We’ve seen a vast array of cars shot and posted by Roshake in Hungary. But a Mercury Tracer? That I didn’t expect. And we know it wasn’t an original import; were any Mercurys ever officially sold in Europe?
For those that missed it, the Tracer was a Mazda 323 clone, that preceded the next generation 323-based Escort/Tracer. It was a bit of an anomaly, but a rather attractive one, as it was a much better car in just about every way than the Lynx, a badge engineered gen1 (US) Escort. The Mazda 323 was a highly competitive car back then, commonly ranking right up there with the Civic in reviews and comparisons.
I rented a Tracer once, in Alaska. Picked it up in Anchorage for a multi day tour of the Kenai Peninsula/Homer. It was part of an en epic three week trip up there in 1989, and we savored every minute of it. The Tracer served us well’ much nicer than the mediocre Escort we rented in Colorado some years earlier.
We’ve got an excellent CC on the Tracer by Perry Shoar, who did a superb job on so many cars during his tenure here at CC, especially Japanese and European ones.
I really liked the wagon version of the Tracer, came close to buying one new.
The boring answer is that it was probably imported to Germany by a member of the military and then sold on when the owner moved on somewhere else. I lived in Germany and often saw American cars of various random types in the vicinity of US military bases.
Fans of Japanese Cars will love this one simple trick!
I don’t remember what year the US’ Voluntary Import Restrictions ended, but regardless, in 1989, dealers of Japanese cars were selling at full retail and maybe more. Lincoln-Mercury dealers were accustomed to selling below retail and they were probably eager to move these off their lots. I’m not sure what you could expect from the dealers’ service departments, though.
I somehow forgot the Tracer when I was car shopping in 1989, and wound up with a well-below-retail Dodge Omni.
“I’m not sure what you could expect from the dealer service departments…”
LOL. I just found a great deal on a 2012 Hyundai Genesis 4.6 Sedan with 48,000 miles. The passenger side power folding mirror is broken. I brought it to the local Hyundai dealer, he says “we’re not a Genesis dealer.” I say this car was sold as a Hyundai before Genesis spilt off into their own brand.” He looks at me for five seconds, nods his head and says “yeah.”
Maybe is was a 323 rebadged as a Tracer? Like Americans rebadged their Chevrolet SS’s and Pontiac GTO’s and G8’s to Holdens? Chevrolet dealers were even doing the conversions in house on the later SS’s.
Interesting photo bomb in scene one. I figure that whoever brought this car to Hungary knew that many parts would fit or could be adapted.
OMG, does this bring back memories, I had the exact car except it was a two door 89 Tracer. That was a sweet little car better better in every way than a Ford Escort etc. I really kinda miss mine.
These were nice cars. Problem for Mercury was the more profitable Topaz. Mercury buyers just didn’t gravitate to these cars when they were more familiar with the Topaz. God – those Topaz cars – SHEESH.
Ah, the imfamous 1989-1/2 Tracer that was built for just a few months at the end of the 1990 calendar year, allowing 89-1/2s to be for sale well into the summer of ’90. 89-1/2 models could be identified by 89s from their red stripe trim that encircled the car around the bumpers and side moldings; rather than the chrome that was used in this location on 88-89 Tracers. But why bother? It seems the new redesigned Tracer wouldn’t be available until autumn 1991, and in the meantime L-M dealers wanted a small car to sell. So the existing 90 Tracer was given a new lease on life, produced as 89-1/2 models until late December. There were even separate brochures printed for the 89-1/2s, with similar photography and layout as for Mercury’s other 1991 cars. But something was missing – the Tracer brochures, even though they had 1991 style graphics, didn’t actually say 1991 on them – because there was no such thing. It pictured the red-stripe 89-1/2 Tracers. I recall when I bought my 89 Tracer (with chrome trim) the 89-1/2s also cost about $200 more. Speculation on another Tracer thread here target= is that Ford didn’t want to install airbags or passive seatbelts on a car that was about to go out of production so instead decided not to build 1990 Tracers.
Anyway, the Hungarian car looks a bit different around back, missing “Mercury” or “Tracer” badges underneath the corners of the rear backlite as in the pic I’ve included, and has had the number plate illuminators repositioned to fit Euro plates. Maybe backglass is from a Ford Laser?
photo:
Look at the taillights! North American-spec Mercury Tracers had red rear turn signal lenses, but this particular car has amber turn signal lenses.
My first guess was that these were Australian Ford Laser components that were swapped on…but those cars lacked rear side markers, and a side-facing red reflector is clearly visible here. Did someone take the North American lights, carefully cut out the red turn signal lenses, use them to mold amber lenses in the same size and style, and somehow seamlessly glue it all back together again?
This Tracer has US headlamps, too, and the rest of the lighting system is US-spec, as well. That’s an interesting mystery…just like this very similar mystery I encountered in that same country.
Here’s a rear lamp cluster from an Aussie Laser, showing the same shape as the US market equivalent, but with amber turn indicators. Like the US lights, there isn’t a separate side marker lamp; just the wraparound portion of the taillights. The US lights were wired so an amber lower section would have worked – that area flashed exclusively for the turn signal indicators, not a brake light or always-on taillamp.
This example also includes a rear wiper/washer that was badly missed on the US hatchbacks (did the housing for the CHMSL get in the way?) Only Tracer wagons got rear wipers in the US.
Only the base model Laser L (that almost no-one bought) didn’t get the rear wiper in Australia. But then a CHMSL wasn’t required here.
Well spotted, but I don’t think those are the the tails we see on this Tracer in Hungary. Here, top to bottom, are the U.S. Tracer; the car in Hungary (zoomed in/enhanced), and the Australian Laser. The U.S. all-red lamp has a side reflex reflector on the wraparound portion of both the upper and lower lens. That’s completely absent from the Australlian lamp (which also does not appear to give any side-on red light output; there is probably none from the brake-tail light, and the side marker bulb present in the US lamp is absent in the Australian one). But the red side reflex reflector does appear to be present on the lamp in Hungary.
Apparently obscure export-spec Mercury taillights are a thing. This first-version Mystique taillight with amber turn signal has been on offer for a very long time. No idea where in the world it was used—not in the States or Canada.
You see many used US cars imported into Belarus. Maybe this one came from there?
I bought an ’89 Tracer, at a car auction years ago for just under $100 hoping to resell it. The front brake hose had burst, and the car had very minor front end damage…. a broken plastic grille, yes that’s all. It ran and drove so nice I ended up keeping it for a few years. It ran like a top and got great mileage (40+ mpg) it also had probably the most adjustable comfortable driver’s seat I have ever sat in.
Interesting that Mercury ended up with this car and it’s complicated heritage.
So this is 323-based but not quite a panel-for-panel rebadge of the 323; rather a rebadge of a *restyled* 323 clone more widely sold as the Ford Laser. I guess that makes this car equally on par with the Geo Prizm; as it was not really a Corolla clone but a rebadged version of a slightly differentiated variant, which was the Japanese market Toyota Sprinter. As an aside, Mazda Protege5 sold here looks to have been the basis of the final Laser according to a cursory google search, making it a distant end-of-line successsor to this car and it’s 5 door body.
Our local Mercury dealer was offering lease deals on the tracer Tracer in late 1988, so my wife and I leased a Tracer wagon. Before we took the bait, we rented one to see how it drove and we agreed we liked it.
Ours was an automatic and the transmission slipped badly, so much so that the tachometer was reading 3950 doing 60mph. Ford agreed there was an issue and kept doing stop gap repairs; eg anti friction trans additives, etc.
Finally, two years into the 4 year lease, I told them either they took it back or I’d bring it to them in a bucket at 48 months. When they saw the file I had compiled, they agreed to take it back with minimal early termination fees.
Sad really. It could have been a decent car