree.
A real flash in the pan. The first one I ever saw was in the trade-in lot of the Chrysler dealer I worked for in 1985. Up to that minute I didn’t know there was such a thing. Nobody knew what it was. I didn’t see another for several years after that. It seems to have the right stuff to be a fun car to drive but without advertising and word of mouth or any buzz whatsoever it made zero impression and was gone before anyone knew it was here. Ford blew the opportunity.
Ford, and the other American manufacturers, have never understood the foreign car market.
XR4TIs show up for sale on a regular basis….but what happened to the Scorpio?
Scorpios were only sold here for two model years, ’88-89, comprising only about 22,000 cars in total, whereas the XR4Ti sold over 25,000 cars for its first two years alone (’85-86) and continued to sell in declining numbers until its final year ’89 when Ford called it quits on the Merkur marque.
I submitted a Scorpio that was for sale on Craig’s List about a week ago and was hoping that a BF writer would pick it up.
In hindsight, they probably should have just canceled or renamed the Fox-body Mercury Capri, so they could revive using Capri as a well-recognized submarque for sporty imported Euro Fords sold through Mercury dealers, rather than inventing the hard-to-pronounce Merkur brand with zero name recognition. They could even use the same logo they designed for Merkur and have it simply say Capri instead.
Then, as with the original Capri models, this model would have started out badged as simply “Capri” (no other marque or model), then later they might give it more specific model designation (maybe just XR4, as XR4Ti was too much alphabet-soup) when they added a sedan model as the Capri Scorpio. Mazda-built captive-import Mercury models such as the first-gen Tracer and the final Capri roadster (badged as, say, a Capri Barchetta or XR2?) could have slotted in as well, to expand Capri into a full-line captive-import marque.
These were solid sport coupes ruined by a name nobody could pronounce and dealers that weren’t interested in selling it.
In 1988 Ford invited us to Sears Point for the Trans-Am race. Scott Pruett was driving a Merkur and we got to say hi, etc. Then the suits got up. Then-CEO Edsel Ford told us that they valued us as customers and Ford would support us and not back out. About 8 months later…buh-bye. Russia Harness had established Rapido Motors, supporting SVOs and XR4ti and Scorpio, helped me keep mine going after Ford was going, going, gone.
Why no double wing in the back?
I think the double ones were dropped in 1987 or 1988. The double wing put a great “set” and the car was almost glued down until…driving across the San Mateo (aka S&M) Bridge a side wind would suddenly dump the downforce. it kept me alert.
The biplane wing became this single wing for ’88-89, when they redesigned the hatch for a larger rear window with an integrated radio antenna, among many other refinements and improvements that make those the years to get if you’re not dead-set on the biplane wing. It’s possible to revert to the biplane wing, but only if you replace the entire rear hatch along with it.
Based on BF reader comments over the past couple of years, these were hit or miss if you had major problems or not.
My ’85 that I bought in ’87 for $6500 was a huge miss. Manual tranny problems costing more than I paid for the car over the course of 2 years, electrical gremlins, water leaks, list goes on. But, it was a blast to drive.
I would like to know why Ford couldn’t bring the XR to the states with the Cosworth engine when Chevy had the Vega back in the 70’s with a Cosworth engine?
This happens to be my car. Everything works down to every bulb. Original paint with fading silver. Its my daily driver. Was on my bucket list and its time to move on to the next item on list. Nothing but fun and giggles owning her.
They needed an engine that was already certified for US-DOT emissions compliance and shared in common with other models in the US market — in this case the Mustang SVO and T-bird Turbo Coupe engine, derived from the venerable “Lima” OHC engine that was around since the Pinto — as it would have been cost-prohibitive to certify and service an engine that was completely unique to this model on this side of the pond.
Why they didn’t simply use the Cologne V6, which was available in the Euro Ford Sierras and eventually used on the Merkur Scorpio when they started importing those, remains a mystery; maybe the turbo-4 was perceived as sportier and more sophisticated than that older pushrod V6 design.
If only Merkur had continued past ’89, we might imagine “what could have been” if they’d updated it with the Yamaha-built SHO V6 that debuted in the ’89 Taurus SHO. I gather that engine can be swapped into an XR4Ti by using the bellhousing from a V6 Aerostar minivan, but this may be a fool’s errand by now with SHO parts becoming scarce, and that bellhousing already hard to find anyway. Not sure if/why a Ranger or Mazda B3000 bellhousing wouldn’t work, also being RWD models available with the Vulcan V6 from the Taurus with the same bellhousing bolt pattern as the SHO V6.
Turbo Twinkes is what kids (that drove old V8 powered cars) in the ’80’s called these cars.
The Motorheads rebranded this specific model the 4U2PN.
No one else is likely to have one of these cars – for good reason.