It’s been a while since I saw a gen1 Tracer, so let’s stop and admire this relic from the time that Ford first started using the Mazda 323 as a basis for a US car. It was something of a trial run for the gen 2 Escort and Tracer.
Strictly speaking, it was a badge-engineered Ford Laser, that was a 323 derivative for Ford to sell in the Asia-Pacific market. But it was a Mazda in disguise. Somewhat oddly, the three-door hatchbacks were assembled in Hiroshima by Mazda and the five doors were built in Hermosillo, Mexico by Ford. Multicultural. There was also a wagon; where was that built? In Korea?
Under the hood was the Mazda 1.6 L four. And I just suddenly remembered that we rented one on our trip to Alaska in 1988. We were staying with my sister in Anchorage for that part of the trip, and rented one to explore the Kenai Peninsula. Wonderful trip; great memories. The Tracer left rather few of those. It did the job in that rather forgettable way, as it was so typical of its breed: competent but not really outstanding. I suspect Mercury softened up the suspension some. It was the same blue too.
Looks like a pink worm, or part of one anyway, has become its hood ornament.
It also looks like this has become the transport of someone’s life possessions. That’s certainly not uncommon.
And the door looks like someone might have tried to jimmy it open. Or something like that.
Maybe it’s the same car we rented in Alaska. Stranger things have happened.
I rather liked the look of these, they looked a little more upscale than the 323 (although I realize how ridiculous that sounds, it’s still not remotely “upscale”)
Seems practical and apparently holds a lot of treasures. But the wagon would be my pick if I had a choice.
When we moved into our previous house just over 20 years ago, in an upscale Silicon Valley suburb, the couple across the street had a Tracer and a Grand Marquis. When we moved out about 10 years ago, they had a Lexus LS and a CRV. I’m always reminded of that example of the shift in Americans’ car ownership when I see a Tracer.
Not unlike the Chevrolet Nova of the same timeframe, the Tracer was a car for people “in the know”. “The know” being how to get a decent Japanese-type vehicle for domestic car dough.
EXCEPT… while the Nova was a wee bit cheaper than a similar Corolla, the Tracer was priced very similarly to the 323. (It’s hard to compare trim levels). However, I suspect FoMoCo was more generous with rebates than Mazda was.
(MSRP information source: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/1988combca_19798_7.pdf )
These first (Mazda) Tracers were as good as (if not better than) a deal on the Cornova since Ford did, indeed, ladle on better incentives/rebates. Plus, the Tracer, being a Mercury, had much better standard equipment. Stuff like premium cloth seats, power mirrors, AM/FM radio, side moldings, tinted glass, full wheel covers were all standard. Base Cornovas came with none of that.
Instant flashback to this ad for the new Tracer. I hadn’t remembered the lame brand slogan at the end, but the rest is just so:
Commercials for the Philishave Tracer were more engaging/memorable. 🙂
Good grief. I remember when the world looked and sounded like that.
What market was this for? Canada? UK? Not the US since those razors were branded Norelco rather than Philishave in the States.
Given it shows up on the Retrontario channel, I’m gonna say Canada.
I had to rent one to drive home. An airline was discontinuing service at the airport near my town and I wanted to be on the last flight. There was no return flight and buses would have been slow, and tiresome. So I rented one of these one-way for a day, drove home and returned it to the nearby airport the next morning. I remember it as an improvement over the US-spec Ford Escort…a major improvement.
An aside…the crew recognized me as a frequent flyer on the route and in probable violation of rules, allowed me to ride the jump seat in the cockpit “to permit boarding an oversold passenger.”
A 1988 Mercury Tracer was my first new car. My parents were Mercury drivers and were co-signing the loan. In September, 1987 we went to Demor’s Northway Lincoln-Mercury where they had two on the lot fresh off the truck: a blue four door hatch and a Medium Cabernet four door hatch. I bought the red one. It was well equipped with power mirrors, am/fm stereo, rear defogger, AC, and intermittent wipers. The keyhole on the driver’s side had a little light in it so you see where the key went at night. It was a fun car and I was able to qualify for the special financing at that time: 7.9 percent which was excellent in September 1987. My dad went with me to pick it up and then we went to North Park where he taught me in two hours how to drive a stick shift. I took him home and then I drove to class in my shiny new car. I owned it for almost 7 years until I sold it to a graduate student for $1,200.00, My girlfriend, now my wife, loved the car and thought it cute. It took us skiing in Killington and made trips to DC. Great little car.
Pretty sure that is not an 89 model. I believe all of the 89s had red accents rather than silver in the plastic trim like in this picture of a 4-door Tracer. We purchased a new black 2-door in 89. Around ’88 or ’89, I remember seeing a list of JD Power’s cars that were highest for initial consumer satisfaction and along with Hondas and Lexuses, some how the Tracer slipped on to the list. These cars were like a 323, but came standard with a lot of options–in addition to the lighted keyhole on the drivers side that lit up when you lifted the door handle, they also had really nice cloth seats, a little extra glove compartment door under the passengers’ seat, map lights, dual power mirrors, and a very adjustable drivers seat. That was a big deal for an economy car in 1989. We got the base model–no options and it did not have power steering. Even though the 1.6 liter only had 80-85 hp, the car felt really quick. My friend had an 86 Lynx and he was extremely jealous of the Tracer. The Tracer really was miles ahead.
Is it possible that the red stripe was part of an option package… like maybe the option group that also bought the alloy wheels?
I happened to check my Consumer Guide Auto 89 book, and it lists no changes between ’88 and ’89 (except for yellow-marked underhood service items that most Fords got then).
But my bet would still be on an ’88 here because I think they vastly outnumbered ’89 models on account of the ’88s having been sold since the Spring of 1987 when the Tracer was introduced.
I liked these Tracers a lot… nice styling and interior, and great Mazda mechanicals.
I think Arvid is correct; the red stripe was standard on the ’89. IIRC, these were only sold for 2 years so ’88 got a silver stripe molding, and ’89 got the red.
Hmm… that got me curious, so I checked my brochure collection and I have an ’89 full-line Mercury brochure. The Tracer shown in that brochure has the silver stripe. So then I checked online, and a few examples of ’89 Tracer brochures that I found contain all silver stripes… from what I could see there was no picture of a red-stripe Tracer, nor did I find mentions of any such thing in options lists.
But I definitely remember them, and Arvid’s picture contains one. So now I’m completely perplexed.
I’ll take a shot at solving the 323 Tracer red-stripe mystery. While it’s true that the ’88 and ’89 brochures show the silver-stripe moldings, if one does a search for ‘1990 Mercury Tracer’, what seems to be the final Tracer brochure that is done in the style of all other 1990 Mercury brochures, that one has pics of the red stripe Tracer. However, it should be noted that while the other Mercury brochures clearly say ‘1990’, this last Tracer brochure does not.
So, I’m going to guess that the red-stripe molding was a mid-year, running change to the final 1989 Tracers. IOW, early ’89 Tracers had the ’88 silver-stripe, while late ’89 Tracers got the red.
As to the ‘why’, Ford may not have known if there was going to actually be a 1990 323 Tracer or not, so they began stockpiling the red-stripe moldings. When it became apparent there would be no 1990 323 Tracer, the red-stripe moldings replaced the used up silvers on the ’89 assembly line.
Other than the color of the moldings, I doubt there’s any difference between a 1988 and 1989 Tracer.
I went up to the attic and found the 89 Tracer brochure and it also has the silver stripe (scanned copy of the cover attached). They must have taken a picture of the 88 Tracer for the brochure or introduced the red stripe some time after the model year started. Definitely wasn’t an option as our car had none!
Rudiger, I agree… must have been a running change in the 1989 model year. Doing a Google search for 1989 Tracers brings up images of both silver and red stripe vehicles.
I can answer this, as I bought an ’89 Tracer as my first new car, same color as this one but a 2 door hatchback. Mine, like all ’89s, had a silver stripe. The ones with the red stripe appeared late in the model year and were designated 1989-1/2. No, I’m not kidding. Besides the stripe, there was one other notable difference: the 89-1/2 cost a few hundred dollars more. I suspect the half-year model existed because it had to be sellable for awhile as there was no 1990 Tracer; the 91 Tracer was a new design shared with the new Escort. They had both 89s and 89-1/2s in stock when I bought mine, and was glad they still had an 89 left both because it was cheaper and because I thought the red stripe clashed with the light blue metallic paint. There’s a reason there’s never been a light blue metallic Golf GTI.
la673, thank you! Now I can sleep better tonight having resolved this!
Good job, la673. I vaguely recall that situation. The ‘new’ 89 1/2 Tracer was sold alongside the 1990 Mercurys and advertisements used similar photography, except they omitted the date from the Tracer brochure (that showed red-stripe cars).
So, you could call the red-stripe cars quasi-1990 Tracers, although they’re virtually exactly the same as the ‘true’ 1989 car.
It’s sort of like the 1970 Shelby GT-500 situation where Ford just used leftover 1969 cars with new VINs attached (except I don’t think any Tracers had 1990 VINs).
I’ve been researching the 1989-1/2 Tracer online a bit and can find only a few references to it, including this one from the Chicago Tribune:
“Don`t confuse the new 1991 Tracer with the car of the same name it replaces. The earlier Tracer was brought out in March 1987 as an `88 model. It was an offshoot of the Mazda 323, and its claim to fame was that it stunk. That`s stink as in mildew and mold in the interior cloth panels. That early Tracer was built in Mexico and the fetid aroma made it seem as though the car was shipped here via the Rio Grande without using a boat. Production on that car ended with the 1989 1/2 model run.”
YES!! I’d totally forgot about that awful stench every 88-89 Tracer I tried out at the dealer had, including the one I bought. It took at least several months for it to dissipate. Mazda 323s never smelled like that.
There are some suggestions online that those last red-stripe Tracers were called 89-1/2s because 1990 models would have had to have an air bag or passive seatbelts and Ford didn’t want to bother on a last-year design. Maybe.
That unpleasant stench is a hallmark of cheap chemical processing. For a long time, Kia and Hyundai products had it. I once had a cheap apartment with brand-new carpeting that had it, as well. It’s ironic since that ‘new car smell’ was something that, normally, people like. I guess it’s one of those things that’s easily overlooked when a vehicle’s interior material is sourced on the least expensive cars. The pieces for a 323 were sourced in Japan while those on the Tracer were surely made in Mexico somewhere.
That’s also quite good speculation on the airbag/passive restraint requirement keeping Ford from calling the 89 1/2 Tracer a true MY1990. It’s actually kind of a sleazy trick; the 89 1/2 ‘looks’ like it’s a 1990 because of the new red-stripe moldings and it’s sold right alongside ‘real’ 1990 Mercurys, but it’s still the same as a 1989 (or ’88, for that matter). Like I said, when you look at the 1990 Mercury brochures, they’re all done in the exact same style, except there’s no model year printed on those of the Tracer.
It’s not uncommon in the auto industry to stop production of a relatively successful product due entirely of the cost to meet current regulations. I think that’s the primary reason the old Dodge Grand Caravan and Journey (in production since 2008) are being discontinued; it’s just too expensive to update them.
I remember confusing the rear of these with the sportier Isuzu Impulse hatchback, and with the Porsche 928 as well. I think I had a die cast model of a 928, and as a little guy (6-7 years old), the nuance was lost on me. I thought they were all quite neat looking.
I have been under impressions this vehicle, or maybe the wagon version was built in Taiwan by a factory with relation with Mazda. But I was always impressed by the built quality of this car, the same vintage of Ford Escort is not match. Only problem was it was sold in a band tailor for mature clients.
Well, in Taiwan they build Ford Lasers locally, but to the best of my knowledge they don’t or can’t export them.
Not to the US, which got all its cars from Mexico (including the 2 door hatchback; I owned one and that was on the placard), but Canadian-market cars came from Taiwan. Canadians also got Tracers one year earlier than the US (1987), and could choose from three trim levels (L, GS, LS, with the top-line LS being similar to the lone American model).
There were some really good Japanese-American hybrids back then if you knew where to look. Dodge Colt, Chevy Nova, Mercury Tracer – all as American as apple sushi.
I’d add the Ford Probe too, which was a bit more American than those three but still mostly Japanese, especially the earliest ones before the V6 became available.
An 89 Tracer was my first new ride, an American-branded car that was a Mexican-built version of an Australian variant of a Japanese car. What a mutt of a car, but it sure had an interesting passport.
Hey, it has a hubcap.
Neat.
Somewhere in the early 1980’s, Ford gave up on Mercury. This car, one of many rebadges of cars and SUVs from all of the global Ford catalog, just depresses me. I cannot look at this car and say: That’s a Mercury.
From the division that gave us the Turnpike Cruiser, the Marauder, the Cougar, the Euro Capri and the Sable, the end started here. Well, maybe the end really started with the horrid early 80’s Lynx and Topaz, but you get the idea. The trajectory was headed downhill and no one had the grace to end this swiftly. We got around 20 years of egregious rebadges because of dealer obligations, I suppose…
I get that this car was a good value, well built (I never interacted with one over the long haul) and that many people seem to have had good experiences with them. But the styling and the overall look of the car says econocar, with a garnish of penalty box. Even the 1990 and later Tracer (egregious rebadge, again) that came after this car didn’t seem so dumpy.
This Tracer was far from dumpy or a penalty box. It had the best interior trim and features of any small or next size class up in North America. It was comfortable, economical and competitively roomy. It matched or bettered the highest quality car in the segment. A best in class car for sure!
I had a 3-door in the same blue paint and coordinated blue interior with manual transmission, aluminum wheels, and power windows. Wish I still had it.
I don’t recall there being an extensive option list for the Tracer, but aluminum wheels and A/C were surely two of the most popular. In fact, aluminum wheels, A/C, automatic transmission, and power windows might have been the ‘only’ available options.
And, yeah, while the styling wasn’t the most stunning, it wasn’t offensive, and you really got a lot of equipment for your coin. Someone mentioned the Dodge Colt and NUMMI Nova and the first Tracer definitely falls into that same category of a way to get Japanese-level quality without having to pay US Japanese dealer prices.
That’s right. Looking at my ’89 brochure, these are the only options: electronic am/fm stereo with cassette (am/fm stereo came standard), A/C, “speed control”, 3-speed automatic, power steering (on 2 door only; was standard on 4 door and wagon), radio delete for credit, cast-aluminum wheels, and “sport option”–which was a combo of cast-aluminum wheels, “tu-tone” paint treatment and lower body tape stripe (available on hatchbacks only).
Power windows were not a factory option, though Mercury did offer dealer-installed power windows as well as power locks. The window controls unfortunately lived in a black pod added where the window cranks were. Comparible Mazda 323s did offer factory power windows, and cars so equipped also got longer armrests that ran the length of the doors, rather than ending right where your hand wanted to rest so they’re be room for a crank. Starting in 1988, Mazda went to a 4 speed automatic, yet Mercury still used the 3 speed from the ’86-87 323. My car was noisy on the highway with the stick in 5th gear; I can only imagine how raucous it would have been with the engine racing with no overdrive in the 3 speed auto. It also lopped off 6 mpg
In Oz, these were locally made and sold as the Ford Laser. They had local suspension tuning and seats, and were thoroughly excellent little bombs in their day, in fact, the pick of what was available in their class size. Roomy, zippy, slick gearchange and responsive engine, (injected in top-line), with very good handling and ride compromise.
Top-of-the-line was badged Ghia, and they felt rather swishy for a small car, even if the equipment was a bit laughable by today’s standards (power, steering, electric mirrors, ooh, ahh). Actually, top-line was a Mazda-made 3-door TX-3, which could be had with turbo and 4wd, but they were very pricey and rare. Glorious fun to drive though.
The Laser looked nicer than this too, a less-fussy nose and small bumpers making a suprising difference.
Once ubiquitous, I haven’t seen one forever. They were not long-lived things, 200K (125K miles) being pretty much it. Smoky engines, groany diffs, and very rattly coachwork by then.
In their day, as presented and tuned for the needs of this market, certainly not a dullard rental thing. (For that, as ever, you rented a Nissan!)
The 16v turbo 4wd was sold in the States too, but as a Mazda not a Ford/Mercury. That was a two door hatchback only; a four door sedan was available with the 16v turbo but not 4wd.
I rented a Tracer 3dr in this color. I liked the Tracer more than other econoboxes, but it was pretty forgettable.
I thought this car was a wise marketing move at the time, by differentiating Mercury’s product line from Ford by replacing the badge engineered Lynx, of course the second generation Tracer reverted back to being an Escort twin.
That 1991 Tracer commercial starts out with by using a rather famous fascist building in Rome in the background which seems odd and expensive, but it did grab my attention.
BTW, this is an ’88. As i’ve mentioned several times upthread, I bought a new ’89 Tracer and thus became attuned to the subtle differences between them during a decade-plus of ownership. After one of the rear view mirrors broke, I looked for a replacement in a junkyard and learnt the 1988 models used a standard Mazda mirror and housing whereas the ’89 changed to the one Ford used on the ’91 and later Escort/Tracer. The Ford-style mirror was smaller and nearly rectangular, while the Mazda mirror took advantage of all the space in the housing and was irregularly shaped. The one in the pic looks more like the ’88 design. Also changed was the MERCURY and TRACER badging on the rear hatchback glass – a glued-on nameplate on the ’88, see-thru reflective lettering visible through the glass on the ’89 (similar to the MUSTANG lettering behind the glass in the rear side windows of ’87-’93 Fox body ‘Stangs). Here too, the feature car looks like an 88 because grime has built up around the badge which wouldn’t be possible with the 89 revision that left the glass smooth. The only other change I’m aware of was yellow highlights added to engine compartment service points like the dipstick and fluid reservoir caps.
The attraction of this car was the quality and features of a Mazda 323 LX at a much lower price. Several things made this a bargain for me: Mercury had a $1,500 rebate in place on Tracer 2 door hatchbacks (other body styles only got $1000 rebates; the 2 door was likely singled out because it was Mercury’s lowest price car). Ford had an additional $400 rebate for recent college grads that i qualified for. Being built in Mexico rather than Japan, it was exempt from the “voluntary” import quotas that were keeping Japanese cars selling above sticker price sometimes, and cheaper Mexican labor also figured in. The car still was a slow seller – those in the market for small Japanese-style cars probably didn’t think to drop in to a Lincoln-Mercury dealer – and they were bargaining. I paid less than $8,000 for my nicely optioned car, including tax and other fees.
My friend at the time made a bit from the stock market, and traded in his 1983 Dodge Challenger (the Mitsubishi-made one) on a new ’88 Mercury Tracer. I think it was a 5 speed, but it has been so long that I don’t remember.
The Challenger was a nice car, but he had alignment issues on it, and was probably just ready to buy another car. I think I had just bought my ’86 GTi a couple years prior (replacing my ’78 Scirocco)…but this is about the time that 4 doors seemed to start eclipsing 2 doors…probably because of insurance cost. His was a 4 door Tracer.
It was a nice car, but the seats seemed rather stiff to me, but I was used to the rather nice seats in my Scirocco and GTi. I think he picked it up in the Mercury dealership downtown (which is kind of quaint, as it has been years since any car dealership was located downtown, they’ve all migrated to the suburbs and interstate).
Don’t know how long he kept it…we parted ways right after this, and I’ve not seen him since.
Leased a new ’88 Tracer wagon. It had all the options, including a terrible 3 speed automatic. It was never right. Doing 60 mph, the tach read 4100 rpm. I took it in many times only to be told that it was “operating to intended design.”
Finally after renting two different ones, and finding that those cruised at a more relaxed 36-3700 rpm, I finally fought Ford enough to buy out the lease. Not a bad car otherwise, but man did that motor scream on the highway.