• 24 hours of lemons

    The Top 94 Lemons Of The 24 Hours Of LeMons South Spring 2009

    After every 24 Hours Of LeMons race, we put together this list of the top finishers for you. And when we say "top," we mean "every single car that managed to get onto the track." More »
    Feature
    04/11/09
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  • 24 hours of lemons

    The 24 Hours Of LeMons Texas Gator-O-Rama Ãœber Gallery: The Europeans

    As always, there was no shortage of BMW E30s at the last LeMons race, but we also saw representatives of British Leyland, German subsidiaries of the Detroit Big Three, and a whole squadron of Saabs. More »
    03/22/09
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  • 24 hours of lemons

    Bustin' Parts At The 24 Hours Of LeMons South

    They're back on the track for Day Two of racin' at the 24 Hours of LeMons South, and lust for the checkered flag has turned all these formerly polite Southern boys into a bunch of PCP-overdosed Junior Johnsons, with dramatic spinouts galore (yes, we'll have some action shots in a little while). A contributing factor to the higher speeds today is the less crowded track. Why less crowded, you ask? Well, when you pay $500 (or "$500") for a race car, you don't always get 100% bulletproof reliability. More »
    07/27/08
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    Comment by Stuntdriver: @Stuntdriver: creativity is the key... a golf "tow-amino"... volvo a station dressed as an ambulance... more » | Other threads

  • novelties

    Which Dead US Automotive Nameplates Should Remain Buried?

    Seems the boss-man has been moonlighting again over at Popular Mechanics, this time advising Detroit about which of its dead nameplates should remain six feet under. We won't give away Ray's picks; you'll have to head over to PopMech for those, but we've tossed our own version together after the jump. More »
    Feature
    07/24/08
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  • choose your eternity

    Project Car Hell: Lancia Scorpion or Merkur XR4Ti?

    The blowout Choose Your Eternity polls are fun, but we really enjoy the nail-bitingly close races... which is what we got yesterday, with the Roots-blown Old Beetle just barely beating the Pro Street Peugeot in a 175-165 vote split. Does that mean a German car just upset Project Car Hell GigaTeraPower France, or does the Detroit engine water down the 200-proof Frenchness of the Peugeot? We'll leave that question open for now, because today we're going to see how an Italian basket case fares against a brutalized European Ford! More »
    06/05/08
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    Comment by OrangeBoss9: Having owned an '88 Merkur Scorpio, the Merkur got the nod... even fresh off the dealer lot that thing was... more » | Other threads

  • classic ad watch

    The Ford Sierra XR4 Is Angry... Very Angry!

    We knew the double-winged turbocharged Ford Sierra as the Merkur XR4ti on these shores, and the TV ads for the car weren't all that interesting. But this Spanish-language ad really shows how mean the car really was. It growls! Slinky babes can't resist a man in an XR4- this ad is the proof!
    12/27/07
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    Comment by NombreyApellido: That's the 1984 Argentinean TV ad! /Chris more » | Other threads

  • down on the street

    1987 Merkur XR4Ti

    Does a 20-year-old car qualify for this series? In the case of the Merkur XR4Ti, I think it does- these things were pretty rare to begin with, and time has not been kind to the few that Ford did manage to sell. Sure, it was actually an Americanized Ford Sierra- common as hell in Europe at the time- but there were Dearborn dreams of the thing seeming exotic enough to swipe sales from the Germans and Japanese on these shores. This example, spotted in Alameda's East End, is in excellent shape- could it be someone has painstakingly restored a Merkur? More »
    11/09/07
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    Comment by janvanv: Man lots of strong opinions. One thing that these cars today are and that is good cheap fun. Parts are... more » | Other threads

  • classic ad watch

    Look Out, BMW, Saab, And Audi! Merkur Is Here To Eat Your Lunch!

    The XR4Ti roared out of Lincoln-Mercury-Merkur dealerships, ready to do battle with the best European sporty sedans! Unfortunately for FoMoCo, the number of roaring Merkurs on the battlefield was tiny and they were never heard from again. Bonus points for incredible 80s-ness on this ad's soundtrack! – Murilee Martin More »
    06/26/07
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    Comment by superbad: My first car when I turned 16, and still my favorite in some ways. What a ridiculous car that was. more » | Other threads

  • retro

    Half-Price Day Junkyard Day

    Uttering the phrase half price anywhere near the word junkyard sends a couple of the Jalops driving with toolbox toward the self-service junkyard like so many moths to a streetlight on a summer night. One of the larger self-service yards in California had a statewide half price sale a while back and we were there in NoCal and SoCal. Bumbeck headed down out of the hills into hot and dusty Sun Valley while Martin ventured out onto the mean streets of Hayward from Alameda. Out of the thousands of cars being picked apart we've chosen ten that qualify to enter into the pantheon of Jalopnik half-price day junkyard specials. Our selections in blazing full color after the jump. More »
    Feature
    03/29/07
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  • retro

    Turbo Gremlin!

    Back in late 1970, Clarence Milstead purchased a 1971 AMC Gremlin. As time went on, he began tinkering with the six-cylinder Kammback hatch until the fateful day he saw an XR4Ti in a junkyard, yanked its turbocharger and plumbed it in, using a carburetor bonnet scavenged from a Mitsubishi-built Chrylser Hemi 4-cylinder. What fully awesome cars used the Hemi 4? That's right kids, the Conquest and its Starions! As time's gone on Milstead's continued to widdle with the Gremmie, converting the front drums to discs and dropping the final-drive ratio to 3.55. We'd be proud to drive this car. We'd be even prouder to say we built it ourselves. – Davey G. Johnson More »
    02/21/07
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    Comment by SpudMills: Gremlins is cool. more » | Other threads

  • retro: racing

    IMSA Merkurs! Yes!

    Back when Ford was preparing to launch Merkur, they decided it might raise a bit of brand awareness to campaign the XR4Ti in IMSA's GTU class. With a slight dip in displacement over the car's Pinto-based 2.3 mill, the cars, prepared and campaigned by Kent Racing. A bit later, FoMoCo shifted the XR4Ti's mission to Trans-Am and over-two-litre IMSA competition, with the Merks running under Roush's aegis. Peter Cipolla, a man from the Show-Me State we can throw our weight behind, has rescued a couple of these mighty orphan warriors from bygone days, and for that, we owe him a package of schnitzel and an ice-cold MGD. – Davey G. Johnson More »
    02/21/07
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    Comment by FЯeeMan: @frank williams: and that explains the demise of the Taurus how? oh, wait, nevermind... more » | Other threads

  • retro

    Lutz Explains Why the XR4Ti Failed

    While Lutz recently explained to Automotive News why the reborn Goat went so soon to slaughter, we might want to look back at another Bob Lutz project that combined great-for-its day power with a rear-drive IRS package: The Merkur XR4Ti. Pulled from a 1998 interview, Lutz explains what killed Ford's 3-Series rival in the American market after the jump. More »
    02/21/07
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    Comment by superbad: @smarkle99: This was my first car when I turned 16. Parents: this is a bad, bad idea. I only got... more » | Other threads

  • retro

    The Late, Lamented Mustang SVO: Ford Attempts Formula SUPER POTENTIAL!

    What was the coolest of the Fox-body Mustangs? Without a doubt, it's the SVO. Obviously threatened by the birth of the Mitsubishi Starion, Ford decided to take the fabulous Mitsubishi on using its own formula: slightly-over-two-litre turbocharged I4, sport tuned suspension Space Shuttle-look exterior components, etc. Its 2.3 turbo mill also found its way into the Merkur XR4ti — the main difference between that car and its European Sierra twin. Truth be told, though, we'd still rather have the Merkur or the Mitsu. – Davey G. Johnson More »
    02/21/07
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    Comment by IppoJ: I wanted one of these realllly badly in '84 and by '85 they were going for the same price as... more » | Other threads

  • news

    History is Bunk: Fortune Gets Dumb

    Alex Taylor makes a case against Ford bringing over European models that's based largely on suckiness. He cites the Merkur catastrophe as the rationale behind Americans not wanting European Fords. The reason Americans didn't want European Fords is that they knew not what the hell a Merkur was. I, as a child who watched a rather average amount of television in the 1980s, only knew about Merkur when we stopped by a Lincoln/Mercury dealership to get a part for our Colony Park and I saw a Sierra XR4i sitting on the lot and wondered what the hell that was about. More »
    02/06/07
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    Comment by Drive-thru: said gifted car was an escort. more » | Other threads

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