As performance and sport compact cars from the 1980s and 90s continue to appreciate, the Merkur XR4Ti seems to remain an outlier. I’ve shared a similar sentiment about another turbocharged Ford product, the Ford Mustang SVO. Is there a curse surrounding the turbo Fords? No, not necessarily, but there’s certainly a smaller following for cars like this XR4Ti, which has low miles and some very desirable upgrades if you’re a Merkur enthusiast. Find it here on Facebook Marketplace for $10,000, which he indicates is a firm price owing to the genuine RS500 body kit and other upgrades.
On the surface, there really wasn’t much not to like about the Merkur. It’s rear-wheel drive, makes good power, and has that obvious European influence. You can see this in the driver-focused cockpit, the nicely bolstered front buckets, and of course, a 5-speed manual (in other words, there’s no mistaking this for a Thunderbird). The bi-plane style rear wing and hatch design was a direct shout-out to the car’s rally lineage, with its exploits in Europe showcasing it to be a formidable competitor on the cruelest stages nature could throw at a driver. On paper, the Merkur seemed to have every box checked.
Once again, the failure of the Merkur had less to do with its actual engineering and more to do with marketing. As someone who works in the public relations field for his day job, it blows my mind to look back and see how badly my industry forebears did at pushing enthusiast vehicles to actual enthusiasts. The Merkur was sold via Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury dealership network, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. To send an actual enthusiast car geared towards someone cross-shopping it with a Toyota Celica or a BMW 3-Series to a Mercury dealership makes zero sense. In stock form, the SOHC Lima engine made 175 horsepower and 195 lb.-ft. of torque.
The seller of this example has added a variety of upgrades beyond the RS500 bodykit, which is a big dollar item by itself. He’s also added these smoked taillights, which were all the rage for European car fans in the 1980s. The wheels are aftermarket jobs as well and look pretty sharp, but I’d be shopping for something a bit more period-correct if it were me. The exhaust is a Borla unit, it has an adjustable fuel pressure regulator, and a steering wheel from a Sierra. The asking price is likely entirely fair given the condition, low miles, and rare parts, but it will take some time to find that buyer.
They left out the vents on the hood,and that front end
doesn’t look right for an RS500.
I helped sell a big Cortina collection of saveable cars
& engine parts.My jaw dropped when I looked in one box and
found a Cosworth head that went to a 2 litre engine.
I couldn’t edit my original post.Here’s the right one.
I think the car was unsuccessful here because, well, it’s ugly. It looks like a jelly bean that wanted to do NASCAR. Plus a ridiculous spoiler times two. Besides that, it had to go against a whole plethora of mostly better (and better looking) Japanese, American and other European iron. Not that I wouldn’t want to own one today. I’d just cover part of it with a blue tarp.
The Sierra was considered ugly at launch across Europe in 1982(?) for the same reason; it was a complete change from the Cortina/Taunus range that it replaced.
As far as actually being ‘ugly’, the MkI such as this is, purely in my opinion, the best looking of the bunch, certainly being more macho than the next ‘facelift’ model which made it prettier.
Ford Lincoln Mercury, well they would not want to sell through Ford, might take sales away from the Mustang!
I thought this was an interesting car, european flare and it could compete with what was coming europe.
I had a 1985 Saab 900 turbo 5-speed, the Merkur was on my radar, but kept the Saab for 10 years 225,000 miles!
Worst detail – unfortunate side window treatment- the UK Sierra looked way better with the large single window…
Looks to be an afterthought for rear window, however quite good support in case of crash and flip.
This car was based on the Sierra XR4i which had the same rear side windows as on this car. It was the Sierra Cosworth successor that had the single long rear side windows.
The UK/EU Sierra XR4i did have the same 3-window side glass treatment as these. The single large quarter window was the low-spec version because it didn’t open for ventilation to the back seats, tho’ the RS Cosworth did use that as well because it weighed less.
I bought one of these new. It was a great highway car, and the worst car ever to drive on San Francisco hills. For me the fatal flaw was the requirement for the tranny to be in neutral to start the car. So when the clutch broke I had to start it in neutral and jam it into gear. By the time I got to the dealer for a clutch it also needed a transmission …..
Wow, where to start with this unfortunate attempt at a Sierra recreation?
First, the U.S. offering of the Sierra carried very little over from the Euro cars. Everything from the drivetrain to the body was different. And the RS500 even went a step further having been hand assembled by Tickford Aston Martin. The RS500’s massive rear wing was even unique to the RS500. Nothing, I mean NOTHING on this XR4Ti is “RS500”. Not even the steering wheel, which, imo, is the single greatest steering wheel ever put into a production car. I’ve been searching for an RS500 within my budget for a few years now (there currently is only one Sierra RS500 in the U.S. offered @ $280k) and it is a grind to find a good one as most have been stolen, crashed and rust repaired so many times they are like old oak trees… you have to count the rings to determine their history.
Does not look like a 50K vehicle, the dash cluster has been replaced so it is probably TMU now. I owned 2 of these and they were probably the lease reliable cars I have owned in 50 years. Nothing works and whatever you fix breaks again and again Not worth 10K.
I worked at a Ford/Lincoln Mercury dealership when these came out. Almost “0” interest from buyers. I think we sold 2 or 3. And we were one of the top SVO dealers for miles around. My daughter when rebuilding her 1972 Audi 80 (gray market Audi Fox) found one of these in a junk yard with a perfect leather interior. It.was installed (front and rear) in the Fox. It turned out very cool. I always kind of wanted one as they were different and drove quite nice.
Looks fairly nice except that angry eye headlamp panel looks out of place. Kind of a cheesy look that won’t go away. Easy enough part to swap though. Had an ‘86 years ago and, for its flaws, it was a neat car.
I for one, always preferred this six window body v. the Cosworth Sierra with the long side window. Much like the Renault R17 v. R15. The R15 just looked like they cheaped out and didn’t fill in the negative space.
In hindsight, Ford probably should have just canceled or renamed the Fox-body Mustang Capri, so they could revive using Capri as a well-known submarque for sporty imported Euro Fords like this — badged as just plain Capri without any model designation, as XR4Ti was too much alphabet-soup — rather than inventing the hard-to-pronounce Merkur marque with zero name recognition.
*Mercury Capri, derp
Scott should do a “shooting brake” version of this with full side glass from door to rear. How about it Scotty?
Nice, almost bought one of these back around 1990. Parents shut that down because it was a turbo and manual. They refused to own a stick because “they are too hard to drive,” and “turbos are not reliable and going to break down all the time.”
Also looked at some other high quality vehicles like the Dodge Lancer and Ford Tempo before settling on a wonderful Pontiac Grand Am.