(first posted 5/26/2016) True story: I’ve never been more dumbfounded at finding a Curbside Classic than I was when I spotted this Merkur Scorpio two weeks ago. Ever since I learned of this car over a decade ago, I’ve made it my great quest to find one. Unfortunately, selling just over 22,000 examples in North America, now almost three decades ago, the chances of finding one in existence, in any condition, are slim to none.
I did manage to spot this one out in the CC-rich climate of northern California three years ago. Unfortunately, I was a passenger in a moving vehicle coming back from a tour wine country, so this was the best picture I could get, and as a result, it doesn’t really count for me.
Yet in an odd twist of fate, I was recently lost in the appropriately-named “Quiet Corner” of Connecticut. A result of the usually accurate navigation app, Waze, taking me off Interstate 395 to the wrong address on a street that didn’t exist, I came to find that there was no southbound re-entry to the highway. Begrudgingly trusting Waze again to take me back to the interstate, I was shocked when on the horizon I spotted this distinctive hatchback shape aside the rural country road I was traveling on, for it was indeed a Merkur Scorpio!
So what’s so special about the Merkur (pronounced “Maer-koor”) Scorpio? Well, it was Ford’s most serious attempt at making a European sports sedan for the North American market. By the 1980s, with an ever-growing population of upwardly-mobile buyers flocking to European import brands such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Saab, and Volvo, American car companies slowly began introducing models aimed at these buyers who preferred the tighter handling, driving dynamics, and understated appearance of most European cars.
Typically, these European-inspired sports sedans were limited to trim levels on existing mid-size vehicles, differentiated by blacked-out exterior trim, alloy wheels, stiffer suspension, an interior with different trim and bucket seats, and if lucky, upgraded powertrain. Examples of this included the Dodge 600 ES, Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport, Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera ES, Pontiac 6000 STE, and Ford’s own 1984 LTD LX.
The Merkur Scorpio, however, was a totally different approach, and arguably the most legitimate domestic “European sports sedan” of the Eighties. This is because the Scorpio was in fact a born and bred European executive car, developed and built in Köln (English spelling: Cologne), West Germany, and sold across continental Europe as the Ford Scorpio. In Ireland and the U.K., the car was still called “Granada”, retaining the name of its predecessor.
With rear-wheel drive, a choice of 5-speed manual or 4-speed automatic, a host of gasoline or diesel inline-4s and gasoline V6s, and numerous available luxury features, the European Ford Scorpio was positioned as a legitimate alternative to cars such as the 5-Series and E-Class, much as the Merkur version would be when imported to North America.
In a bold move, Ford chose to offer the Scorpio only as a 5-door hatchback, a decision that somewhat limited the car’s appeal, especially when it came to America. A somewhat angular Taurus-styled 4-door sedan and a 5-door wagon were eventually added, though by this point the Scorpio’s short stint in the States was over.
The Scorpio hatchback was clearly the looker of the lineup, boasting a sleek, aerodynamic silhouette. With steeply-raked front fascia, front windshield, and rear hatch windshield with wraparound rear glass, the car was a compelling, futuristic shape even in Europe where aero designs were already common.
Keeping that praise in mind, the Scorpio design did have its flaws. Despite being rear-wheel drive, the Scorpio featured an uncharacteristically short and tall hoodline, for a somewhat less elegant look than competitors such as the drop-dead gorgeous BMW E34 5-Series. More noteworthy, was that the tall rear roofline and expansive glass hatch tended to give the car an un-sporty, top heavy look from some angles, in addition to making the car look externally larger than it really was.
Regardless, the Scorpio was a hit in Europe, becoming one of the best-selling cars in its class, and receiving numerous praise and awards, including European Car of the Year in 1986. By the time it arrived in North America as the second (and ultimately, final) vehicle added to the new Merkur marque, the Scorpio had a stellar reputation to back its market positioning.
Predictably, the Merkur version was only sold with the top engine available on the European model, a 2.9-liter version of the Cologne V6. Engineers completely redesigned this engine over the older 2.8-liter version, with improvements including a lengthened stroke, stiffer engine block, and a dual manifold arrangement, all made to achieve a more favorable torque curve. Rated at 144 horsepower and 162 pound-feet torque (slightly less than in Europe), this engine was capable of achieving over 90 percent of peak torque between 1800 and 5200 rpm.
The Scorpio was one of the first production vehicles to feature four-wheel disc anti-lock brakes as standard equipment. Suspension was fully independent, consisting of MacPherson struts, anti-roll bar and coil springs up front, and semi-trailing arms, anti-roll bar and coil springs in the rear. The Scorpio also came with power-assisted rack-and-pinion steering and at least in North America, was fitted with 15-inch cast aluminum wheels wrapped in low-profile Pirelli all-seasons.
Contemporary reviews of the Scorpio’s handling were typically positive, with ride quality, braking, and the expected tight Germanic steering praised. What most reviewers felt lacking though was acceleration. Although the Scorpio felt confident and composed at triple-digit speeds (top speed was 117 mph), getting there was a bit leisurely, with a zero-to-sixty time of around 10 seconds. In 1987, Car and Driver ran the Scorpio up against the Saab 9000 Turbo, Acura Legend, and Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Touring Sedan, with the Saab and Acura requiring nearly 2 full seconds less to get to sixty mph.
In that same June 1987 issue, Car and Driver summed up the Scorpio as a “model of equanimity”, offering a idealistic balance of handling and comfort. C&D went on to say that in the Scorpio “you feel exceptional poise rather than sportiness”. If there was any question about the Scorpio’s sports sedan claims, there was none whatsoever on its claims of luxury, which most agreed was the car’s most endearing quality.
Uncharacteristic of most German cars, the Scorpio featured thickly padded yet still highly supportive seats, for maximum long-haul comfort. Front buckets were 16-way power adjustable, although the unsightly squeezable lumbar support inflators tended to conjure images of a blood pressure monitor, or worse. In any event, rear passengers were treated to limousine-line legroom, and rear seatbacks could even recline nearly 20 degrees at the touch of a button — one of the car’s most unique features.
Standard on all Merkur Scorpios were the expected power windows, power locks, power mirrors, tilt-and-telescoping steering wheel, and cruise control, to name a few. An overhead console with information center and automatic climate control were both standard, and heated front seats were added to 1989 models. The available Touring package (which most Scorpios seem to have been equipped with) added leather seats, power moonroof, and an electronic fuel computer.
The Scorpio’s interior was well-laid out, with clear analogue gauges and controls positioned within easy driver reach and view. Despite their easy accessibility, some controls and switches were criticized for being confusing to use. Additionally, though it featured high-quality materials and fit-and-finish, the Scorpio’s interior came across as more Mercury Sable than Mercedes-Benz.
Regardless of any subjective qualities, from an objective standpoint, the Merkur Scorpio had many strengths making it a competitive car up against other premium imports. It certainly embodied most of the qualities buyers in this class wanted. Yet despite modest sales projections of 15,000 units per year, why did the Scorpio only manage to sell just over 22,000 in the nearly three years it was sold in North America? If there is one undisputed answer to this question, it is poor marketing.
If it wasn’t bad enough that the Scorpio was sold under a brand that was absolutely meaningless to most people, as few had heard of it and even fewer knew how to pronounce, it was that this BMW/Mercedes/Audi/Saab/Volvo/Acura-alternative brand was sold through Lincoln-Mercury dealers, and only select ones at that. Merkur was targeted to a completely different demographic of buyer than the typical Lincoln-Mercury clientele, making it virtually impossible for the Scorpio and XR4Ti to score any sales or even interest from Lincoln-Mercury owners and shoppers.
On that same note, it was highly unlikely that anyone shopping for an import sports-luxury sedan would consider visiting their local Lincoln-Mercury dealer. Other new brands in this segment such as Acura did not encounter these same problems, as the brand was sold through an exclusive dealer network and had a large customer base of current Honda owners looking to trade up.
Then of course, there was also the Mercury Sable and Ford Taurus. Sure they were front-wheel drive and offered a less invigorating driving experience, but they sure looked an awful lot like the Scorpio, boasted greater interior width, and cost nearly half as much, even fully optioned. While it’s probable that almost nobody was cross-shopping Mercedes-Benzes with Taurus and Sables, it is equally unlikely that anyone looking at the Taurus and Sable was allured by the Scorpio. Furthermore, any performance deficiencies were largely nullified by the 1989 Taurus SHO.
As a matter of fact, in more ways than one, the Merkur Scorpio draws parallels to the Eagle Premier. While not necessarily positioned as a premium “European sports sedan”, the Premier was a similarly-sized car, owing much of its mechanics to a European vehicle, and one of the most technologically-advanced cars available in the U.S. at the time. Much like the Scorpio, the Premier was a sales flop, largely a result of its poor marketing under a newly-created “import fighter” brand that failed to resonate with buyers. But that’s a story to revisit for another time.
Ultimately, selling European Fords under the Merkur brand in North America was a failed venture, and one that still raises as many questions today as it did in the 1980s. On the one hand, selling genuinely European engineered and built cars with all the characteristics import buyers demanded for a lower cost than other German cars sounded totally ingenious.
Yet at the end of the day, who exactly was Merkur supposed to appeal to? And I mean no shame at all, but it’s no secret that a large majority of European luxury car purchases were and still are today image-driven. Those looking to shell out big bucks for the prestige of a Bimmer or Benz were not likely to be swayed by some no-name Ford product, even if it was from Germany. Likewise, Japanese luxury brands such as Acura and later, Lexus, appealed to those who once drove more pedestrian Hondas and Toyotas. Any extra conquests they picked up along the way were additional profit.
The idea, execution, and general goals of Merkur still raise many obscurities, which will likely never be fully understood. Merkur disappeared just as quietly as it arrived, seeing less than five years of existence — a period of time significantly less than the time it took me to find one. The Ford Sierra (basis for the Merkur XR4Ti) and Scorpio continued in Europe, fully living out their design cycles, before being replaced. As for the North American market, Ford largely gave up on trying to sell upscale Euro sports sedan fighters, making the whole Merkur story all the more bizarre.
Related Reading:
1988 Merkur Scorpio (Curbside Classic)
1988 Merkur Scorpio (Vintage Road Test)
1985 Merkur XR4Ti (Curbside Classic)
Very well written article.
When these were out and in more numbers on the roads, it always seemed that these were the cars that people drove as if they owned the road. My memory of these cars was being cut off, no signals used to indicate left or right turns, and U-turns in traffic. Also taking two spots in the parking lot if there was one there.
I guess you can’t blame the car for that, but it sure left a lasting impression on this driver.
I see what Ford was trying to do, but they may have attracted more sales under a more well understood name like Mercury. Maybe they thought they needed another brand moniker to take away sales from Saturn.
I’m with you on “Merkur” being a thoughtless, tonedeaf choice of brand name, but I don’t think Saturn had much of anything to do with it. Merkurs were sold from ’85 to ’89; Saturns from ’90 to ’10.
I agree with you regarding the “Merkur” name. Although I found the cars attractive and cars I might drive and possibly enjoy driving them, I don’t get why the name was chosen.
In my high school photography class I submitted a photo to the weekly contest that wasn’t bad, but wasn’t exceptional. I gave it a clever title, thinking that’d surely carry some weight. It didn’t.
We’re talking about the car company who thought their Five Hundred wasn’t selling because it wasn’t called the Taurus, so my guess is this was like that. Americans didn’t know what to make of this sudden weirdly-named brand they mispronounced in an unfortunate but entirely natural way (“MURKer”). I think they’d’ve done better to sell the Exrati…oops, ‘scuze me, the XR4Ti and the Scorpio as Fords.
Yea… it seemed a blunt force approach to making sure customers KNEW that this was a real EUROPEAN car, not some truncated Lincoln Log or rehashed Tempaz like what’s sitting across the showroom. No-sir-ree! Comes from the same place those cars that the upwardly mobile types been buying for awhile now. It’s IMPORTED from GERMANY… has a name that’s exotic enough that we’ll have to tell you how to pronounce it correctly. Pretty special, huh?
It’s one of those things that sometimes happens when a whole bunch of people fluent in “marketese” gather ’round a table to process information gleaned from focus groups and surveys and market research and predictions and statistics, then add a pinch of voodoo… and out pops the perfect name. A Mongoose Civique for the 1980’s, if you will.
P.S. @Daniel Stern Looking at the first picture of our featured car… Is this Ford’s approach to those yellow headlamps you’ve been speaking of?! ;-)P
I agree. What I don’t get is why these Euro Fords were never popular in the USA. Back in the 1970s, there was the Ford (Mercury) Capri, and that didn’t last on the market.
Yes, actually. These were Ford’s “Better Idea” for 1983; the main system design priorities were (1) cheap; (2) funnel bulb business to Sylvania; (3) funnel plastics business to GE, and (4) cheap. NHTSA bought Ford’s steaming pile of bulk wrap about how excellent and durable and superior this kind of headlamps would be—why, they’d be the bestest ones ever in the whole wide world!—and rubberstamped it: sure, fine, whatever, go’head.
Pedestrians die as a direct result.
I saw one of these driving here in Tucson last month..2nd time that I’ve seen it. I seem to recall reading in R&T when they were new that Ford was promising Skorpio buyers free future upgrades to current model standards as they came along..?
Excellent article as usual Brendan. Very well researched, combined with your well-informed opinions.
I think both the Taurus and Sable were significantly better looking cars. Based upon styling alone, I’d think the Sable was the premium car. They were cleaner and more original designs, The glass C pillar being the one genuinely unique and notably distinct exterior design feature on the Scorpio. The too tall and massive taillight lens area looks contrived. Between the Taurus, Sable, XR4Ti and Scorpio, the Scorpio was easily the most conservative design.
IMO, the Taurus SHO had it all over the Scorpio. If perhaps less refined, and luxury-oriented.
The Sable had the glass C pillar too, which is one reason they look so much alike.
In some markets (Central or South America, or Mexico, can’t remember which), the Taurus had the wraparound-look glass C pillar too. It was basically a Taurus front and side sheetmetal with a Sable rear.
Car and Driver had a long road test when these were introduced. At first I was intrigued. I had found the BMW Bavaria and Audi Fox to be quite attractive and desirable. I was thinking seriously about late model Mercedes and Bimmers. The Scorpio reminds me of the Cadillac Catera that the dealership gave me as a loaner when I took my STS in for warranty service. I really wanted to like that Catera, it was German after all! But it didn’t impress as a German Opel and it didn’t impress as a Cadillac either. My ’94 Seville was better in every way. That 5 series BMW pictured in the post, now that, was a car to lust after! Everbody KNEW what that said about the owner. The Merkur might have impressed an enthusiast, but your neighbors and co workers would have thought that it was just an odd duck. Why would you pay extra for that? An expensive car without the prestige of a luxury legacy? Lexus was able to pull that off, based on the strength of the Toyota corporation behind them, and decades of loyal buyers.
The last time I saw a Merkur was sitting on the side of a dirt road of a campground. The weeds had taken over and the paint badly faded. I would imagine the owner didn’t want to pay for a new turbo or couldn’t find repair parts; therefore, just abandon in place.
I get the impression the same scenario was encountered by the blue Merkur next to the blue building in the first few photos. Could not source parts or didn’t want to pay a premium for parts to keep the Scorpio running.
That makes no sense whatsoever. If you’re going to sell cars to any given country, don’t you think it’d be best to offer parts to keep a car running? I don’t get why they don’t do that. It’s no wonder certain cars aren’t sold here in the USA. Parts aren’t easy to source.
I bought an XR4Ti new. Parts are easier to get now, with the exception of some of the interior parts, than they were new.
Most likely it was the transmission that failed. Even the detuned 2.3 stressed it.
Fords advertising dept was totally out to lunch. The LTD LX ad, “special” sealing head gaskets? “Premium” exhaust valves? Double roller timing chain? No, sorry sir, I prefer the standard head gasket that doesn’t seal, regular exhaust valves will do just fine and who needs a “double” roller timing chain? Hey hon, just picked up a new car on the way home from the market, guess what, its got a double row roller timing chain!!!!!!!!! The wife responds, “Does it have solid rollers or split rollers?”
So lets import an expensive European Ford sedan, give it a weird name and …………………. sell it thru select Mercury dealers.
One other note, I think this article is the most press these vehicles ever got!
As for the only mechanic trained on a particular vehicle it was a fairly common practice to be specialized in the work you did. The chances you could make book time was much better if you worked on the stuff every day. There was the “front end man” that did most of the alignments. The “automatic transmission guy” that did most of the transmission work. I was the Isuzu guy when GMC started selling the Isuzu medium duty trucks. There were times being “The guy” was a good thing and of course there was times you wished you had never heard of the damn things.
It’s interesting that Ford and GM took so many turns to not make their European cars successful in the US. It seems both Companies feared that even more than the Japanese and BMW & Mercedes competition. Making its global products also in US would solve the costs problem as Honda and Toyota did with their best sellers.
Right? I don’t understand why that’s the case.
There were unfortunate political and economic considerations (see below). I also would not be shocked to be shown evidence that at least some of the overseas-model failures in the U.S. market were deliberately engineered to provide ballast for the automakers’ to go “See? Toldjya: Americans don’t like European cars” and keep selling Cavaliers and Tempos and other suchlike.
Here is what a Ford engineer told me in 2004, in the same conversation wherein he told me the North American plants were not capable of putting together the Australian Falcon, and went into credible detail about it (and he said, probably correctly, that Ford were not about to piss off the UAW by importing Falcons):
“In ’98-’99, Ford considered bringing the Australian Falcon XR8 over to the US to sell as a luxury/sport car. I was between “jobs,” as it were, and a friend of mine in Product Development got me assigned to the crack team of engineers assembled to evaluate the feasibility of federalizing a Falcon. Of course, I was involved in chassis evaluation. That was an awesome car (and the BA is even better). It used what at the time was the Explorer 5.0, so it had a strong bottom-end, but also had good-breathing GT-40P heads. I think it made about 250 hp, and I think like 305 lb·ft, or close to it; bottom line: the car was all torque, with a nice helping of horsepower, but it had a hard time putting that power down ’cause it was relatively light. The AU platform used an evolution of Ford’s “Control Blade” IRS originally developed for the Ford Sierra (aka Merkur XR4ti in the US) that did an excellent job of controlling geometry, but lacked the ability to really control the torque loads delivered by the engine, so wheel hop and suspension wind-up were really a problem. To try and counter that, Ford (but mostly Tickford) had compensated with stiffer springs and a thicker rear antiroll bar, which made it ride “hard” and oversteer (but I thought it rode and handled as a car such as that should, even though about 80% of Americans would disagree). Wasn’t a whole lot we could do. It takes a concentrated driver to handle a car with those characteristics, which Australians can and most Americans could not, so that presented a litigation issue and a definite vehicle dynamics obstacle. Plus it is a dedicated RHD car, so there’d be a number of low-volume, custom parts to be made to convert it to LHD, not to mention a specialized conversion line/facility to accommodate it.
“Plus the bonehead powertrain engineers wanted to replace the sublimely good BTR automatic with a 4R70W to reduce [mainly] service costs, which would’ve completely killed the car’s performance; the 4R70W is NOT a performance-oriented transmission; it is better suited for use as a boat anchor. And work on the “clean sheet” DEW98 platform (LS, S-Type) was already underway at Jaguar, and it’s approximately the same size car and configuration. The XR8 was a sedan that would run with a Mustang GT, but it would’ve retailed for about $50,000-$60,000. A great car indeed, but not $50,000 great. Sadly there really was no place in the market for it at that time in this country. So Ford bailed.
“The Falcon 6 would have less tendency to understeer than the V8, but both cars have remarkably tuned dynamics. The BA (and especially the BA Mark II) in general is better balanced than any evolution of the AU chassis (the AUIII was close). Still uses an iteration of the old “Control Blade” IRS, but with slightly different geometry that helps keep the rear from winding-up when it gets smacked with [up to] 405 lb·ft of torque—that torque figure is from the F6 Typhoon and Tornado (ute), the latest offerings from FPV that hold the title of producing the most torque of any Australian-made car/ute, which features a turbo intercooled 365 hp version of the humble but capable Barra 182 4.0L 24v Six.
“The interesting thing about the Falcon and the Commodore is that in addition to being very nimble and stable, they also ride very smoothly. This is mostly due to the fact that the majority of Australia’s secondary roads are clay/crushed gravel, so kinda like secondary roads in Michigan during winter, they can get rough during the wet season, and the suspensions of cars there have to be able to take the ruts and holes without beating the occupants to death. American cars have traditionally been sprung to handle rough terrain with perfect smoothness, but that tuning becomes detrimental when you have to do anything other than go completely straight. American “performance” suspensions, therefore, have simply consisted of higher-rate springs to control body motion, which has the negative effect of translating the impact of every pebble or pavement crack you run over, and beats your kidneys to death.
“How the Australians get their cars to absorb a potted dirt road and handle the turns of a road course all in one tuning is quite remarkable, really. It has a lot to do with the configuration of the suspensions themselves, but the real trick is in how they match spring and damping rates. The problem with American cars is that they’re made so blasted cheaply, and their structures are so flimsy, that you really have little to work with if you’re trying to stabilize a car and improve ride quality, so everything they routinely do in Europe and Australia, we can’t do here.
Forget trying to incorporate an “expensive” double wishbone front suspension or IRS rear drive; its all cheap MacPherson struts and trailing links to get the job done. The best thing Ford had years ago was the MN12 platform, but they wanted it soft. So it was soft and heavy and expensive to make. Now the DEW98 has taken its place, but is severely underutilized and cheaply-made.”
I had two Merkur Scorpios in the late ’80s/early ’90s., I liked them so much. They were wonderful cars with some hiccups. The interior of this car was among the most luxurious and comfortable of any car I have ever seen for both front and rear passengers with the electric rear reclining seats and the enormous amount of legroom. Ford had a stupid habit of burying high quality European cars at Lincoln/Mercury dealers whose sales people had no idea about what to do with them. I had a German Capri in 1973, 2 Scorpios in 1989 and 1990, and have owned and still own a 1972 De Tomaso Pantera, so I’ve done my share of sampling them.