Few things are sadder than a decent car that doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up. That, in a nutshell, is the Merkur XR4Ti, Ford’s ill-fated attempt to transform the European Sierra into ...

American gearheads often complain that European automakers never send their best vehicles Stateside. There's a good reason for that: Americans usually don't buy them. No car drove that point home ...

Thomas has spent two years working in the auto journalism industry, contributing to a UK-based newspaper and writing for Euronewsweek. A full-time writer and lifelong engineering enthusiast, he now ...

Either completely forgotten or ridiculed by the few who still remember it, the Merkur XR4Ti failed because of questionable marketing decisions and not because it was a bad car. Throughout the decades, ...

At the dawn of the 1980s, a young go-getter Ford executive named Bob Lutz decided that Ford needed to draw a bead on BMW. Theoretically, he knew what would get the job done, having spent three years ...

From the November 1985 Issue of Car and Driver. Some of us have a taste for fine imports. Wines, cheeses, leather wear, movies, shotguns, lovers—there's sometimes a certain saveur built into such ...

Merkur was a failed experiment as far as sales, but the cars were actually pretty cool. The XR4Ti was a sporty coupe aimed at BMW. This example has the stick shift you want, and just 19K miles. At the ...

Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe XR4Ti couldn't be any nicer, and seems barely broken in. That condition is reflected in its asking price, which you'll have to decide if it's worth breaking out the ...

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*Estimated payments are calculated by Cars.com and are for informational purposes only. We’ve estimated your taxes based on your provided ZIP code. These estimates do not include title, registration ...

Merkur was a failed experiment as far as sales, but the cars were actually pretty cool. The XR4Ti was a sporty coupe aimed at BMW. This example has the stick shift you want, and just 19K miles. At the ...