Curbside Classic Outtake: Suddenly It's 1987

by Paul Niedermeyer

Published: March 30th, 2010

curbside classic outtake suddenly it s 1987

I always have an eye out for two-fers, especially when they share such a close range of age and manufacturer. We’ll do both of these significant cars justice in future Curbside Classics, so consider this a preview of coming attractions. Oh, but its not just the late eighties on this side of the street!

I’ll let you name and date them; I’m afraid a couple of them are not quite from 1987, but close enough.

#MercurySable #MustangLx

Paul Niedermeyer

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2 of 36 comments

Bevo on Mar 31, 2010

Regardless of the year, I wish I could find one of those Toyota trucks.

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Brandloyalty on Mar 31, 2010

The alloy wheels for the '89-'92 Acclaims were the diamond spoke design. On the back of the Haynes service manual for the Spirit and Acclaim, there's a picture of an Acclaim with those rims. It has a trunk rack, so the rack must have been available for the full model run. The '93-'95 Spirit and Acclaim had different hubcaps and alloy wheels. The hubcaps were really cheap looking things for the Spirit. The alloys, as r129 said, came with gold paint in the cutouts. The Spirit alloys were different from the Acclaim's. The Spirit alloys had sort of swoosh cutouts, while the Acclaim's were symetrical. Both rims also came with grey paint in the cutouts, for alloy-equipped models that did not have the "gold" package. Why do I know this sort of useless information? When shopping for used alloys for our'90 Spirit, I lucked into a set of the grey-trimmed Acclaim alloys, which look fine on the Spirit, while the gold ones would not. Actually, if anyone's REALLY into this, www.hubcaps.com has pictures of all the hubcaps and rims used on Spirits and Acclaims, sorted by model years. The Acclaim in the picture, whatever year it is, has the '89-'92 hubcaps. Regarding the gold-colored trunk rack, I've never seen one. I've also never seen anything attached to one of these racks. The update for '93 cheapened the Spirits and Acclaims. All sorts of parts were simplified. The excellent folding back seats went away. The badges etc. on the trunk lid were just stickers. The Spirit lost its amber rear turn signal lights, and got a huge fake amber plastic panel instead.

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JMII Hyundai Santa Cruz, which doesn't do "truck" things as well as the Maverick does.How so? I see this repeated often with no reference to exactly what it does better.As a Santa Cruz owner the only things the Mav does better is price on lower trims and fuel economy with the hybrid. The Mav's bed is a bit bigger but only when the SC has the roll-top bed cover, without this they are the same size. The Mav has an off road package and a towing package the SC lacks but these are just some parts differences. And even with the tow package the Hyundai is rated to tow 1,000lbs more then the Ford. The SC now has XRT trim that beefs up the looks if your into the off-roader vibe. As both vehicles are soft-roaders neither are rock crawling just because of some extra bits Ford tacked on.I'm still loving my SC (at 9k in mileage). I don't see any advantages to the Ford when you are looking at the medium to top end trims of both vehicles. If you want to save money and gas then the Ford becomes the right choice. You will get a cheaper interior but many are fine with this, especially if don't like the all touch controls on the SC. However this has been changed in the '25 models in which buttons and knobs have returned.
Analoggrotto I'd feel proper silly staring at an LCD pretending to be real gauges.
Gray gm should hang their wimpy logo on a strip mall next to Saul Goodman's office.
1995 SC No
Analoggrotto I hope the walls of Mary Barra's office are covered in crushed velvet.