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MM Retro Write-up: 1988 Mercury Tracer
(I apologize for some of these images...I don't have any actual shots of the car on file, and the Google shots available are't really the best)
IN A NUTSHELL: Mercury turns to Mazda for help in small-car design.
Throughout the 1980s, Mercury more or less played second-fiddle to its brother Ford Division in small-car sales. Ford's first front-drive American-badged compact, of course, was the 1981 Escort, a domestic design, which was in production until 1990, when it was replaced by a new Second-Generation Escort based on the Mazda Protege platform (I myself owned a Protege, but that's another story for another write-up). Lincoln-Mercury dealers (the two brands were combined into a single franchise in those days) sold an almost identically-rebadged version of the First-Generation Escort as the Mercury Lynx...the Lynx was in production until 1987. I had some long-distance experience (an 800-mile round-trip from D.C. to Ocracoke, NC) driving a First-Generation Escort, but I'll also save that for another write-up. Two-door / sport-oriented hatchback versions of the First-Generation Escort were produced, until 1988, as the Escort EXP and Mercury LN7, but their sales did not approach that of the highly popular three or five-door Escort hatchbacks, or of the Wagon version of the Escort.
In the late 1980s, Mercury, whose Lynx was being vastly outsold by the Ford Escort, decided to try something different. Ford, by that time, was acquiring more and more of the Mazda (Toyo Kogyo) Corporation, and Mazda vehicle-platforms and facilities were becoming available for Ford's use. It was decided, instead of continuing with the production of the relatively slow-selling Lynx, to do an all-new Mercury subcompact, based on Mazda's then-323 platform. (I also owned a 323 for a couple of years, but that's STILL another write-up LOL). The new Mazda-based Mercury subcompact would be called the Tracer, introduced in 1988. It would remain in production for two years, until 1990, when the all-new, Mazda-based Second-Generation Escort (which I mentioned above) would re introduced, along wth a similar Second-Generation Tracer. The Second-Generation platform would be sold as three nameplates......Ford Escort, Mercury Tracer, and Mazda Protege.
But, for purposes of this write-up, back to the First-Generation Tracer. At the time (1988), I was driving an almost-new 1988 Mazda 323, my first car with electronic fuel-injection......I just loved the vastly-improved drivability over the previous carburetors, and would never want to go back to carbs under any circumstances. My poor Mother was driving a six-year-old Plymouth Horizon with Push-and-Pray brakes whose pedal needed Hulk-Hogan effort, constant squeaks/rattles, and, perhaps worst of all, no air-conditioning in Washington, D.C.'s sauna-bath summers. She clearly deserved better...even her Pastor quietly told me it was time to help her get a better, more comfortable car (I had helped HIM get his latest car)...and he was correct.
So, when my Mom, who knew little about a car except how to start/stop it and drive it as safely as possible under the circumstances, decided that yes, it was time to move on (and at least get something with A/C), we discussed a number of options. She had once had larger vehicles, but recently was used to driving a small five-door hatchback, as she often carried lady-friends in the rear seat, and liked the hatchback-style cargo area. I liked the Mazda 323 sedan I was driving, which seemed basically well-built, though not as rock-solid as the Hondas of that period. But Mazda did not market the 5-door hatchback body style in the U.S. that she wanted......only the 4-door sedan and 3-door hatchback. So, the 323 was out. Then, doing some research, I saw where Mercury was, very soon, going to introduce the all-new Tracer that year...carved from (yes)...the 323 platform. The Tracer, unlike the 323, would be sold in the U.S. as both a three-door and five-door hatchback. It would have the same 1.6L, 84 HP in-line transverse four as my 323, so I would be able to easily do oil-changes for her (which I did as a courtesy/thanksgiving for her for all she had done for me over the years) using the same oil and filters/parts as on my 323. The nearest Lincoln-Mercury dealer was only a few miles away, in Annandale, VA, so, as my Mom trusted my judgement, it seemed like a No-Brainer to me. My late Father, unfortunately, did not have anything to say about it, since lung-cancer had taken him earlier that year, in May....so it was between me and my Mom. I was also fairly confident in the Tracer's potential reliability and lack of first-year defects, since it was Mazda-based and its current 323 platform had been in production for about two years, although the fact that it was to be built in Hermosillo, Mexico (a plant not noted for high quality) instead of in Japan or the U.S. did give me at least a small bit of concern.
So, not long after that, it was either on a Saturday or a day off work for me (or maybe a holiday...I don't remember the exact day, shortly after the Tracer was introduced in the D.C. area, it was down to the Lincoln-Mercury shop to see what they had in stock, or if we would have to order one. In those days, the Internet, for the most part, didn't exist, and you couldn't just push a few buttons on the dealer web-site and see what was in stock.......you either had to call beforehand or actually go see for yourself.
Well, it turned out that they did have at least a couple of new Tracers in stock, a least one of them (I don't remember how many) in the 5-door body style she wanted....so, that meant she might not have to order one. She looked at a silver monotone 5-door with automatic transmission and a matching light-gray cloth interior, and decided she had no problems with the color (she had been used to driving a two-tone silver/charcoal-gray Plymouth Horizon with the same light-gray cloth interior). So I test-drove it and carefully checked it for defects like I usually do....it passed my inspection. Then, I took a ride with my Mom, pointing out the Tracer's controls and how to operate them....the dash/controls was very similar to, but not identical to the Mazda 323 I was used to, and, of course, she was delighted to see a button for air-conditioning...a real treat (finally) for her. The thick two-spoke steering wheel, of Ford design, as a little different from that in my 323, but had no bearing on her. One thing in the Tracer's drivetrain that I did not care for was the non-overdrive FWD three-speed automatic (as opposed to the overdrive four-speed auto in my 323). But I wasn't about to ask my Mom to put up with the five-speed manual to get an overdrive-gear....she had already done without A/C for years, and driving in the D.C. area, even back then, especially with a clutch-pedal, in the always-dense traffic could be a PITA. My mom could drive a clutch, but obviously preferred not to, and I totally agreed. The three-speed automatic in the Tracer made the engine spin away in the 3000 RPM range or more while doing Beltway speeds, but my Mom did very little kind of that type of driving, and was mostly in suburban/stop-and go traffic shopping or picking up people. She said after the test-drive she could live with the car, and had no problems with it, so it was time to talk a deal.
Well, back inside, they set us up with a old guy for a salesperson that had obviously been in the business for many years, but, at the same time, he knew how to treat customers, and was very nice to us. My Mom was an ex-bookkeeper/accountant (she taught me a lot of what I learned about taxes and how to fill out the 1040s), and was the type of deal-negotiator that could be VERY hard to satisfy...it was never good enough. Yet, she and the salesman managed to come to terms fairly quickly, the papers were signed, and we took the car home that day....I think I followed her home in her old car, as she sold it privately some time later and did not trade it. You never know if salespersons are being honest or just fading you a line of B.S., but before we left the dealership, he thanked my Mom for the sale, said that buisness at the dealership had been lagging, the car she bought just exactly made his monthly-quota for him, and that he had really been depending on her sale to make it through the month. Sounded to me like just an attempt to flatter a customer into becoming a repeat-buyership next time, but you never know with salespeople...sometimes they actually do tell the truth.
Well, the Tracer met my Mom's local-driving needs quite well, and she kept it for a good six years....until she got her Toyota Corolla Wagon (which I did an earlier write-up on). I did at least some of the small service on it for her, and, mechanically, it was quite reliable, despite being built in the Mexican Hermosillo plant. Probably its biggest problem was when my Mom was on the way to church and a large van cut her off on a side-street, partially sideswiping her and forcing her into a concrete curb jut-out from the street's regular curb-line. It spent some time in the dealership's body-shop waiting for some body-parts and getting work done on the front-end. Seemed to me like it never looked or ran quite the same again after that, even after the dealer-work, but it still served my Mom well until she decided to replace it.
I liked the First-Generation Tracer, some things on it (including the basic looks) even more so than my 323, and would have considered one myself if Mercury hadn't cheaped-out with the three-speed automatic instead of the overdrive-fourth like Mazda used. The Tracer's automatic (as was my 323) was also a little on the bumpy side in the lower gears...it was smooth at first, on the initial test-drive at the dealership when brand-new, but then gradually developed the bumpiness over time. The Second-Generation Tracer, introduced in 1990, updated the platform (and the transmission) to the four-speed automatic used in the then-new Mazda Protege...but, by then, I was driving a new Protege myself, and that was a car I was very well-pleased with, keeping it for over five years, selling it to my own Division-Chief at work.
And, as Always, Happy Car-Memories.
MM
__________________
DRIVING IS BELIEVING
(I apologize for some of these images...I don't have any actual shots of the car on file, and the Google shots available are't really the best)
IN A NUTSHELL: Mercury turns to Mazda for help in small-car design.
Throughout the 1980s, Mercury more or less played second-fiddle to its brother Ford Division in small-car sales. Ford's first front-drive American-badged compact, of course, was the 1981 Escort, a domestic design, which was in production until 1990, when it was replaced by a new Second-Generation Escort based on the Mazda Protege platform (I myself owned a Protege, but that's another story for another write-up). Lincoln-Mercury dealers (the two brands were combined into a single franchise in those days) sold an almost identically-rebadged version of the First-Generation Escort as the Mercury Lynx...the Lynx was in production until 1987. I had some long-distance experience (an 800-mile round-trip from D.C. to Ocracoke, NC) driving a First-Generation Escort, but I'll also save that for another write-up. Two-door / sport-oriented hatchback versions of the First-Generation Escort were produced, until 1988, as the Escort EXP and Mercury LN7, but their sales did not approach that of the highly popular three or five-door Escort hatchbacks, or of the Wagon version of the Escort.
In the late 1980s, Mercury, whose Lynx was being vastly outsold by the Ford Escort, decided to try something different. Ford, by that time, was acquiring more and more of the Mazda (Toyo Kogyo) Corporation, and Mazda vehicle-platforms and facilities were becoming available for Ford's use. It was decided, instead of continuing with the production of the relatively slow-selling Lynx, to do an all-new Mercury subcompact, based on Mazda's then-323 platform. (I also owned a 323 for a couple of years, but that's STILL another write-up LOL). The new Mazda-based Mercury subcompact would be called the Tracer, introduced in 1988. It would remain in production for two years, until 1990, when the all-new, Mazda-based Second-Generation Escort (which I mentioned above) would re introduced, along wth a similar Second-Generation Tracer. The Second-Generation platform would be sold as three nameplates......Ford Escort, Mercury Tracer, and Mazda Protege.
But, for purposes of this write-up, back to the First-Generation Tracer. At the time (1988), I was driving an almost-new 1988 Mazda 323, my first car with electronic fuel-injection......I just loved the vastly-improved drivability over the previous carburetors, and would never want to go back to carbs under any circumstances. My poor Mother was driving a six-year-old Plymouth Horizon with Push-and-Pray brakes whose pedal needed Hulk-Hogan effort, constant squeaks/rattles, and, perhaps worst of all, no air-conditioning in Washington, D.C.'s sauna-bath summers. She clearly deserved better...even her Pastor quietly told me it was time to help her get a better, more comfortable car (I had helped HIM get his latest car)...and he was correct.
So, when my Mom, who knew little about a car except how to start/stop it and drive it as safely as possible under the circumstances, decided that yes, it was time to move on (and at least get something with A/C), we discussed a number of options. She had once had larger vehicles, but recently was used to driving a small five-door hatchback, as she often carried lady-friends in the rear seat, and liked the hatchback-style cargo area. I liked the Mazda 323 sedan I was driving, which seemed basically well-built, though not as rock-solid as the Hondas of that period. But Mazda did not market the 5-door hatchback body style in the U.S. that she wanted......only the 4-door sedan and 3-door hatchback. So, the 323 was out. Then, doing some research, I saw where Mercury was, very soon, going to introduce the all-new Tracer that year...carved from (yes)...the 323 platform. The Tracer, unlike the 323, would be sold in the U.S. as both a three-door and five-door hatchback. It would have the same 1.6L, 84 HP in-line transverse four as my 323, so I would be able to easily do oil-changes for her (which I did as a courtesy/thanksgiving for her for all she had done for me over the years) using the same oil and filters/parts as on my 323. The nearest Lincoln-Mercury dealer was only a few miles away, in Annandale, VA, so, as my Mom trusted my judgement, it seemed like a No-Brainer to me. My late Father, unfortunately, did not have anything to say about it, since lung-cancer had taken him earlier that year, in May....so it was between me and my Mom. I was also fairly confident in the Tracer's potential reliability and lack of first-year defects, since it was Mazda-based and its current 323 platform had been in production for about two years, although the fact that it was to be built in Hermosillo, Mexico (a plant not noted for high quality) instead of in Japan or the U.S. did give me at least a small bit of concern.
So, not long after that, it was either on a Saturday or a day off work for me (or maybe a holiday...I don't remember the exact day, shortly after the Tracer was introduced in the D.C. area, it was down to the Lincoln-Mercury shop to see what they had in stock, or if we would have to order one. In those days, the Internet, for the most part, didn't exist, and you couldn't just push a few buttons on the dealer web-site and see what was in stock.......you either had to call beforehand or actually go see for yourself.
Well, it turned out that they did have at least a couple of new Tracers in stock, a least one of them (I don't remember how many) in the 5-door body style she wanted....so, that meant she might not have to order one. She looked at a silver monotone 5-door with automatic transmission and a matching light-gray cloth interior, and decided she had no problems with the color (she had been used to driving a two-tone silver/charcoal-gray Plymouth Horizon with the same light-gray cloth interior). So I test-drove it and carefully checked it for defects like I usually do....it passed my inspection. Then, I took a ride with my Mom, pointing out the Tracer's controls and how to operate them....the dash/controls was very similar to, but not identical to the Mazda 323 I was used to, and, of course, she was delighted to see a button for air-conditioning...a real treat (finally) for her. The thick two-spoke steering wheel, of Ford design, as a little different from that in my 323, but had no bearing on her. One thing in the Tracer's drivetrain that I did not care for was the non-overdrive FWD three-speed automatic (as opposed to the overdrive four-speed auto in my 323). But I wasn't about to ask my Mom to put up with the five-speed manual to get an overdrive-gear....she had already done without A/C for years, and driving in the D.C. area, even back then, especially with a clutch-pedal, in the always-dense traffic could be a PITA. My mom could drive a clutch, but obviously preferred not to, and I totally agreed. The three-speed automatic in the Tracer made the engine spin away in the 3000 RPM range or more while doing Beltway speeds, but my Mom did very little kind of that type of driving, and was mostly in suburban/stop-and go traffic shopping or picking up people. She said after the test-drive she could live with the car, and had no problems with it, so it was time to talk a deal.
Well, back inside, they set us up with a old guy for a salesperson that had obviously been in the business for many years, but, at the same time, he knew how to treat customers, and was very nice to us. My Mom was an ex-bookkeeper/accountant (she taught me a lot of what I learned about taxes and how to fill out the 1040s), and was the type of deal-negotiator that could be VERY hard to satisfy...it was never good enough. Yet, she and the salesman managed to come to terms fairly quickly, the papers were signed, and we took the car home that day....I think I followed her home in her old car, as she sold it privately some time later and did not trade it. You never know if salespersons are being honest or just fading you a line of B.S., but before we left the dealership, he thanked my Mom for the sale, said that buisness at the dealership had been lagging, the car she bought just exactly made his monthly-quota for him, and that he had really been depending on her sale to make it through the month. Sounded to me like just an attempt to flatter a customer into becoming a repeat-buyership next time, but you never know with salespeople...sometimes they actually do tell the truth.
Well, the Tracer met my Mom's local-driving needs quite well, and she kept it for a good six years....until she got her Toyota Corolla Wagon (which I did an earlier write-up on). I did at least some of the small service on it for her, and, mechanically, it was quite reliable, despite being built in the Mexican Hermosillo plant. Probably its biggest problem was when my Mom was on the way to church and a large van cut her off on a side-street, partially sideswiping her and forcing her into a concrete curb jut-out from the street's regular curb-line. It spent some time in the dealership's body-shop waiting for some body-parts and getting work done on the front-end. Seemed to me like it never looked or ran quite the same again after that, even after the dealer-work, but it still served my Mom well until she decided to replace it.
I liked the First-Generation Tracer, some things on it (including the basic looks) even more so than my 323, and would have considered one myself if Mercury hadn't cheaped-out with the three-speed automatic instead of the overdrive-fourth like Mazda used. The Tracer's automatic (as was my 323) was also a little on the bumpy side in the lower gears...it was smooth at first, on the initial test-drive at the dealership when brand-new, but then gradually developed the bumpiness over time. The Second-Generation Tracer, introduced in 1990, updated the platform (and the transmission) to the four-speed automatic used in the then-new Mazda Protege...but, by then, I was driving a new Protege myself, and that was a car I was very well-pleased with, keeping it for over five years, selling it to my own Division-Chief at work.
And, as Always, Happy Car-Memories.
MM
__________________
DRIVING IS BELIEVING
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