Turbo Project: 1985 Merkur XR4TI
This 1985 Merkur XR4Ti is a project, but a worthwhile one when you consider how few of these are left in stock condition with the preferred manual gearbox. The cosmetics are rough and the seller notes that the gas tank is rotten, but it does run and drive. The Merkur isn’t worth a whole lot on the collector car market but it’s still not uncommon to see virgin specimens sell quickly. I would say this car’s colors will hold it back a bit, as most enthusiasts want one of these hot hatches in red or black. Still, it looks like an honest project for reasonable money. Find the Merkur here on craigslist with an asking price of $2,750 near Binghamton, New York.
Now, despite the tired cosmetics, anyone looking for one of these Merkurs in the northeast is likely to jump on this example solely for not having to pay big bucks to ship it. You simply don’t find vintage cars like this in places like Binghamton where everything over a certain age has rusted away. The Merkur doesn’t have the biggest aftermarket, but plenty of owners have found ways to modify it; fortunately, this example appears to have escaped that fate, with its stock wheels still mounted up and the original nose and bi-plane spoiler in place. The nose panel is sometimes upgraded with the Sierra Cosworth front end, and actually looks a fair bit better than the USDM nose.
The seller’s car is very original inside, and once you move past the badly cracked dash, you see some neat features. The Merkur comes with the original “C-Box,” which was made by a company called Fisher and used for cassette storage in many European cars in the 1980s. Often, it was a dealer accessory you could buy before driving your new car home for the first time. There also appears to be a stock radio head unit or at least a period-correct aftermarket unit that looks just right for the Merkur’s interior. The cracked dash is sadly not uncommon in these cars, but given how many of them still litter junkyards, I’m willing to bet you could find a good one with some looking. Of course, the manual gearbox is a big selling point of this example.
The turbocharged 2.3L engine isn’t the most exotic mill you’ve ever seen, but it got the job done (and then some) in cars like the Merkur and the SVO Mustang. The engine could definitely be modified in the form of more boost and upgraded intercoolers, but given the seller purchased this Merkur from the original owner, I’m guessing the days of upgrading were pretty far behind them at this point. That’s a good thing for the next owner who gets to start with a blank slate in terms of restoring this Merkur or building it into a high-performance sport compact car in the finest 1980s tradition. Would you restore or upgrade this Merkur?
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Comments
Thank you for posting this. I’m outside NYC and may drive over to buy this.
They never made an automatic xr4ti..
did they ?
Yes, the automatic was available for all years of the XR4Ti. I owned one. It was not the greatest transmission. Mine had to be rebuilt twice in the four years that I had the car.
Yep,
I have a parts car with auto at the back of my ranch here in Ca. It really flew with the turbo engaged. @.3 engine had cast iron block ; could not kill it.
Yes they made an automatic
And man, were these dogs with the auto, compared to the manual.
Before I bought my manual ’85, I had a friend who worked at a Mercury dealer who had 2 used ’86 autos on the lot and he would sell me one for a great deal. I drove one and tried to like it, but just couldn’t.
I Had an automatic. It was an 87. I’m looking for another one. Planing to put a 3.2 twin turbo or an 3.6 Eco boost in it with a better rear-end to handle the power.
Auto was not available in this model ?
Yes – autos were available and unfortunately far too common.
I really like this color myself.
I disagree with Jeff’s assertion that these cars litter junkyards. They don’t – at least in the west. They all aged out by the early 00s in these parts where we don’t have to deal with the spectre of rust.
They were marketed elsewhere as the Ford Sierra. The Sierra RS500 Cosworth Turbo was raced extensively in Australia in 88-92 winning the ATCC twice and the Bathurst 1000. They were incredibly fast and good handling and held lap records for many years.
I remember seeing the Fords when I was working in Croatia/Slovenia in 1983. They used leaded premium gas. It’s said that smell is the most powerful memory trigger, and I remember smelling that gas and being transported back to 1965!
Merkur is also a shop here in Romania :D.
But it seams like a nice car!
I love these cars,but would run the other way
on this one.You’ll be spending a ton of money fixing
everything,& will have trouble tracking down some of
the parts.
When our 34K Cortina got totaled,I looked into buying
one of these,& looked on a club’s website.Basicly,it said
that anything that could go wrong probably will.
These were definitely more popular than the Scorpion.
Yes, this car is a derivative of the “XR4i” Ford Sierra over in UK and Europe which originally had the normally-aspirated V6. There are a large number of detail changes to the XR4Ti versus the original XR4i, in order to make it saleable in the US – the engine being the most significant of course.
The Sierra Cosworth is a separate model again from the XR4i, and had a turbo-charged 2.0 4-cylinder motor developed with Cosworth, different engine entirely from the US market cars. and yes, the Sierra Cosworths were very successful in “Saloon Car” or “Touring car” class on the track as well as in rallying.
In South Africa we had the ultimate Sierra XR6, the 302 V8 standard from the factory.
https://fastestlaps.com/models/ford-sierra-xr8
It fought many a heated battle against the Alfa GTV’s and BMW’s 333i, another South African concoction with the straight six 3,3 engine
https://germancarsforsaleblog.com/1985-bmw-333i/
Interestingly, the Alfa GTV 3.0L V6 also had its origins in South Africa. I remember watching these three warriors battle it out at Kyalami. Such great memories.
My favourite was the Alfa, of course, as it out handled the other two.
The pinch welds will have rust, the electrical system will be a mess. These are very large money pits and need constant repairs. I had 2, I know.
I bought into the Merkur after we had a Hertz-rental Sierra for a work trip around Europe. It was on the Mercury showroom floor tarped over on Thursday for a Saturday reveal. I had to tell the sales guy about the car and bought (unfortunately) that first delivery. Ford had Karmann build up the bodies and they used the first run to teach the line how to build them but they didn’t do very well. Other Merkur owners could join me in listing what went wrong with the cars, but I will confine myself to two: valve stem seals didn’t, and the French-built manual trannys were sourced from the Capri and couldn’t handle the 175 hp turbo. I finally solved that problem with a T5 kit from Russ Harness at Rapido.
If you have something else to drive that is reliable then a Merkur could still be eye candy to some…
I had an ‘85 xr4ti very similar to the subject car. Mine was a darker blue, cut this one may just be faded. I loved that car and it was the only manual transmission I have ever owned…but it was perfect for that car. Ultimately I traded it for a Saab 9000 turbo, also a very nice car!
I had a ’87 XR4Ti, auto trans. One good thing about the car was that it hardly consumed any oil. Even after 100K miles, it would burn maybe 1/4 of a quart between oil changes. The engine itself seemed quite good. But the scariest thing about it was the ignition system. All of these cars had the Ford TFI-IV ignition module, which was also on many other Ford vehicles. Mine had to be replaced twice. What is quite scary about it is that it can shut off the engine at any time. People died because of this module. There was a class-action lawsuit which Ford’s attorneys managed to drag along through the legal system for enough years that by the time a settlement was reached, not many people still owned the cars. And you had to still own the car to get any benefit from the settlement. I didn’t anymore, so I didn’t get anything, along with most other people.
Thanks, I forgot about the TFI ignition. I only had one fail but did push oil through the valve stem seams. They were replaced several times.
When the turbo started to not spin I went to the Mercury parts counter: no, we don’t have any parts and a new turbo is $1100 in 1988 dollars. Russ Harness came through again and I got a turbo rebuild kit for my coked bearings. It came in a Ford Motorsport box.
Back in the day we used to go all over uk buying the xr4i fantastic sellers especially the 1985 model with power steering , White was the one of the best sellers.
Nick.
sourced from the Capri and couldn’t handle the… a Merkur could still be eye candy to some…”
Yeah, I thought of the usa version as a capri replacement https://www.automobilecatalog.com/model/ford_europe/capri_europe_3gen.html
which was a stang replacement.
I owned a 1985 Merkur XR4 Ti manual 5 spd. for over 6 years and loved it. Had very few issues (A/C was the major one). Sold it with about 130,000 on it and years later the buyer told me he put about 240,000 on it before the engine needed an overhaul, so he scrapped it.
Fun car to drive, terrible car to maintain.
I had an ’85 manual and rebuilt the original transmission, then replaced it and then had to rebuild that one too. And that was without beating the crap out of it.
I think I paid $6500 for it when it was less than 3 years old. Talk about depreciation.
If anyone has a line on a manual gearbox from one of these, I am interested.