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 Nineteen Nineties, Ford owned a 3rd of Mazda and had profited handsomely by way of 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 capable of 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 bought off its Mazda stake within the wake of the 2008 monetary disaster) was the Ford Probe, a sporty liftback coupe bought for the 1989 by way of 1997 mannequin years. Here is one of many closing Probes bought in the US, present in a San Francisco Bay Space automobile graveyard.
The automotive world was making a large shift into front-wheel-drive equipment by the daybreak of the Nineteen Eighties, because of the fuel-economy and interior-space advantages derived from driving the entrance wheels with a weight-saving engine/transaxle bundle, and recollections 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 had been sturdy because the Nineteen 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 Individuals had developed for V8-engined rear-wheel-drive Mustangs beginning a few a long time earlier than. The Mazda design with a sizzling V6 engine would eat up a Fox Mustang on any race observe involving corners and it simply seemed quick. Who may 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 almost all first-generation Mustangs had been bought with straight-six engines) leaked through Autoweek in 1987, nonetheless, the howls of shock had been instant and deafening.
So, Ford stored the Fox Mustang in manufacturing (by way of 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 glad sufficient.
In the meantime, North American Mazda sellers had been capable of promote a mechanically similar 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 executed effectively sufficient by pasting its badges on the Australian-built Ford Capri right here, regardless of that automobile 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 bought 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 way of 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 at present, when the fury over a Mexico-built electrical SUV with Mustang badges appears so muted in comparison with the Probe/Mustang controversies of a long time in the past?
The Probe identify additionally lends itself to top-notch themes in Lemons racing.
This automobile 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 obtained 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 automobile would have been a handsome and economical commuter and never far more.
It barely squeezed previous the 50,000-mile mark throughout its 26-year profession and nonetheless seemed respectable inside and outside 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}. Nonetheless, your native Ford vendor usually sweetened Probe offers by the center Nineteen Nineties, as we see on this industrial. How a lot was the most affordable potential 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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