Buy/Drive/Burn: Mediocrity Personified in Sedans of 1996

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

You’ve seen all of today’s contenders before on the roads, likely more times than you can count. Forgettable because of how middling they were, hundreds of thousands were sold.

Which one would you actually buy with your own money?

The year is 1996 and you’re a family sedan customer. You don’t want to spend a lot of money, and it’s not important that your car be exciting in any way. Base model middle American, that’s you.

Ford Contour

The most exotic of our trio today, the Ford Contour was an experiment in saving money. Rather than develop separate family sedans for Europe and North America, Ford developed a single car for both markets — a “world car,” if you will. In Europe, this new model was sold as the Mondeo, replacing the Ford Sierra. In the United States, it replaced the aged Ford Tempo and Mercury Topaz.

By the time the Contour and its Mercury Mystique sibling arrived in the U.S. for 1995, the Mondeo had been on sale in Europe for two years. The base engine is our selection today, and it’s a 2.0-liter Zetec inline-four. 125 horsepower travel to the front via the four-speed automatic. European!

Dodge Stratus

Dodge went in a new direction in 1995, as the Cloud Cars replaced stalwart K-car predecessors that had been stretched and broughamed as long as humanly possible. Specifically, the Stratus was a replacement for the Dodge Spirit and Dynasty. The LeBaron made way for the upscale Chrysler Cirrus version, while the airy-sounding Plymouth Breeze muscled out the Acclaim. Cab-forward design meant more room and a more aerodynamic shape than Chrysler’s boxy designs of old. Wheels were pushed to the corners, which shortened overhangs and gave the new Cloud Cars a more aggressive shape.

Today’s base Stratus is powered by a 2.0-liter inline-four engine it shares with the Neon. The single overhead cam unit delivers 132 horsepower through a four-speed auto. Forward shapes!

Pontiac Grand Am

Unlike the other two choices, the Grand Am name was certainly nothing new over at Pontiac. In its fourth generation for the 1992 model year, Grand Am is the oldest car here. The new Nineties design resided on the same N-body platform as the prior version, which debuted back in 1985. For 1996, the Grand Am received a bit of mid-cycle refreshing. More aggressive front and rear styling worked with additional side cladding for more Pontiac-ness, as the company continued to add additional plastic trim to each of its designs with each passing year.

While the GT is pictured here, our selection is the base model. Under hood (in all trims), the old Quad 4 was replaced with a more aggressive 2.4-liter dual overhead cam L4 engine. 150 horsepower raced through the front wheels via a new four-speed automatic; the three-speed passed away (finally) after 1995. Driving thrills!

They were all big sellers in their day, and delivered perceived value and reliability in the hot compact sedan segment. Which one’s the Buy for you?

[Images: Ford, Dodge, GM, IIHS]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

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  • GenesisCoupe380GT GenesisCoupe380GT on Apr 10, 2020

    To be honest they all suck but given this crowd I would pick Pontiac. I can't say for certain why. I guess it's really just a matter of "better the devil you know than the one you don't".

  • MyerShift MyerShift on Aug 28, 2021

    BUY Dodge Stratus. It may have odd niggling issues and a front end in constant need of repair, but it's a double wishbone, upper and lower A-Arm design just like the Accord has and gets praise for. Best driving car, best looking car, and best interior space utilization. I had a Breeze. It was immensely enjoyable for a basic, 2.0L I4 and 4-Speed UltraDrive transaxle. DRIVE Ford Contour. As the global Mondeo, it's a great driving, Euro car. Unfortunately, its 2.0L is extremely buzzy and the interior is ridiculously cramped. Ford spent more developing this versus Chrysler and the Cloud Cars, and STILL came up with something worse! BURN Pontiac Grand Am. Terrible styling update, creaky and cheap GM interiors, OLDEST platform here, the typical demographic associated with these cars and the brand itself in later years. At least it should run like crap the longest, right?

  • Oberkanone Nope. No interest.
  • SilverCoupe Tim, you don't always watch F1 as you don't want to lose sleep? But these races are great for putting one to sleep!I kid (sort of). I DVR them, I watch them, I fast forward a lot. It was great to see Lando win one, I've been a fan of McLaren since their heyday in CanAm in the late '60's.
  • Cprescott The problem with this fable by the FTC is:(1) shipping of all kinds was hindered at ports because of COVID related issues;(2) The President shafted the Saudis by insulting them with a fist bump that torqued them off to no end;(3) Saudis announced unilateral production cuts repeatedly during this President's tenure even as he begged to get them to produce more;(4) We were told that we had record domestic production so that would have lowered prices due to increased supply(5) The President emptied the strategic petroleum reserve to the lowest point since the 1980's due to number 3 and then sold much of that to China.We have repeatedly been told that documents and emails are Russian disinformation so why now are we to believe this?
  • Ollicat Another Biden attempt to say, "Look over there!"
  • Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh Who cares. Price of gas is not the issue. spending an extra 100$ a month over 4 tanks of gas is not the issue.this a political scam to distract really dumb people from the real issue. if rent and house payments were not up by 50% to as high as 150% higher in a ton of locations, then paying an extra 100$ in gas would be annoying but not really an issue. But the real-estate market with hedge fund investors, power-relator groups bought a ton of houses and flipped them into rentals and jacked up the rates uplifting the costs on everything else. and ironically no-one seems to be in any hurry to build more houses to bring those costs down because supply and demand means keeping less houses available to charge as much as you want. It is also not the issue as a secondary issue is child care costs and medical... again 100$ extra per month in gas is *nothing* compared to 800$ a month in ''child care'' and 300$ per visit to the doctor office, 300$ for a procedure less dentist trip..
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