It is already a few months into the 1994 model year, but what’s a dealer to do with all these leftover 1993 models. Inventory Blowout Sale!!!! Drop the prices to get these suckers outta here. That’s how I ended up standing on the lot of Ken Johns Lincoln/Mercury with my dad, contemplating the purchase of a 2-door 1993 Mercury Topaz.
The dealership must have gotten a helluva deal on a big bulk order. The blowout pricing of $9995 was on at least a dozen or so identically equipped cars, with the exception of transmission and color. Mercury Topaz GS 2-door, A/C, AM/FM Cassette, power steering and brakes, black trunk mounted luggage rack and 7-spoke machine-faced aluminum wheels. I zeroed in on a Bimini Blue 5-speed manual. I really liked that color. It was the same as my uncle’s 1992 Tempo GL 4-door that I drove during my vacation in North Carolina the previous summer.
After the test drive, the deal couldn’t be completed because the used car department was closed for the night and couldn’t work the trade in of my Plymouth Turismo (COAL). By the time we came back the next day, the car I wanted had been sold (damn for not putting a deposit down). I was disappointed but still wanted one, but the only 5-speed left was a bright red one. I was so adamant about not driving a red car, that I opted for a white automatic with a blue interior. Remember this, it will be relevant a little later in the story. The deal was done, and I drove off in my first new car; an Oxford White 1993 Mercury Topaz GS 2-door.
Being a high school kid with a new car, I was on cloud nine. Everyone wanted to ride around with me. My friends and I would routinely go cruising Montgomery Blvd in north Albuquerque on Friday nights. It wasn’t all fun and games though. I still had to make all the payments on the car, and part of the deal by my parents required me to have at least 4 car payments in savings in the event something happened with my job. Care and feeding was also my responsibility. I did all my own oil changes in the car. I got the windows tinted, and a put a LeBra front end cover on it (those were all the rage in the 90s).
About 6 months into ownership, I was involved in my first bending of fenders. On my way home from school, a car in front of me made a last minute decision to turn left. They stopped very quickly. I practically stood up on the brake pedal, and managed to not hit the car in front of me. I heard the squealing tires of the car behind me, and looked in the rear view mirror just quick enough to see a car skidding towards me, angling towards my right rear. WHAAAMM!! Plowed by a 1978 Monte Carlo. The front fender of the Monte curled up over the hood, but my car just had a busted taillight and bumper. My car was repaired by her uncle (or cousin, or friend of a friend… can’t really remember) as a favor to her family, off the record. It was perfect afterwards, except for a small paint run just below the taillight. It was always a little reminder of my first accident.
[The problematic radio. This is not my car, mine was never that dirty.]
The only problem I encountered under warranty was the factory AM/FM cassette player. It started acting up, so I scheduled a visit for the Monday of spring break my senior year. Picked the car up that afternoon with a new radio… that went kaput that night. Back in again Tuesday, picked it up again that afternoon. That new radio was also defective. I did this 5 times, always something different. Around radio #4, we had exhausted the supply of them and they started swapping out radios out of cars on the lot. I got fed up with this and had a chat with the Service Manager. The radio delete option on the Topaz was something like a $200 credit. Instead of continually replacing my radio, why not just cut a check for $200 and I’ll go install my own stereo. The service manager cleared it through the regional service office, and I went off with my check of $200 to buy an in-dash CD player.
My first solo road trips also happened in this car. The first was during my senior year in high school. Three friends and I took a trip to Visitor’s Weekend at New Mexico State University, to scope out college. Three of the four ended up at NMSU the next year. The second trip occurred that summer after graduation, a two-week haul down to San Antonio, TX with my girlfriend and her family to visit her relatives.
When it came time for college, my parents and I decided I should focus more on school and not on working to pay for a car. So mom took over payments on the Topaz, and I got the Party Wagon (COAL). The Topaz became her daily driver, her 1991 Escort became my brother’s car.
A year later, the first mechanical problem with the Topaz occurred. Mom had come down for a weekend visit to Las Cruces. While driving around town, a strange rattle started emanating from the engine bay at idle. It sounded like a bunch of bolts being shaken in an empty paint can. Give it just a little bit of gas and the sound went away. I traced the sound to the crank pulley, but unsure of what it could be. Mom took it into the dealership and the harmonic balancer had gone bad. Now knowing what that sound was, I actually found that it was a pretty common failure as I heard it often when sitting next to Tempos or Topazes in traffic.
[A little fun with the rear badge.]
A few years later, I took a break from college and started working full time. Mom and Dad had just bought a new Dodge Ram, and the Topaz was now a third vehicle (dad daily drove his Harley to work). A swap was arranged and I got my Topaz back. The Party Wagon went back to mom and dad to be used by dad on bad weather days, and to haul his clubs to the golf course.
(TempoTopaz.com – the little website I built)
During my second ownership of the Topaz, I had started working in IT and was really into this whole Internet thing. I started searching the internet for any information I could about the Topaz and the related Ford Tempo. There wasn’t much out there except for a few individuals who had put up personal websites about their own cars. There was definitely a void, and I decided that I was going to be the one to fill it. I bought the domain www.tempotopaz.com and started the Tempo – Topaz Car Club of North America. Over the years, I filled that website with every bit of information I could about these cars. The site was even featured in Car and Driver magazine.
(It was even featured in Car & Driver Magazine)
As I’m bonding with my fellow Tempo and Topaz owners online, I’m getting the itch to not just have a stock car anymore. I wanted something uniquely mine, and stood out from every other car out there. This was the beginning of my (almost) lifelong obsession for never owning a completely stock car.
First up I wanted a new set of rims. The Tempo/Topaz has an uncommon 4x108mm bolt pattern not shared with many other cars outside of mid-80s Fords. I also discovered the Contour/Mystique/Cougar did as well. I found a set of used 15” wheels from a (edit) 1997 1999 Mercury Cougar to throw on it. My Topaz had a clear “lightbar” instead of a traditional grille, a family resemblance to the Mercury Sable. Unlike the Sable though, the Topaz didn’t light up. After a few weekends of backyard engineering and work, mine was now illuminated. I purchased a 3-piece rear spoiler from the ‘88-’91 Tempo GLS from a local U-Pull-It junkyard. This little spoiler became the genesis of one of the two biggest modifications done to the car.
With the help of my dad, I embarked on a full respray of the car during the summer of 2000. The trunk-mounted luggage rack was removed and the rear spoiler installed. I spent many hours in Las Cruces sanding and prepping the car. One weekend I went back to my parents, and my dad taught me all he knew about painting a car and with his watchful eye I laid down several primer coats. Back to Las Cruces for more prep, and a few weekends later I went back to the parents place and we laid down 5 coats of Ford Bright Amber metallic (paint code: BN, a coppery/orange color found on the new Ford Super Duty trucks) and 3 coats of clear.
(Success! Oh look, Party Wagon in the background.)
The color didn’t turn out as coppery/orange as on the trucks, but more of a red/orange metallic. Then it was back to Las Cruces for the final wet sanding and polishing. I was very proud of what I had accomplished, it was a great bonding moment between my dad and I. My car was definitely a one-of-a-kind visually.
My partner James and I moved to San Diego in the fall of 2000, and I continued to make changes to the Topaz. The front and rear seats were swapped out for the seats out of a 1988 Thunderbird TurboCoupe. The blue color wasn’t a direct match for the original blue interior, but it still worked well. The front seats were a direct bolt in replacement. Even the wiring for the power seats was sitting under the carpet. With a quick plug swap, the power lumbar on the front seats worked. The rear seats also fit, with a little fudging. They were just slightly too wide at the shoulder area. I even replaced the stock 4-spoke wheel with one from a T-Bird TurboCoupe.
Even though I spent a lot of effort updating my Topaz, I had been on the lookout for a car to supplement my Topaz. The car I wanted had to meet very specific criteria. It had to be a Tempo or a Topaz, 1992 year model, sports trim, with a manual transmission. I found one, and that became my primary daily driver (an upcoming COAL) while the Topaz became a project car. I split my daily driving duties around 75% Tempo, and 25% Topaz.
(For a brief time, I owned all three.)
Too many what-if discussions about mods with my online car club friends is what led to the next transformation in the car. This was probably the most adventurous modification on any car I’ve done to date. In the fall of 2002, through the magic of eBay I purchased a 1989 Tempo GL 4-door with a 5-speed manual transmission located in Sacramento. Drove up, picked it up, and drove it all the way back to San Diego without a hiccup. In our exposed carport adjacent to our apartment, James and I performed a full transmission swap. The 89 Tempo 4-door went from 5-speed manual to 3-speed automatic. My Topaz 2-door went from 3-speed automatic to 5-speed manual. Every night, all of the tools had to be brought back into our apartment on the 2nd floor and what parts were still lying around were packed into the trunks of the respective cars (even the complete transmissions). Our landlord was pretty cool and lenient with us and allowed us to do this over the course of a week. We gave the Tempo to my brother and his wife as a second car, and it served them well for a year before their divorce. Not buying a manaul transmission from the beginning was a huge regret I had. But I was an impatient kid and really wanted that new car. Now, I was back to rowing my own gears in my Topaz.
Now think back to when I originally purchased the car. I chose to buy a white automatic to avoid driving a red car, even though that red car was equipped with a manual transmission. With a lot of hard work, I was now driving a car that was a shade of red and equipped with a manual transmission. You’re probably thinking it would have just been cheaper to buy a 5-speed car, but I was very attached to my car and I learned a lot of skills along the way. The experience of doing the work myself is something that I will always cherish.
I drove the Topaz in that configuration for about a year. I still had a laundry list of modifications that I wanted to do with the car. One of my online friends from Canada had swapped in an SHO V6 into his Topaz. Shove a big engine into a smaller car is always a good recipe for fun. For more power, that’s what I wanted to do as well. I also wanted to install a custom coil-over suspension. The list went on and on. I continued to tinker with it here and there, but never really got down to tackling that list of bigger and more expensive mods to it.
After two more moves, buying a house, and ultimately moving onto another automotive obsession; it was time to say goodbye to my Topaz. By this point, it had an XR5 front bumper, GLS side skirts, and the Mustang rims from the Tempo when I had sold it. I ultimately donated the car to a local charity, benefitting our local LGBT Center. I learned a lot of skills working on the Topaz. Even though many people dismiss it as a throw away car, I had a lot of fun with the car and have many memories of it. While sifting through my photos for this article, I still love the lines of the car and how it looked when I finally parted ways.
4x 108 is quite a common wheel bolt pattern it fits UK Fords Hillmans and PSA products my Citroen and Hillman both use wheels of that pattern, does the Topaz/Tempo have European underpinnings? we dont have them so a curious mind wants to know, it looked to me you ended up with quite a nice car mildly customised the way you wanted it nothing wrong with that both my cars have that going on with just mixing and matching amongst their respective parts bins and swapping Michelin steel 14 inch rims onto the oldster from my Xsara which got a set of alloys from the wrecking yard courtesy of a Pug 306 XSI somebody blew the trans on, Shame you got rid of it after all that effort really.
Bingo! The Tempo/Topaz were based on the European Escort.
I thought they were based on Ford Sierra.
I guess I should have said in the US. The Tempo/Topaz were based on a larger version of the first generation US Ford Escort (81-89), which was based upon the first FWD Escort in Europe. They shared essentially the same front suspension with a stretched wheelbase and modified rear suspension.
The Tempaz is also wider than the Escort which is why the passenger side axle is longer.
I own an 1988 mercury topaz xr5 that I love
My nephew had a ‘bra’ on his Honda. Great protection from paint chips and love bugs. However, the paint on the rest of the car faded badly. Looked like something with a bad tan line;-)
My second Acura came with a car bra. It came off as soon as it was warm enough to work outside without gloves.
You really made that car yours, Amigo.
The funny thing about Albuquerque is that 20 plus years later you’re still roughly as likely to be rear ended by a 1978 Monte Carlo. 🙂
haha. You are right about that. Lots of old classic cars running around ABQ.
You painted your car, essentially by hand, and it turned out beautifully.
Wow.
That (along with swapping transmissions in an apartment car port) takes a lot of chutzpah (even if you fail) and skill (when you are successful).
You have shown me a better side of the Tempo/Topaz twins which I encountered often in NYC’s Avis fleet.
Nice story.
Wow, Brian!
I too like the lines of the Tempo/Topaz in particular after the facelift. The 1st. generation was a bit claustrophobic because of the extremely fat pillars. They fixed that.
A friend of ours had the Tempo with the Vulcan engine. They kept it for 300K + miles. I couldn’t believe it would last so long. “Well, if you keep repairing it” he said.
Then I looked over a Tempo as potential 1st. car for my niece. It had an accident and was sloppily repaired. We found a better deal in a ’84 or so Escort.
I thought I may have run into your website before but I could not confirm. The link in this article takes me to a dead end.
The skills you have acquired by far exceed what I was able to do. There is hardly anything else that can boost one’s self confidence as acquiring high level skills on your own. I totally get that. This is where the value of such projects is found.
Now I wonder, what’s your next automotive obsession?
After I sold all my Tempos and Topazes, I turned over the website to someone else to run. It continued to run for several years after. Only within the last couple of years has the site become dormant and no longer works.
I have all of the static content still saved, I am thinking about putting it up on a different website just to have all the information out there.
You can check out https://web.archive.org, a.k.a. “The Wayback Machine”.
The Wayback Machine sorta works. Since the backend of the site is run off of a database, a lot of the content is inaccessible due to the back end database calls failing. Some of the content is still there though, if you use it.
“Every car has a story.” And the story can be special if the car is yours! Thank you for reminding us of this-a car does not have to be rare or anointed to make a good story. Just yours.
Great article. I was always fascinated by the all wheel drive Ford Tempos
A car that definitely served you well through some major changes in life – going from high school to independent adult. It definitely had some changes along the way, also. You improved it tremendously.
Honestly, from your title I thought it might have been a lemon, and that was compounded with the picture of the fender bender. Now I know. There have been two Tempo’s in my life – an ’88 two-door five-speed my father drove that gave only two minor hiccups in the 160,000 miles he had it plus the ’92 automatic sedan my sister owned and wrecked.
The driving experience was completely different with a five-speed vs an automatic. These were pretty darn good little cars.
By the time I rolled around to buying mine, Ford had pretty much all the bugs worked out. They weren’t the most dynamic cars, which is why they were often ridiculed by the motoring press. As basic and reliable transportation, they fit the bill very well.
And I have always been a big believer that maintenance of a car really goes into how some cars can last multiple hundreds of thousands of miles while the same car in someone else’s hands will fall apart before the first 100K.
Very true. Enjoyed your write. Thanks.
Like others here, I think the post-facelift models of Tempo/Topaz are somewhat interesting. But in my opinion these cars were EXTREMELY underwhelming mechanically. 2/3rds of an OHV inline 6 cylinder engine is about as pathetic as Dearborn would ever get. At least you could, eventually, get a V6 or a diesel engine.
In the mid 80s I came across a new Topaz diesel on the lot of a small Texas town Ford – Mercury dealership. It was as loaded as any small Ford sedan could be, with a sticker of about $11,000-$12,000. I couldn’t imagine anyone ever buying that car.
I rented a Tempo 4 door in the early 90s, it came across as an Escort with a “nose job” and an extended trunk. It certainly was no bigger inside than an Escort.
From reading the British magazine CAR in the 90s, Ford wasn’t just building mediocre small cars in the U.S. The British built Escort was roundly criticized as being a pretty pathetic small car.
Would love to find a Topaz with a V6 and a manual transmission….and working A/C.
Nonworking air conditioning in Fords was often due to poor O-ring seals in the cheap, snap-together fittings in the plumbing. They were quick to put together at the factory, quick to leak under vibration. The “cure” as long as R-12 refrigerant was cheap: more R-12. Once it got too expensive a lot of owners said, “Forget it, I’ll do without.” Or after so many refills of R-12 without adding oil, the compressor would seize up from lack of lubrication.
The long-term fix was replacement of the O-rings. Air conditioning specialists knew of aftermarket ones that were very slightly overthickness. They took more force to install but sealed properly. I also heard that the Ford O-rings for R-134a would cure the leakage. If you still had R-12 in the system it could be recovered so the refill wouldn’t cost as much as a full refill of an empty system. If your compressor had seized, though, you needed a new one; and a new receiver/dryer, and possibly a new expansion valve because of particulates from the seized compressor, and a full system flush. At that point a full R-134a conversion would cost just as much, and probably less since the new R-134a would cost less than the amount of R-12 needed to top off the system.
Spaz GT lol
I’ve always maintained that these were attractive little cars, the reputation tends to blind people it seems. These had a very convincing mini Thunderbird style going, which ironically just as you found the seats and steering wheel swapped over, 80s Thunderbird modders swap on the Tempaz side mirrors, as the windshields are the same rake. They carried that Tbird aping vibe from the Fairmont Futura predecessor, which mimicked the 77-79 Tbirds.
I can greatly relate to this, I too have a 90s Mercury product that started as my first car, in white(never changed it though), through the internet and eventually forums (I’m a moderator on TCCoA) found myself with an endless string of mods including… a 5-speed manual swap! Those wheels couldn’t have come from a 1997 Cougar though, the 97 was still MN12 based and did use a 108mm bolt pattern, but it was FIVE x 108, not 4. Those look to be from a 99-02 Cougar.
During my time, I frequented your TCCoA website many times to see how other Fords were being modified.
You are right, it was a typo. It was a 1999, not a 1997. The switch of the Cougar to the FWD Contour platform switched the wheels from 5×108 to 4×108. I updated the article to reflect that.
My mom had a loaded ’86 Tempo. All four power widows failed simultaneously one hot summer! Thankfully the AC worked very well. It was later totaled in an accident. My mom had to be extracted from the vehicle but walked away uninjured (at least physically).
Was the Tempo/Topaz ever offered with the SHO V6 from the factory? If not, I think you would have had trouble getting the engine swap through smog inspection.
I think many people would also have dismissed the Party Wagon as a throwaway car.
No, the SHO was Taurus only.
I had this discussion with a California resident/fellow enthusiast on a forum and it is doable. The car it comes from needs to be the same year or newer than the car it’s going into, a car engine must go into a car,(no stuffing truck engines in), emissions components must be maintained from the doner car, cats, PCV, EVAP, EGR, ect. and once complete you need to set up an appointment with a smog referee.
https://www.bar.ca.gov/Industry/Engine_Change_Guidelines.html
Never from the factory. The only engines ever were the 2.3L 4-cyl, the 2.0L Diesel, and the 3.0L V6.
For an engine swap in California on smog-checked cars, it can be done but you have to follow some very strict guidelines. The biggest is that the donor engine must come out of a car that is the same year model or newer. Additionally, all smog equipment from the donor engine/chassis must be transferred over. Once the swap is done, it has to be certified by the California Air Resource Board. Once certified, the car will then have to pass smog values for the engine/donor, not of the original car.
For example, if I had swapped in a 1993 SHO engine into a 1985 Tempo, after certification the car would have to meet smog requirements for the 1993 year model.
This was ultimately one of the things that took the wind out of my plans for the engine swap. It limited me to only three year models of SHO V6 engines… 1993 – 1995. Those were still a pretty penny back in those days. Being able to use an 89 or 90 engine would have brought the price down a lot.
The grey area there is the 89-90 engines are physically identical(*I think*), so long as you were to source all of the other components from a 93-95 to make it 93-95 spec no one would be the wiser. I just put in a 4.6L DOHC motor from a Lincoln Aviator in my Cougar, so technically if I lived in California this would violate one of their requirements by the letter. However, this is the exact same longblock used in the Mustang Mach 1 and Mercury Marauder, and in my case I sourced every single component, from the intake manifold to the wiring, PCV, exhaust manifolds, EGR and catalytic converters, to finish this motor up to Mustang spec. There’d be no way to tell what year and what vehicle it came from, there’s no VIN anywhere to be found on it (if there was it was probably on the sticker on the valve cover whose ink washed away at some point) and any inspection of systems on it will match the diagrams for a Mach 1, as will it’s measured emissions readings, so if I ever did find myself a resident of CA and had to certify this car I can’t imagine I’ll have a problem with my “truck motor”…. unless the smog referee finds this post lol
Inquiring minds want to see the finished project. Did you do a build thread and if so where can it be found?
Great write up and fantastic photos. The cross armed pose is priceless.
From my male modeling days…. NOT!
Cool story and cool car! You make a good point- what really matters is that you like the car and that you have fun with it and learn something along the way. It doesn’t matter if others don’t consider it special, it’s special to you!
Harbor Island, San Diego shot. I know that exact spot very well from 1970 only the skyline has changed. Have several of my own over the decades.
Funny story about that Harbor Island shot. When I was building the TempoTopaz.com website, I purchased a lot of brochures from eBay. I managed to also purchase the original dealer book about the Tempo/Topaz that was issued prior to the 1984 launch. The majority of the photos used in the book, taken of pre-production models, were taken in San Diego and the surrounding county. One of the photos was of a red 2-door Tempo, taken in almost the exact same location as that photo. I took the photo of my car about 2 years before purchasing the book. Very fun coincidence.
That’s bizarre about not being able to find a working radio under warranty. What, exactly, was it doing/not doing? Radios can be really complicated these days, with issues not much of an uncommon occurrence, but back when the only difference was the addition of an integral cassette tape deck (and then CD player), seems like they were pretty bulletproof.
+rudiger,
That’s what I thought. I presume that the new CD player worked well.
The first one the auto-reverse feature stopped working. I don’t remember the exact order, but here were some of the problems:
– auto-reverse not working
– LCD display was fried
– Sound only coming from left side of car
– cassette player ate 3 tapes
– all lights on the unit wouldn’t work
The CD player I bought worked great.
The AM/FM/CD changer combo in my wife’s ’09 Highlander was replaced at least three times before we got one that worked, so radio mysteries haven’t completely gone away. I forget exactly what the problem was with the Toyota unit other than the thing would just quit.
I commend you for your hard work on changing the Topaz into what you wanted it to be. I suspect most people would have quit somewhere along the line and just purchased something more modern and less energy consuming. My only experiences with the “Tempaz” twins was as rental cars, not something that shows a vehicle in the best light. It always amazes me (and I mean this in a positive way) that someone, somewhere has love in his heart for a car that most wouldn’t give a second thought to. Well done sir!!!
I nearly forgot how these were everywhere while I was growing up in the 80’s. I always liked the look of the last series 2 door coupes with the 7 spoke alloys. Make mine teal, please.
” I ultimately donated the car to a local charity, benefitting our local LGBT Center.”
That was my feel good moment for the day. Good on you, and I really should get my butt around to giving some of my excessive free time volunteering here in Chicago. Small gestures have the potential to make big differences 🙂
Loved the part about painting the car in the garage. I was a little apprehensive turning the gun over to you but after the first couple of passes I knew you had the talent to make it look great. It was a great bonding moment for me as well and I enjoyed every second of it. Hope to do it again in the future.
POPS
Thanks Pop! This right here folks, is my dad. A lot of my automotive passion stems directly from him.
Nice write up. I love how you made the middle panel between the head lights light up. The paint seems to have come out real nice too. I had a 5spd ’88 Tempo 2dr for a while.
Nice work. Love the functional light bar on the front. It should have come from the factory that way. SPAZ GT is a hoot!
Super story and nice to hear an LGBT org got to benefit from all your love and effort. Thanks for being so open and out. Very cool.
Thank you and you are welcome! Its just a part of who I am.
Really enjoying this series, Brian. Especially your willingness to get down and dirty with your rides. I did a lot of that, many years ago. If I ever get my house finished I hope to be back to that again.
There’s a lot more to come. More getting down and dirty with almost all of my cars. Ya’ll have me for 13 more weeks!!!
My hat is off to you. Not only did you get over 300K out of the party wagon, but you actually converted a modern car from an automatic to a stick. I so wanted to do that with my son’s Grand Marquis. I have seen detailed specs for doing so on the grandmarq.net forum, but could not justify either the time or the expense. But you did, so bravo!
I also commend you for getting more into a car the longer you kept it. I have the opposite problem, losing interest with time. You are truly the Tempaz Wizard!
That’s the hard part, justifying the cost and the expense. The older I get, I struggle more and more with that. It ultimately comes down to doing something to make it unique. You never recover the costs of modifications, ever. I just look at it as it is something that I love to do, I have a passion for, and I get joy out of #1) performing the modification and #2) having something that is unique to me.
Having a manual trans Grand Marquis would be awesome. I’ve seen a few manual shift Crown Vics, but never a Grand Marquis. Everytime I see one of those manual shift CVs, my mind starts pricing out buying one specifically for doing that…. along with a 5.0L coyote engine swap…. and then it snowballs out of control haha
HaHa, you could do an MGM on a budget just by doing the mods to the existing LoPo 5.0 to convert it into an H.O. 5.0 in front of that clutch, thus solving pretty much every problem inherent in the drivetrain of a box Panther. 🙂 Those mods are not simple, but they are a lot easier and cheaper than going to a Coyote.
This is true. Working with what is already there is inherently cheaper. When I play my “mental-modification” game, I tend to go all out.
One of my favorite mental builds is actually a 1985 LTD station wagon. Those fox bodies have a lot of interchangability. 5.0L Coyote engine swap, 6sp manual trans, SN-95 front spindle swap, independant rear suspension from an 03/04 Cobra Mustang, big brakes and 5-lug wheels.
Great write-up of a car that went from brand new to major project–but in a good way, LOL. The repaint looks nice and the lighting behind the factory “light” bar is something that should have been that way from day one. These Topaz coupes were good-looking cars, if not exactly sporting in stock form, so you had a good canvas on which to work. The trans swap is very ambitious also, and it would have been a monster with a warmed-up SHO motor, but I’m sure new projects were also demanding your attention!
Did you swap the rotors/etc. to fit the Mustang wheels in the last photo? Those look like the Pony wheels and I thought those only appeared on V8 cars, which were 5-bolt AFAIK.
Agree… I always felt like Mercury slighted me by not having the lightbar functional as it was on the Sable.
I didn’t swap rotors/spindles. The Mustang from 79-93 had the same bolt pattern (4×108) as the Topaz, so they bolted right up. They were wider than any stock rim that came on the Topaz, so I did have to roll the fender lips slightly to accommodate the wider wheels, and the tires would rub slightly on the inner fender liner at full lock.
The Mustang switched to 5×4.5″ bolt pattern with the SN95 redesign in 1994.
Best looking Topaz I’ve ever seen. Can’t decide if I like it more in red or white but the “bra” sure looked nice on the white car. Ford’s design on the audio faceplate and A/C vents was really cool back then.
Great article. My only two strong memories of the Tempo and Topaz were not nearly that positive.
Back in the late-90s a lot of buy-here pay-here dealers made a lot of money off of these vehicles. You could often buy them for less than $3000 at the auctions and they would make the note.
But then in the early-2000s these models became the rolling version of leprosy. Every sale I worked as an auctioneer featured multiple versions of these two models. They weren’t bad. It was just that nobody would even touch them and the dealers who overpaid for these vehicles would get pissed off at me having to no-sale their depreciating inventory because nobody wanted to buy them. The Chrysler LeBarons from the same time period had the exact same fate. They were just stuck in auction limbo for months on end.
The other memory? Bought one for $500 a few years back with only 69k miles. It was perfect. Not a single thing wrong with it. During the few weeks I had it someone hit the front bumper at a parking lot and left a small crack on one side of a quarter panel that was about two to three inches long. I sold it for $1500 and within two months, the entire front bumper had apparently cracked off with a jagged scar ridden remnant still remaining on it. It looked like it got into a fight and lost. I still see that four door tan model every once in a blue moon.
Oh, and by the way, your site was great. If I can ever help revive it just let me know. The partner I have with the Long-Term Quality Index has more data storage space than most developing countries.
All the best!
Steven Lang
Great article! My only experience with the Topaz was test driving a first gen around 2004. Not sure what was wrong with it, but it was as slow as a power wheels car. It was hairy pulling out from the dealer (on a back country road with a 55 mph limit that no one obeyed), and I guessed it to be nearly thirty seconds to get to sixty. I tested a camaro for kicks right afterward and I felt like I’d engaged the warpdrive.
Side note, I love seeing other LGBT car enthusiasts here. <3
Nothing wrong with it…the 2.3 and the slushbox really WERE that slow. They also turned the car into a gas guzzler, due to no overdrive.
My friend’s wife had a Topaz…I think a 93, the last year with no airbag (and the stupid attack-you belts). It was loaded with every option…except the one it really needed: the V6!