Junkyard Find: 1999 Ford Contour SVT

Over the decades since the 1960s, the Detroit car companies have tried their best to make dollars selling their Euro-market cars in North America, with varying degrees of success. Ford did tolerably well with the Capri and Fiesta over here, then raked in little American-market income with the Merkur XR4Ti and got bombed, Dresden-style, with Merkur Scorpio sales.

Dearborn optimism climbed to new heights for a high-performance version of the Americanized Mondeo, the Contour SVT, prior to its 1998-model-year debut. Here’s a fiery red ’99 in a Denver wrecking yard.

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  • AZFelix What could possibly go wrong with putting your life in the robotic hands of precision crafted and expertly programmed machinery?
  • Orange260z I'm facing the "tire aging out" issue as well - the Conti ECS on my 911 have 2017 date codes but have lots (likely >70%) tread remaining. The tires have spent quite little time in the sun, as the car has become a garage queen and has likely had ~10K kms put on in the last 5 years. I did notice that they were getting harder last year, as the car pushes more in corners and the back end breaks loose under heavy acceleration. I'll have to do a careful inspection for cracks when I get the car out for the summer in the coming weeks.
  • VoGhost Interesting comments. Back in reality, AV is already here, and the experience to date has been that AV is far safer than most drivers. But I guess your "news" didn't tell you that, for some reason.
  • Doc423 Come try to take it, Pal. Environmental Whacko.
  • 28-Cars-Later Mazda despite attractive styling has resale issues - 'Yota is always the answer.