William Oliver has found a near-unicorn: a first or second year Ford Tempo, with the original non-aero sealed beam headlights. Near-unicorn, you say? Well, the reality is that all-new American cars invariably arrived less than fully-baked, something Toyota had been doing for decades, but the Big Three were slow learners. So yes, these early Tempos became increasingly rare a lot faster than their Cockroach of the Road™ successors. Of course, even they’re getting mighty rare, but that’s a different story.
Actually I did find one of these back in 2013, but…never wrote it up. But it did get written up along with a similar vintage coupe and some later ones in the definitive CC of the Tempo, by Perry Shoar. So if you want a more in-depth take on theses, let your fingers do the walking.
Let’s just say that given that the Tempo is really nothing more than a stretched US-version Escort, with an aero body and two-thirds of an old Falcon six engine, it sure didn’t get the best start in life. Quite the contrast to the all-new Toyota Camry, that arrived on year previously in 1983. It was almost over-baked, if that’s possible.
Not surprisingly, the Tempo had a great first year in sales, cresting the 400k mark. Why is this such a common reality with new American cars? These first year pops never happened with imports, but then they didn’t have the ability to crank out massive volumes on short notice.
The problem with these first year sales pops is of course obvious: the first year cars were inevitably shaky, in terms of build quality and reliability (among other shortcomings), meaning that they quickly got a bad rep, thus holding down future sales, resale value and reputation.
Like the early years of the US-Escort, the Temp just didn’t seem properly fleshed out. Its handling, like the Escort, can best be described as wobbly. We had one as a rental for a week’s exploration of New Mexico, including lots of back highways and byways. The 2.3 L pushrod four with a carb was wheezy and agricultural, especial y when teamed with the 3 speed automatic, as any pushrod four of this size that was essentially 2/3 of an elderly six cylinder engine without balance shafts inevitably would be. It was like so many cars of the era: one drove it with a very heavy foot. Positively dreadful. But it got us to lots of exquisite scenery including dome mighty rough roads.
To answer the inevitable question as to why Ford didn’t use the SOHC Lima 2.3 L four in the Tempo (and Topaz). The answer is production capacity: Ford was sitting on a huge facility built to crank out the Falcon six, and they weren’t about to throw that away. Engine facilities, especially the huge and expensive transfer lines that machine the blocks, are very long term investments. To expand Lima production and ditch the Falcon facilities would have been very expensive, at a time when Ford was still clawing its way back from near bankruptcy. The early 80s were lean years at Ford, and it was betting the now-smaller farm on the upcoming Taurus and its new Vulcan V6. Tempo had to make do with the leftovers from the Escort and Falcon.
Anyway, it’s not like the Lima 2.3 was a paragon of smooth running or performance either, back then. It too needed balance shafts and some serious attention to its breathing other than just turbo-ing it.
Tempus fugit, not Tempo fugit. It’s been 35 years since that experience in New Mexico, and I’m looking forward to visiting the same spots this coming winter in our van, which could run circles around that poor wheezy Tempo.
I’m not sure where William took these pictures, but it turns out Dixie Ford is far from the heart of Dixie- It’s located just outside of Toronto, Canada.
The condition of this Tempo is remarkable, but if it’s still plying the roads of Ontario providence it must be an extremely low mileage example.
I saw this one in downtown Toronto. I heard from a friend who’s met the owners of the garage/dealership that this was parked at that they source well-kept but “normal” cars like this for film studios. It’s located quite close to a group of film lots near the lakeshore so that adds up.
looks identical to one I owned in early 90s. It was a great car, until my ex got in it. I really miss it. Had great take off with manual tranny and great performance. Never gave ME any problems.A great find- for sale or restore??
It looks a lot like the early versions of the UK Sierra.
Slowest, dumbest car of its time, bar none. Drove a couple as rentals. Miserable
Great find William. I remember seeing Dixie Ford dealer stickers on various Ford products around Toronto in the mid 80s. Like Campbell Ford in Ottawa, they sold a tonne of Tempos and Escorts. And you’d see these stickers all over Southern Ontario. Along with Roy Foss and Addison Pontiac.
I thought the first gen Tempo/Topaz carried Ford’s aero theme well. Cleaner and more advanced looking than the second gen Taurus-like design. And a decent complement to the original aero theme as executed so well on the European Sierra.
They probably looked their best with their early aero style wheels. As seen in the ’84 Tempo brochure
I mentioned this here before, but I remember watching the futuristic science fiction movie ‘Runaway’ from 1984 with Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons, and Cynthia Rhodes, on late night TV several years after its release. The movie featured the ’84 Topaz as police cars of the future. Lots of tech in this movie, so the the art director/producers took the Tempo/Topaz seriously, when attempting to portray futuristic car design. Perhaps inspiring the use of the Taurus in ‘Robocop’ in 1987.
After spending years in Fox body Fords, these were quite a let-down. No matter what Ford did over the years, V6 – 4WD, little helped with the driving experience. The Tempo and Topaz were better practical drivers than the Cavalier/Sunbird competition, but the GM products were actually more fun to drive. Ford should have named them after the Falcon because that is more like what they were.
The styling was new. Ford’s “first” jellybean cars for North America. I actually prefer these front ends and tail end designs more than the refreshed version after 1987. The grille mimicked the newest Ford experimental cars. After 1987, these cars didn’t have much chrome trim on them at all, and they looked very cheap, especially in the popular rental car powder blue paint scheme.
Such an unrewarding experience, driving these cars.
Not the first jellybean Ford in North America – that would be the Thunderbird from a year earlier.
Weird how only the 4 door got the facelift; the 2 door retained the same sheetmetal and roofline as earlier.
I really liked the looks of these when they came out and was happy that they succeeded. They were well screwed together and the interiors were nicely done. They looked great in showrooms. But on the road, they were never great to drive, always underpowered.
And let’s be frank – Ford of the 80s did not invest a lot in the kind of brute durability that kept Granadas and Gran Torinos on the road despite the rust holes and other failings. I continue to maintain that CAFE put into place a set of incentives that lured the American companies (with their need to show ever-increasing profits for investors) into making every part as cheap and light-weight as possible. Even the much better executed Taurus is not any more common.
I was actually quite thrilled when Mom and Dad decided to purchase a leftover, first-year ’84 Tempo GL sedan in charcoal grey at the end of that year. I think it might have been left on the lot at Al Bennett Ford because it didn’t have a/c, but that was probably less of an issue in mid-Michigan.
Mom totaled it within a week when she lost control of it and hit a tree. Messed her face up pretty badly.
Insurance replaced it with a similar one in bright red with a red interior, which was the car I inherited as my first ride. The thing I remember most about driving it (I got it when it was about seven years old) was that I used to have to shift it into neutral at stoplights and stop signs and rev the motor to keep it from stalling. That thing never ran right after a certain point.
I sold it to a student of my dad’s for something like $1,200 and bought a ’76 Malibu Classic (which I loved).
To echo Buck Stradler’s comment above, I also thought the early Tempos looked like the European Ford Sierra – a car I had really liked the looks of when my family briefly toured some European countries in the mid-’80s.
FWIW, I think the featured car is an ’85 because of the wheels. I don’t think the original ’84s had them.
Most likely it was a small hole in the PCV valve tube. The ones on the Escort did the same thing causing the car driver to keep one foot on the gas to keep it from stalling.
Amazing! If only we had known, we could have saved a bunch of trips to our local mechanic shop. They were more than capable, but perhaps they just hadn’t heard of this PCV valve tube thing.
I remember going to look at these in 1984 with my older brother when he was shopping for a compact sedan. He was attracted to the styling, which did seem very fresh at the time, but one test drive burst that bubble, as the car was gruff and felt cheap/unrefined. It was quickly scratched off the shopping list since it couldn’t come close to the best-of-breed Japanese compact sedans available at that time (he wound up buying an Accord, terrible dealer experience but great car).
I admit, I don’t know much about the options or availability of various accessories on the Tempo/Topaz. Given the Tempo was part two (after the 1983 Thunderbird) of Ford’s 80s aero theme in North America, I am really surprised many of the early Tempos had the old fashioned ‘paddle’ style drivers door rear view mirrors. All the ’83 T-Birds had the flush design, situated at the base of the A pillar. Some early Tempos seem to have the flush design, which improved their looks quite a bit at the time. Guessing they were an option? Or introduced durng the model year.
Half Baked! You’re darntootin right. My first car was a 1983 Mercury Topaz GS with Three speed automatic. I purchased it from my parents in 1990 with 65k on the clock. My disdain for that car after only three years and multiple repairs turned me off domestics for the rest of my life. The only place that car reliably drove me to was neurosis. I’l leave it at that.
My wife’s aunt and uncle had a light blue Tempo like the one in the photo above. They nicknamed it, appropriately enough, “Tempo of Doom.”
Seems we dodged a bullet down under, Ford AU got its small cars direct from Mazda a new grille and badges and hey presto a new small Ford and medium size from the same supplier, Lasers were good cars, you had them as GLCs and the Mazda Capella/626 made a reasonable Ford Telstar I dont know if we were offered the american Fords or not possibly not as the RHD conversion would have meant extra engineering, far simpler to pluck production lines from Japan.
Yeah the Telstar was a much better car than the Tempo, being a lightly restyled Mazda 626. And it was a pretty neat styling job too. They’re not very common nowadays though.
I’m so glad that I didn’t move to the mountains until after the malaise was good and truly over.
I can’t even imagine NM in a wheezy carbureted 4 strapped to a 3 speed auto.
I thought I read it somewhere that the Lima 2.3 was not used because it was too long.
I had a co-worker that drove a Tempo, then traded it for a Lumina.
Yes that is a big reason they developed the new engine. Even though the Escort was widened to become the Tempaz there still wasn’t enough room for the Lima engine. To get the new 2.3l in there they designed the block with the water inlet on the side so the water pump could sit beside instead of in front of the engine. There was still very little clearance between the engine and strut tower.
Height of the Lima would also have likely been a problem.
I remember going along with my parents car shopping back in 1994, IIRC the final year for the Tempo/Topaz (I remember the year because it was the summer before I started high school). They were shopping for a 2-3 year old used car with a budget of around $10k. We got to a Ford dealership and the salesman showed us a couple of cars in the used car section, and then led us over to the new car section where they had an entire row of brand new Tempos and Topazes, fully loaded ones even, all listed for something like $9999, in other words the same price as the used cars my parents were considering. I figure it probably says something about a car when you can have a new one for the price of a good used car.
Thankfully Dad decided against a Tempo and ultimately ended up buying of all things a four year old Acura Legend which was actually a bit more than their planned budget but a very nice car.
The last brand new car I ever bought was an ’85 Ford Tempo GL, much like the one pictured. Mine was white, but had the same wheels as the one pictured. My former wife and I both preferred a manual transmission, so ours had the 5-speed.
The car wasn’t exciting, but it made for good,economical transportation. It was miles ahead of the Escort we traded for it, which neither of us ended up liking (an ’83).
The worst mistake we made was having the dealership INSTALL A/C. That happened because we insisted on a 5-speed, and they had none in stock with A/C.
My former wife drove the car for at least a couple of years after we divorced in ’89. I don’t know what happened to it, but I’m sure it had well over 100,000 miles on it when she got rid of it.
My ’87 Escort GL had the same wheels; I think they were ‘polycast’ wheels because they had that rubbery feeling to them. Interestingly, my Escort was also a 5-speed.
I remember reading that Ford had prototype Tempos with an I6 engine that had PTO in the middle. It’s more of a surprise to me that they had drivable prototypes than that it was imagined, but I don’t see how it got any money thrown at it with the Vulcan available.
Don’t forget that the Tempo is a real driver’s car.
🙂 My goodness, what a complete whore Sir Jackie Stewart was, I’d forgotten about that ad! I hope he was well paid for that one. Seeing that Tempo wallowing and bouncing around the corner on its sidewalls is just too much, the pucker factor in Jackie’s kilt must have been sky high. Contrast it with an ’85 Jetta or something doing the same….Nobody bought the Tempo as a “driver’s car”.
In Stewart’s defense, there was an article in Car and Driver on him years ago that stated he drove on the street like he had a raw egg under his right foot.
On top of that, another article on the street cars of racers said that while a few had Porsches and Benz sedans, most just drove domestic rentals.
So, using Stewart in a Tempo commercial might not be quite as odd as it first might seem.
I don’t want to mess up the video link that I posted, but I found what I was thinking about, and it wasn’t an I6, it was an I8! They apparently thought that T-drive could allow a transverse engine to drive front, rear, or all wheels. Click the link for more.
My dad had an ’85 four door GL as a company car and it was fine for what it was. We all thought it was rather peppy to drive, but that was mainly because it was compared to his previous ’81 Omega and our ’79 Sedan de Ville with its Queen Mary handling characteristics.
Not many problems with it for the couple of years we had it that I can recall, but a college friend had the refreshed late 80’s version and it was a nightmare. The motorized mouse seatbelts were perpetually stuck half way and the front passenger door wouldn’t stay closed for a while unless I held it shut as we were driving. Also numerous engine issues to the point that she got Ford to take it back as a lemon and it was replaced with a Mazda-based Escort, which lasted a long time.
So much hate! It was a Rambler for the 80’s! It got you there reasonably well for a decent price with a good dealer network. I drove several and liked them.
But could it turn you into an instant geek like a Rambler?
I’m with you, HEaN. I just thought of it as the Falcon of its time—and, there were some nice upgrades (fuel injection, etc.) soon enough. Here’s Popular Mechanics with what seems like a fair appraisal:
But the Falcon had the bones of a pretty decent car in there, once it got a bigger engine and especially once us Aussies gave it a tougher front end and some underbody strengthening. And it donated its basics to the hyper-successful and much-imitated Mustang.
How does the Tempo measure up to that? It might have sort-of occupied the old Falcon’s market slot but it doesn’t seem to have been anywhere near as successful, whether in sales numbers, in quality of engineering basics, in raising the company profile, or in other product spinoffs.
The Tempaz was the spin off, a stretched and widened Escort.
My friend’s mother had a first year Tempo GL. We had our own cars in ’88 when we were 17, but he was going on an errand for his mom in the Tempo and I wanted to go along to see what it had going for it. It was a “modern” car and surely better than his ’77 Cordoba and my ’82 Mustang.
It was not better. It was poop. Slow, noisy, and mushy handling. I was surprised by how it didn’t seem to have anything going for it. Did I mention slow? My Mustang had a California-emissioned inline six with all of 80 horsepower and would leave the Tempo for dead.
Later when I worked in the parts store in the early 90s, I was always picking up heads to be tested for cracks from Tempos. Their wonderful “high swirl combustion” junk. Ugh. Those were terrible engines and cars. We sold a lot of parts for those things.
That said, I had an ’87, an ’89 AWD and a ’93 and they did seem to improve as the years went by. The extra height of the AWD gave it a better stance. They were cheap and got us where we needed to go.
But still poop.
The only redeemable feature of this Tempo is…I could change the headlamps to superior ECE headlamps if I inclined to do so.
The aero headlamps on the facelifted Tempo are so bad and worthless, especially in the rural areas outside the cities. What Ford and NHTSA did to the headlamps is criminal beyond belief.
My Tempo Memory is of a huge, heavily advertised sale of what must have been over fifty used Tempos and it’s Mercury stablemate the Topaz, all being advertised for $1999. This all happened in what I think was 1991 and they were all late 80s models. My then-wife and I strolled thru the lot but didn’t see anything we wanted to make an offer on, it seems all of the cars had some sort of malady of a cosmetic or mechanical nature and they were all identically equipped. I figure some rental agency dumped all of their $9.99 a day specials or maybe gone bankrupt.
Her best friend was in need of a car, and after test driving several and turning them down for various issues, she chose one that was mechanically okay (I wouldn’t have called any of these mechanically sound) but was missing a back seat bottom. The salesman simply walked over to another Tempo and yanked the (differently colored) seat out of that one and put it in. She got a year of use from it and then it started having problems. She got rid of it as soon as it was paid off.
A truly disposable car.
Always a lot of hate for these Tempo and Topaz cars. They were never competing with expensive Benzes and other luxo cars. They were to sold as basic transportation for folks that wanted a A to B car that had a bit of room to it. Those folks that did not want a K-Car or found the Escort to be a bit too small for them.
In a way the Tempo was very important to Ford. It’s success assured that that the similar looking Taurus would be a success also. Looking at a 1984 Tempo and a 1986 Taurus side by side you can see they are very similar. Poor sales of the 84 Tempo would have doomed the 86 Taurus (Ford had the boxy LTD on standby in case the 86 taurus fell flat)
A thought on the intro year bump – they tended to be tied to introducing a new model with a new name, so people thought there was more new than there actually was. Gave you a promotional buzz and sales spike, but didn’t build the brand long-term the way Toyota slowly but surely did with each new iteration of the Camry, or Honda with the Accord.
Well, also, implicit in those relaunches was the eternal promise that the domestic automakers had finally gotten religion and were going to approach the new product with whole (rather than half) ass. Where said automakers managed to not completely embarrass themselves, the nameplates survived for a quite a while (e.g., the Ford Fiesta).
These were terrible cars in any dynamic or desirability sense, but if they would have sort of redeemed themselves if they had been built to the standard of a Corolla or NUMMI-built Nova/Prizm. Everyone I ever knew who actually owned a Tempo or Topaz just wanted a CAR — plain vanilla, four wheels, an engine, an automatic transmission, seats, okay gas mileage, space in the back for your kids or your friends, runs okay, use it till it’s worn out and then get another — and were either indifferent to or categorically unable to afford something slicker, fancier, or more engaging. If the things had managed that ’80s Toyota appliance-like dependability for a similar price, one could more readily excuse the groaning engine, the slosh-and-clunk transmission, and the shopping cart ride and handling.
My family rented a new Tempo circa 1984. One of the things that stood out about it was the transmission would slam into lower gears as the car came to a stop. A Merkur XR4Ti automatic did exactly the same thing on a new car test drive two years later, leading my parents to conclude it was a Ford issue. I experienced it in many other Tempos, but usually ones that had 40,000 miles or more and were pretty used up feeling in general.
The difference between this car of convenience and a 1982-1985 Honda Accord was about as great as the difference between a Lada and a BMW of the same era.
I just saw one of these shortly ago. They were filming a TV show down the street, and a car such as this was involved.
Ugh. I could start listing off particulars (those exterior door handles Ford sloppily threw at all their cars and stuck on with not-very-good-quality chewing gum…) but what’s the point? Just, ugh.
my wife had one of these=merc topaz version- as her first new car when we first met. it was new, clean and unrusty- – a marked departure from my car. the seats were just awful things. built to force a slouch into your spine if tall. after a few years, we discovered a weird 1st year only engine “feature”. there was a steel cooling system tube that came off the back side of the block in with all the other spaghetti back against the firewall. had some crazy nonstandard fitting to adapt into the block. thing started to leak coolant. miserable, impossible DIY repair. tube was OEM only. FoMoCo seemed to love steel tube inserts in their outboard cooling lines. ran into that rubber steel hybrid spaghetti monster that mounted against the firewall of an 01 Taurus (vulcan) many years later. I am cured of any Ford dependence now. wonder how many other 84s died of issues related to that cooling system line?
My Mom had an 88, it wasn’t hard to work on, and until last year it had the distinction of being the longest owned car in our family. It was bought new in 88, when my now deceased youngest sister took over another truly awful car to go to college (84 Sunbird…probably worst car my family ever owned). My Mom needed an automatic, and I think my Dad only cross-shopped the Corsica but ended up with the Tempo (I remember picking it up at the dealer when new).
My Mom drove it to work till she retired in ’93. Never left the state, so it had pretty low miles on it. One time she was worried about it passing emissions and she took it down to a free state emissions testing event. Funny thing was they covered it on the local news, and the video had my Mom’s car in it, panning up from the hubcaps…I knew the car so well that I recognized it has hers before they finished panning up to show her in the drivers seat waiting in line for her turn at the testing.
My oldest sister’s family moved here in 2005, and my Mom shared the Tempo with her..by then my Mom was retired and didn’t need the car full time. I fixed up several things on the car that needed attention (even small things like power locks which I got working with new relay). However, by 2009, the air-conditioning compressor went on it, and the car really didn’t merit a new one, but living in the South, air conditioning is very important…at the time the Tempo didn’t qualify for the federal cash for clunkers program due to fuel mileage (the Tempo got too good mileage, part of the deal was the car you replaced it with had to get significantly better gas mileage, which really wasn’t likely with the Tempo)…but they had a state version, which was aimed more at emissions than anything, and although the car was fine with emissions, they got rid of it with that program and picked up a 2009 Ford Escort (which was also given to my Sister, though my Nephew drives it now).
The car that now holds the record for longest owned in my family is now my middle sister’s 1997 Nissan 240SX, which she also bought new and still owns…people keep wanting to buy it off her as it has pretty low mileage, though it is an automatic. I’m right behind, though I still have another year until I equal the length of time that the Tempo was in the family (my 2000 Golf was also bought new).