Junkyard Find: 1989 Merkur XR4Ti

Every so often during the 1970s and 1980s, the suits in Detroit had an inspiration: Take one of the corporation's European-market vehicles, throw some new badges at it, and sell it in the United States. Chrysler did it with the Hillman Avenger aka Plymouth Cricket, GM did it with the Opel Kadett aka Buick Opel, and Ford did it with the Ford Capri aka "the Capri." While these deals never worked out so well when it came to the bottom line (though the Simca-derived Omnirizon did pretty well for Chrysler), Ford didn't give up on the idea. Bob Lutz decided that a Mercury-badged Ford Sierra with a turbocharged Pinto engine would be just the ticket for stealing BMW customers: the Merkur XR4Ti. The XR4Ti was rear-wheel-drive and reasonably quick for its time, but car shoppers were confused by the Merkur brand and the build quality was iffy. Here's a Crusher-bound example of the final-year XR4Ti, spotted in a Denver self-service yard. Merkur dealerships couldn't even move 3,000 of these cars in 1989, which makes this a very rare car. The biplane spoiler of the first few years of the XR4Ti became this tamer-looking single spoiler. from The Truth About Cars http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com

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