Ford’s partnership with Mazda started within the early Nineteen Seventies, when the Mazda Proceed pickup went on sale right here because the Ford Courier. By the center Nineties, Ford owned a 3rd of Mazda and had profited handsomely by the usage of Mazda engineering in its automobiles. The 1991 and later Escort was sibling to the Mazda 323/Protegé, for instance, and Mazda was in a position to money in on the SUV craze early by promoting Ford Explorers with Navajo badges. One of many extra attention-grabbing merchandise of the Mazda-Ford partnership (which was terminated when Ford offered off its Mazda stake within the wake of the 2008 monetary disaster) was the Ford Probe, a sporty liftback coupe offered for the 1989 by 1997 mannequin years. Here is one of many remaining Probes offered in america, present in a San Francisco Bay Space automotive graveyard.
The automotive world was making a large shift into front-wheel-drive equipment by the daybreak of the Eighties, because of the fuel-economy and interior-space advantages derived from driving the entrance wheels with a weight-saving engine/transaxle package deal, and reminiscences of the 1979 Oil Disaster remained vivid. The Ford Mustang went onto the brand new rear-wheel-drive Fox Platform for the 1979 mannequin yr (ending a shameful five-year interregnum of Pinto-based Mustangs) and gross sales have been sturdy because the Eighties progressed … however the fits in Dearborn and Hiroshima cooked up a plan to place the Mustang on a modified Mazda 626 chassis beginning with the 1989 mannequin yr.
This all made good sense when you discounted the emotional attachment People had developed for V8-engined rear-wheel-drive Mustangs beginning a few many years earlier than. The Mazda design with a sizzling V6 engine would eat up a Fox Mustang on any race monitor involving corners and it simply regarded quick. Who might object to that? When information of the next-generation Mustang with its Japanese ancestry, wrong-wheel-drive and non-V8 energy (by no means thoughts that the majority first-generation Mustangs have been offered with straight-six engines) leaked by way of Autoweek in 1987, nonetheless, the howls of shock have been rapid and deafening.
So, Ford stored the Fox Mustang in manufacturing (by 1993 or 2004, relying on how strictly you outline a Fox) and dug up the identify used on the 1979-1985 Probe idea vehicles to be used on the erstwhile fourth-generation Mustang. The Probe ended up having fun with respectable gross sales numbers and most people within the blue-oval world appeared blissful sufficient.
In the meantime, North American Mazda sellers have been in a position to promote a mechanically equivalent and similar-looking coupe referred to as the MX-6, and the Probe’s bread-and-butter Mazda 626 cousins rolled out of the identical plant in Flat Rock.
Ford’s Mercury Division had finished properly sufficient by pasting its badges on the Australian-built Ford Capri right here, regardless of that automotive being a front-driver primarily based on the Mazda 323 platform. The Capri identify hadn’t been fairly as sacred right here, although; it began out on a Lincoln in 1952, grew to become a trim-level designation for the Mercury Comet in 1966, moved to a European-built Ford offered by Mercury sellers (although by no means formally given Mercury badging right here), then went onto the Mercury-badged Fox Mustang for the 1979 by 1986 mannequin years. Some mannequin names are simply extra sacred than others.
Mustang purity was maintained, however I can say from having labored greater than 150 road-race occasions as a 24 Hours of Lemons official {that a} inventory 1989-1997 Probe will annihilate a inventory 1989-1997 Mustang on a street course (given drivers of roughly equal ability ranges), even when the Probe has a four-cylinder engine and the Mustang has a V8. Does this matter right this moment, when the fury over a Mexico-built electrical SUV with Mustang badges appears so muted in comparison with the Probe/Mustang controversies of many years in the past?
The Probe identify additionally lends itself to top-notch themes in Lemons racing.
This automotive is a base-grade mannequin with the Mazda 2.0-liter DOHC straight-four engine, rated at 118 horsepower and 118 pound-feet. The Probe GT acquired a 2.5-liter Mazda V6 with 164 horsepower and 160 pound-feet.
With the non-compulsory automated transmission (a five-speed guide was base gear), this automotive would have been a handsome and economical commuter and never rather more.
It barely squeezed previous the 50,000-mile mark throughout its 26-year profession and nonetheless regarded respectable in and out on the finish.
It seems that a minor fender-bender doomed it.
The bottom 1997 Probe listed at $14,280, or about $27,626 in 2023 {dollars}. Nevertheless, your native Ford supplier typically sweetened Probe offers by the center Nineties, as we see on this industrial. How a lot was the most affordable doable 1997 Mustang? $15,355, or about $29,705 after inflation (although its 3.8-liter pushrod V6 engine made a base-Probe-beating 150 horses).
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