While I do generally love Apple products for the most part, they can sometimes be a little creepy. The other day, upon opening up the Photos app on my iPhone that houses some 32,000+ photos I’ve taken over the years stored in my iCloud, I was alerted of a “memory” from four years ago today which was when I took this single picture of this 1993 Ford Tempo on my iPhone 5 (I’ve since had iPhones 6, 7, and now X). Upon gazing at it, I was struck with the question, “When was the last time I saw a Ford Tempo?”.
Despite total production of over 2.7 million units over 10 years, the Ford Tempo its continued existence in later years primarily to fleet sales, resulting in premature overuse and abuse, and as a result, shorter vehicle lifespans. I didn’t think much when I shot this Cayman Green ’93 Tempo back in 2014, but truthfully, I can’t distinctly recall seeing any Ford Tempos since. Is the Ford Tempo officially on death watch status?
Photographed on Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts – October 2014
It is a very rare occurrence to see a Tempo/Topaz in Chicagoland. I have owned three. One good one bad and one average. I kind of like them. The ergonomics and steering feel worked for me. Typical generic drivetrain. The good one I got for 100 bucks in 2003. It had a bad head gasket and was “fixed” with that copper powder. I drove it for a year and gave it to someone who needed a car. It was peppier than it should have been and was a happy running car.
My gf at the time this pic was taken had a 2 door Tempo, in that flesh beige color (inside AND outside) that Ford used.
After my first time driving it I nicknamed it “Tempid”.
She laughed and agreed with me.
She also refused to spend a penny on upkeep or routine maintenance for it. She literally “drove it until it died”. The Honda dealer gave her $100.00 on trade in for a new Civic and towed it away.
The nickname stuck for the rest of the time she owned it.
I see a different one maybe once a year or so. Some running and looking good. Others not so much.
Saw one the other day – a later production model. Tempos are still around here as they sold a huge number in Canada especially the low spec L model from that late 80s/early 90s. They are more common to see than the Contour that succeeded them.
The two-tone looks sharp on the 92-94 style. Those were rarely seen down in the states. The two tone treatment was used on the GLS/XR5/LTS from -1988-1991, and from 92 on it was primarily seen on the Topaz only.
Sharp looking car there.
Very serendipitous that you bring up the two-tone. Not 30 miles from me (southern MN) there’s an auction this weekend with a two-tone ’94 Topaz on the bill. And before I saw that bill yesterday morning, I had no idea there was even a two-tone option.
Interesting name down here we have a music instrument called tempo.never seen or heard of this car before.like geo products is it like a joint venture with Mazda?
In Germany Tempo is the name of the leading facial tissue, like Kleenex here in the US. Cheap and disposable, but usually works well while being used. Powerful brand marketing apparently, I still think of it when I see one of these even though I haven’t used a Tempo tissue since I was a little kid.
Oh, and no the Ford was not any kind of joint venture.
Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn) likened husbands to Kleenex: soft, strong, and disposable. A bit of a stretch on the reference I know, but Clue is one of my favorite movies ever, especially this time of year!
My (and my brother’s) favourite movie of all time. We watch it every year in December and can pretty much quote it verbatim now.
RIP Madeline. Truly a gifted and hilarious actress.
Haha, I watched it with Pat the other night and thankfully he’s seen it before and likes it.
“Flames, flames, flames… on the side of my face… breathing, breathing, breathless heaving breathes… heaving”
It was not a joint venture. It was based on the US Escort which was a dumbed-down version of the European Escort. (I think…)
Despite the same name on both sides of big pond, a very little commonality between American and European Escort. Paul wrote the extensive analysis of difference between both versions
here and here.
In the Northeast, pretty much all models become scarce once they cross a certain threshold. I still see a decent amount of twenty year old cars around, but twenty five? Not really. Maybe thats the age where even people who hold on to older vehicles ditch them for something else?
I had this nice Ford Flashback moment earlier this year when I saw a 1993 Topaz and a 1991 Taurus sitting at the same intersection.
But my experience with Tempos/Topazes in recent years is that their habitat is shrinking, but not completely gone yet. The below picture is from Northeast Missouri, where they can still occasionally be found. By far the highest concentration of Tempos I’ve come across recently is in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley — it’s like all of the Tempos from the East Coast have migrated to the Shenandoahs over the last decade.
And finally, there is a virtually showroom-condition ’93 Tempo that I see around my neighborhood occasionally, though that’s somewhat of an anomaly.
That looks like a V6 model from the badge on the front fender. Most of these came with 4-cylinders. My family had an 86 Topaz that was OK. It seemed underpowered and the suspension seemed too soft. I never liked how the rear wheels always seemed to lean in at the top due to the design of the independent rear suspension, especially when loaded. The only fun thing I remember is my father always de-badged his cars, but the Topaz on the trunk lid (I think) had holes. Rather than have the holes filled, which is what he used to do, being a car family, at a swap meet we found a “turbocharged” badge that stuck on and covered the holes. I lost count of the times people would ask us if our Topaz was a special turbo model – that was fun.
My ex- had one of these when we were dating. She said the sound of our courtship was the sound of my floorjack’s metal wheels on the cement as I jacked that thing up once again. So many times fixing that car…should have been a warning i guess. It loved to eat water pump – in the end i finally bought a genuine Ford pump from a dealer and that one lasted until the car was out of my life.
Great Lakes salt belt here, but every few months I see one still on the road. Bland they were, but they were often the “wife’s car” around here, not getting driven into the ground. A few morning moments on Craigslist nearby found a few, including this low-mileage one. I have nothing to do with the sale, but found the prose entertaining enough that I’ll quote it in full:
$1,250
Ford – Tempo GL – 1989
59k miles. Clean interior and inside.
Stored in a garage for 25 of the 30 years. Hence the low miles. Daily driver. Barely drove it. Maybe 10k miles a year.
Only real problems it has is cosmetics.
**The driver door you have to shut just a little harder to close.
**One of the small left side headlight, not the main one is exposed.
**Smooth drive and red velvet interior.
**No governor, so drive safe.
**Automatic mechanical seat belt feature.
**Can drive on the highway well.
**Nice beater car for young kids just getting their license. Cheap, but reliable car.
**Low miles. 59k.
**Great gas mileage.
**Will definitely last you a good 2-5 years before she crokes.
**30 year old car, so be gentle. It is a Ford Tempo.
I see them rarely but don’t really care. The Tempo was one of those cars that could occasionally slip out of the “normal use” cycle due to an elderly owner, but it was not the kind of car that could permanently escape that cycle. Once Grandpa stopped driving, one of the grandkids would put it back into the daily driver grinder.
A nice old Cadillac or Town Car or Buick might be kept as a Sunday cruiser by someone in the family. But never a Tempo.
You never know. My grandparents kept it’s predecessor, a Dark Green metallic super low mile 1969 Falcon 4 dr, in their garage for something like 20 years, into their late 90s. My Grandfather, a retired MIT educated mechanical engineer, was proud of it, humble though it was, and took care of it accordingly. I’d have liked to have gotten it.
Seeing a Ford Tempo just breeds apathy from me. I just have no feeling for them one way or the other. ‘Blah’ to the nth degree.
And everyone was eager for your opinion.
Yer damn right everyone is! I get phone calls, e-mails, texts and even singing telegrams from people all over the good ole US of A asking for my opinion. → They say “Mr. G, I am so eager. What can I possibly do to persuade you to opine about the Ford Escort, too?” I tell them send me money. Lots of it. In $2 bills. Then I will gladly offer up my gem of an opinion.
Fun Stuff: Last week at Vega Community Pastor Bob gave me the official “Church Modesty Award”. I told him to keep it ’cause it wasn’t big enough. ~AMEN~
Few Tempos make it into my periphery these days, but when they do they are always this color.
I still think they’re nice looking cars, they’re sort of Ford’s Vega in a sense, as former owners grew to hate the mechanicals so much that even the otherwise good aesthetics became a source of contempt for them.
By the later years most of the bugs had been worked out of them. I’ve had my fair share of them, and only had just a couple of issues with them (outside of normal maintenance items). I loved mine.
1993 Topaz GS 2-door 4cyl auto (swapped to 5speed)
1992 Tempo GLS 4-door V6 5speed
1989 Tempo GLS 2-door, 4cyl 5-speed
I can’t say I agree with that one, the Vega was a genuinely attractive car let down by horrendous build quality.
The Tempaz is just meh. Maybe on the worse side of meh, but still meh. To some eyes maybe it’s attractive, but for the most part it’s just conventional. The mechanicals weren’t great to start with but not Vega-level bad, and even then there wasn’t a massive improvement as time went on.
The Vega debuted as an attractive car whose image was sullied by horrible quality and remained so until people forgot about it and judged it mostly on its solid aesthetics (which were only truly attractive in its first few years before the 5mph bumper refresh) and bolstered by the benefit of being RWD and willingly accepting V8 swaps.
Tempos were the same way, the styling was ahead of its class in 1984 and let down by the already unloved Escort mechanicals. Unlike the Vega they remained on the roads for a little longer, in unflattering conditions, and have next to no hopup potential(at least not enough to justify) to pick up as a project car.
Up here in Vancouver, Canada I see them on Craigslist, usually 2 or 3, including Topaz’s. Rarely see one actually driving around. I think the ones for sale are usually old folks that can’t drive any more, or have passed away and their family is just trying to get rid of it. Sad.
Here in the upper midwest, I still see a few of these on the road. I see way more of these than the Contour or Mystique, those have just about disappeared completely. I guess that says something about each of the cars. But the herd is thinning. Some are in good condition, others are hoopties.
We had one of these for several years in the 90’s and the 2000’s. I’ve posted on here about it, it really was a car that I grew to hate. Paraphrasing from the National Lampoon Vacation movie: If you think you hate it now, wait until you drive it!
I would agree with others the ones we’re seeing now are either street survivors or gramma’s last car. But the sad thing is, once they’re gone, I don’t know that we’ll see this kind of car again. A relatively inexpensive A to B car that you could buy with new-car financing, paid off in no more than 60 months. The recent trend has been leased cars that have much higher content levels and consequently go for higher prices in the used car arena.
An example of this: I was cruising the CarMax website yesterday and noticed many three and four year old mid size sedans are being offered with five and six year loans. The car could be 10+ years old by the time you’re done paying it off… I guess I won’t be buying any cars there…
If you got a good one, these weren’t bad cars and if nothing else, they were inexpensive. Get a two year old one and pay it off in three years, at least you weren’t out a fortune…
Well, to be fair… that three-year-old 2015 sedan will be vastly more reliable, less rusty, nicer to drive, and generally more intact when pay off the loan at 9-10 years and 150k+ miles than any Tempo would ever be at that point. I’ve driven a lot of late-’00s and early-’10s cars with close to 200k miles and I’m always impressed at the improvements in longevity and reliability cars have made, even among the domestics.
Do you remember what a domestic economy sedan from the 80s/90s felt like past 150k miles and how often things broke or fell apart? Sure, you can buy a Tempo new and pay off the loan in 5 years, but the car is going straight to the junkyard within the next 5 years after the interior disintegrates, the body crumbles, and the transmission grenades with the car having zero resale value. These were Disposable with a capital D and the same goes for the Corsica et al.
Is it better to sell disposable cars for ultra cheap that give 5-6 years of solid service or a more expensive, but longer lasting car that will hold up nicely for 10+ years and have resale value? Jack Baruth said it nicely in one of his articles about used cars: “A five-year-old Camry with 60,000 miles has more useful service life than a brand-new 1980s Cutlass off the showroom floor” Do we really want to go back to the bad ole days?
Amen, Max.
I think I’d rather have a near-new Accord than a modern day equivalent of a Tempo.
Maybe my analogy wasn’t quite clear, I was noting the passing of the cheap to purchase, cheap to keep economy car. I don’t think there’s much quite like it, maybe a strippo Chevy Sonic or a Ford Fiesta would come closer to it today.
The improvements in durability and reliability would still be baked in, so Jack’s comparison between cars built 25-30 years apart doesn’t work. Besides, any five year old car would have more service life than ANY car from the 1980s or 1990s short of a (bespoke) Rolls Royce.
I don’t see the value in a three year old car (no matter the make or equipment level) being sold on five or six year auto loans.Most newer cars have an expensive service around the 100K mile mark. At a minimum if you buy the used car, you will get stuck with that expense.
If you can pull the lever, go for new. At least if you’re going to get stuck in a five or six year loan, the interest rate (typically) is better and you get a new car warranty.
FWIW, as cheap as I am, after 10 years, I;m ready for a new car. We’re having these discussions right now, as the G6 is coming up on it’s 10th birthday. Unfortunately, my other half wants a SUV. Ugh.
I think as far as a stripper car, the current Mitsubishi Mirage fits the bill and so do the Versa.
However as time marches on in regards to technology classifications change.
In 1994 (the last year of the Tempo) power locks and windows were considered luxury and to get them on a Tempo you had to spend a crap ton more. The stripper got the hand crank windows.
In 2018(24 years later) a stripper car such as a Mirage has power windows, locks, mirrors, USB, Bluetooth and a backup camera.
Some of it was mandated (the Feds mandated all cars have backup cameras installed by 2018)
Other items (like power windows and locks) are installed because it is cheaper for the automakers to stick these in all of the cars going down the line then to stop the line to outfit one with hand crank windows.
Thanks to the changing of times, what was once the domain for luxury cars now is in almost every car and odds are that the strippo Fiesta or Sonic would give a 20 year old entry level luxo car a run for its money in equipment.
Of course brand new cars can be had for way under $20,000.
I just bought a 2018 Elantra for about $15,600 out the door. (dealers are very motivated to move the metal when they have no extra space and a truck of 2019’s is sitting out front.
The Tempo is one of those exceptionally rare automotive anomalies, where the earliest generation versions looked the most modern and aerodynamic, compared to the final editions.
Those door windows look awfully deep-set, even compared with other cars of the time.
The windows were definitely deep set in the first generation (84-87). They weren’t quite as flush as the T-birds. But, they did have the same ‘aircraft style’ doors (how they were marketed) that wrapped over the A-pillar and into the roof, making them more aerodynamic than the traditional door frames (see Fox LTD, Escort). These style doors predated the Taurus by a couple of years.
The second generation refresh, the 4-doors had the windows a little more flush, but the 2-doors continued on with the deeper set windows as the basic body shell remained the same for the 2-doors.
Has there ever been another car that saw more changes throughout its life cycle, none of which did anything to meaningfully improve it? Despite rather significant changes to the exterior and interior, the ONLY change Ford made to the Tempo/Topaz for the better was (arguably) the late addition of the Vulcan V6.
If not for the Duratec V6 option I’d say the Taurus qualifies. Not much substantial separates a Vulcan 1986 from a Vulcan 2006
My wife’s first car. She got it for free from her grandmother. It had 60k miles, but grandma never changed the oil!!! Well, somehow it survived that long, plus a few more years in my wife’s more-caring hands. She traded it for a Tercel (“the biscuit”) when she went off to college.
The Tempo was a totally unremarkable car…. in the same sense that Lazarus was a totally unremarkable man.
In the late 90s early 2000 i had the opportunity to drive late model versions one with the I4 and one with the 3.0 v6. I think it the v6 had had a 4 speed auto it would have been better.
yeah, the 4-speed auto would have made a big difference with the V6. Even the 4-cyl would have done better with anything more than the 3speed auto.
There just wasn’t room in the engine bay to cram it in.
Here in Appalachfornia they are common enough, probably see one every other day. They have the sheet beat out of them though, they are the car you drive when you can’t afford a ’93 Accord.
‘Appalachfornia’ – haven’t heard that one before. Google apparently hasn’t either, but I see what you did…
Not a very respectful term, but as a 60+ year California resident I can vouch for the fact that a lot of the state is not Hollywood, Silicon Valley or mountains and forest. But even so, I don’t see nearly as many Tempos as ‘93 Accords. And by the way, I owned a Vega and have driven a few rental Tempos. I liked the Vega better.
My grandma bought an ’85 Tempo brand new. (Interesting fact: she never had a drivers license) I liked the car and the style, thought it was futuristic. It sure was slow.
I find that that many people think of California like planets in a Sci-Fi show. We have the ice planet, the jungle planet, the desert planet, the water planet etc. Apparently the whole planet is like that.
Another one of the cars that saved Chrysler. The Tempaz had off putting styling over pretty awful stretched Escort mechanicals at its 84 debut, whereas the K/L car had normal, if extremely dull styling, and solid mechanicals. I remember they didn’t last the length of the average loan in those days, which was 36 months. The durability improved to some extent and the refresh in ’88 made the styling considerably better but a friend’s mom had an ’89 new and a lot of things wore out or broke in the first few years; water pump, alternator, radiator, fuel pump, I cannot remember what all but it wasn’t nearly as good as the Spirit/Acclaim/Sundance which were similarly priced. Despite a lack of rust in Atlanta, these all vanished in the mid to late ’90’s. I remember these were probably the most common cars I saw stuck by the side of the road from about ’86-’96. They, and the Mazda Escorts were all that teal colour. The Tempaz was also made in Mexico and considered luxurious and premium there; I think it only was sold there in Topaz format.
Last week I had a rental Dodge Journey which goes out the door for around 18-19, and is an infinitely better car which is surely going to outlast a 60 month payment book. Even bottom feeder Hyundais – – – wait, Hyundai isn’t really bottom feeder any more- ok, bottom feeder Sparks and Fiestas and Versas and such are likely to last longer than 60 months with everything working and minimal maintenance. The Tempaz was probably one of the last cars in which there was an enormous gulf between it and the competition in terms of driving manners and overall quality. It sold on price and undercut the Escort in many cases.
If you want to see hordes of Tempos and Spirits and Shadows, go to Mexico. When I was in Mexico City, it felt like I’d see one of each on every block.
From memory, the Tempo was sold as the Ford Tempo, Ford Topaz and Ford Ghia south of the border.
You are correct. In Mexico, the Ford Tempo was the equivalent of the US Ford Tempo GL sedan (base model). The Ford Topaz was the equivalent of the US Ford Tempo LX sedan. The Ford Ghia was the US Mercury Topaz LS sedan. it even came with some fancier cross lace wheels that were not available in the US or Canada on the Tempo/Topaz.
Ford Ghia wheels .
All of Mexico is still chock full of these things. Also one of the few surviving cars of the era – the Vocho is no more common.
I saw one in Brooklyn last year, looking much like this. And I don’t recall but I might’ve seen one in LA too in September. Perhaps because of the Brooklyn encounter (as well as past sightings in NYC), it hasn’t quite registered for me as being on the verge of extinction – if it had been, say, an Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais I’d seen, I would’ve definitely snapped photos.
I think the Tempo was a good car that did as it was advertised. It gave basic transportation to lots of folks. The 1980’s and 1990’s were a different time. In 2018 it is easy to get a loan for a car. In the 80’s and 90’s banks were super picky about who they would lend to. The only entity that was lending were automakers.
You needed a car to get you to work and back home and your 1969 Nova died. Odds are that you were not getting that 1990 Honda Civic because the bank is not going to lend you spit. However you Ford would give you a decent loan for a 1990 Tempo. It sure as hell beat the bus.
The Tempo was also a important car. the folks designing the Taurus have stated that the Tempo was a influence and it does show(look and the side profile of a 1984 Tempo and a 1986 Taurus, they share a lot of the same styling cues)
Odds are that if the Tempo bombed then the Taurus would have looked like a different.
The Tempo and Topaz were a huge success for Ford and it was in the top 10 best selling cars every year.
Here are production figures:
Model Year Units
1984 402,214
1985 339,087
1986 277,671
1987 282,632
1988 313,262
1989 240,904
1990 218,426
1991 185,845
1992 207,340
1993 154,762
1994 110,399
Total 2,732,542
The last brand new car I ever bought was an ’85 Ford Tempo. My former wife and I both wanted a 5-speed, so we settled on a white 4-door.
I paid to have A/C installed, too, since it wasn’t so equipped from the factory (big mistake).
It was perfectly good transportation for around 10 years or so. My former wife either junked or traded it at the end, I’m not sure which.
I had 2 of these. One got wrecked. Both were ex-fleet cars are were quite reliable for a family that didn’t drive that much. Okay, once the front end collapsed on the way to a school function. But that could happen to any car. Or not.
Like the Escort, I just never warmed up much to the Tempo. My main beef with most Fords of that time were those damn mouse belts. Honestly, if I had to go domestic back then, I’d have rather had a K-car.
The Car & Driver article on one of the first year Tempos (or maybe it was a Topaz) was subtitled ‘Automotive Quiche for a Bacon and Eggs America’. I always thought that pretty much summed up the Tempo quite well.
My dad drove a 1990 GL for 9 years. As big of a pile that car was, it held together well despite 4 kids and 9 Buffalo winters. It leaked oil like a basket, the exhaust fell off twice and the tie rods broke once, but overall it was a good commuter car.
Dad finally sold it in 1999 for a new F-150.
I did see one of these earlier this week on the interstate, looked just like the car in the photo.
I see more old Tempo and Topaz than I do their replacements the Detour and Mistake! LOL
I worked for Budget Rent a Car and we got them new. No matter how much I tried to like them, they just weren’t likeable. You sat bolt up with a very long and wobbly shifter between you and the front passenger. They didn’t really accelerate, they strolled. They had the appeal of a shoe – functional, but invisible. They were dependable and they were amazingly boring.
Budget used to have the “Powder Blue Tempo/Topaz” award. It went to the guy with the lowest sales. It was a punishment for doing an average job.
The Fairmont/Zephyr was much better, and it’s really sad to write that.
If a Tempo or Topaz ever came up on any device I own as a “memory”, I would purge it immediately!
There is not one good thing I would ever say about these miserable cars!