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How did you decide on a Contique?

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Pen_Two

Is not easliy amused.
Joined
Mar 10, 2006
Messages
9,874
Location
Union Dale, Pa
Lets hear how you originally decided to pick one up.

Mine was slightly funny because I always saw them...but never noticed them. One day while riding in my friends car (after my TC's ignition went to crap) we came up behind a Mystique. Jokingly I said, "I know...I'll buy a Mystique. A Mercury Mystique." I laughed as I said it because...well...I didn't picture myself in a sedan, I was used to hatchbacks/coupes/2 seaters. Then my mother game me an ultimatum, because she was sick of me driving around her truck. So a week later I found two cars that I liked. A Cougar and a Contour, unknowingly that it was an SVT...I bought it. Strange how things turn out, eh?

Here's the picture of it when it was sitting on the lot I found it in.

P1010005.jpg


Here's the Cougar I was looking at too.

P1010006.jpg
 
ours is an intersting story how we ended up with 4 contours in the family ... it all started with my dad, he needed to replace his tempo and my mother wanted to see him in something nicer as I recall, anyway they start looking at 96s and to find one with a 5 spd wasn't easy and they where mostly base models. Now the dealer we ended up at ended up having this fully loaded 95 SE, when my father test drove the car it was history, I recall hearing that he scared the salesman when he took off and got on the car :laugh: It had 9k on it and was a better deal then any new 96 that was on the lot and that they say is that .... but it wasn't.


When I got my first car I ended up with a tempo, it was great at first but after awhile it sucked, after all I had learned to drive and had been driving my fathers 95 on and off when he was home. Well bottom line I wanted a car like my father :laugh: so I found a Mystique in an autoshopped and thinking it was a LS that is would have a V6 .... well I show it to my parents and unknow to me they go and look at the car ..... one night I come back from scouts after they had been out and I was wondering a new car for me? well when I got home there was nothing in the drive way. Well the next day my dad dissappears and then we hear a horn out back of the house, the mystique was in the neighbors garage ... my mother even told us to go outside to see what was going on since we didn't run out there :laugh: that was a surprise.


now the 99 was found at the same dealer the 95 was ... parents where looking for a spare car, brother was going to be driving soon. So again they found a nice V6 5spd Contour which is kinda a all around beater now, its the one that is driven the most.

Finally my 99 was picked up after some talk about my parents wanting to get me something new since the Mystique was racking up the miles. Again we found this contour in the bargain news, it was still there a month later so my parents take a look, might have been after I said I should take a look. Well after they looked at it I did and that was that. Now they never expected me to do what I did with the car. The only slight kicker was a week later the identical car, which was alittle cleaner showed up at a dealer, but oh well I saved this one :laugh:

The Mystique has been one of the best bangs for the buck. 100k miles later after getting it its still running strong and I enjoy driving it.
 
my first contour was about 3 blocks down from me at a dealership. it was about 3 weeks until i got my permit and i really wanted to get a car quick and cheap. so i was looking about and a base 99 se zetec auto was on the lot for 2000. my mom went over and bagined and got 200 dollars taken off. when we picked it up it was freshly inspected but it had worn out brakes and tires. ended up replacing the struts and what not before i sold it. put about 24,000 on it with the total miles ending up being well over 148,000. was looking for an svt and couldnt find one in our price rage with low enough miles came across a black 99 se v6 5spd leather traction control. it was loaded. got a thousand for the old tour and now have the black one.
 
My brother was looking for a second gen SHO in manual because my mom gave him some money to buy a new car since he was just about to graduate highschool, I was only 16 at the time and got his old car, the worst Tempo in the world and it was automatic, my brother for unknown reasons gave up his search after only finding either automatic, or beat to crap SHOs and began a search for a V6 5-speed Contour, 3 months of searching finally turned up a nice 98.5 SE Sport in Pacific Green, so he bought it. It was his baby, and everyone was hardly even allowed to ride in it, now keep in mind that all through highschool my brother was a jerk to me, but he had recently returned from a trip to Germany on which something happened and he not only drank for the first time ever, but came back a lot cooler, and one day out of the blue, he asked me if I wanted to learn how to drive a manual. I wa surprised that I was even allowed to look at the car let alone drive it and even more so to learn on it, so we went out and I drove it around in a circle a couple times at the boat launch of our local lake, then he told me to take it on the road, so I drove it around the lake, a very curvy road marked at 25MPH, but the Contour was so smooth and responsive (especially compared to the other 2 vehicles my family had, my 87 4 banger ATX Tempo, and a 2000 Dakota with extended cab, extended bed, V8, and auto) and without hardly noticing before I knew it I was doing 45 around the lake without even flinching, I knew I had to have one, so when I got the money for graduating, I searched out my car and bought it.
 
:laugh: I was drivin' around a pimp 86 Chevy Celebrity. Why not just hand my sack over now???? It died :laugh: , and Tam and I saw an ad in the paper for Brand new Neons for $10k. I was plannin' on paying off a few more bills before I got a car, but the neon looked like a good buy. They come in a stick (mandatory), four doors, and a warrenty.
We got there, and all they had were automatics. So we went test driving. Honda-civic SI.....Nissan-Sentra Spec-v.......Mazda Protege. We agreed it had to be a stick, have 4 doors, and a trunk. I insisted it be kinda quick :laugh: , and it had to handle. These were all sweet rides, but then we went to Ford.
I asked,"What do you have in a sedan and a stick?", and the salesman (2nd week on the job) says, "Just one, and SVT Contour.".........:drool: , I think, but noooo, play it cool. I say, "Oh yeah, what color?" and he said," Green." My wife says "Greeeeen?" as he walks to get the keys. I turned to my wife with pure automotive lust in my eyes and said," Just wait till you see THIS contour.:drool: " We go for a test drive, and I say to the young saleman,"Mind if I run her a little? I wanna be sure I wont be dissappointed if I get this." He's like," Ummm..Sure, go ahead."........Oh you foolish man.:laugh:

After cleaning his pee off the seat, (kidding), we went home. I tried to be practical, you know, unemotional. Yeah, right. Got the car 2 days later, I think mostly so my wife wouldn't have to hear me relive the test drive every ten minutes. :laugh: Have loved her ever since......I mean, both of them, the car and my wife.:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
Well with my parents deciding to buy me my first car(and yes im extremely thankful for that and they always decide to use that to get me to do stuff too) i went out searching about 6 months before i could even get my permit. All i knew is that i wanted a ford most likely or at least something that was quick and it had to be a stick. I wanted a Mustang (yea yea a 16 year old with a mustang, bad idea i know i got that speech) and i actually could of had one but it would have been a v6 because my parents...err because mom(dad would let me have the v8 lol). I was looking around at those a lot and found a few. Then to make my mom happy i looked at some subaru wrx's(not sti's) but most of them were too expensive so they were out of the question.

So its early April(my birthday is on April 13th) and there was really only one car i had found. It was a black v6 mustang with over 100k miles(didnt like that too much). My dad had always like the Contour SVT. He was looking in the paper one day and he found one for a reasonable price. So we go to see it. I didnt really know too much about them but i was open to it. As soon as we pulled up i was impressed by it. It looked really nice. The guy who owned it used to use it as a daily driver but he now had a family and needed something with a bit more room so he got a honda pilot and had no need for the contour. So we take it for a test drive and this is the first time my dad ever drove a contour SVT. He was pretty impressed. He liked how it just took off and was surprised at how quick it was. I liked it. So we went home and i talked to my parents and decided that the T-red SVT would be my first car.

We call him(really nice guy) up and we told him we wanted to buy it under one condition. The car was due for inspection in a month so we said we would pay his price(fair price, matched kbb pretty well) as long as he got it inspected. Thank god we made that deal. Turned out it needed new shocks and springs up front. So he gets them fixed and all and on April 8th the car officially became mine, but i still couldnt drive it, legally that is(i only drove in a parking lot where my dad worked and they were closed, i swear thats all). So i get my license on April 13th but since i couldnt drive stick i didnt drive it right away. I think i was driving for about a week before i really drove my car.

So i dont have a Mustang like i thought i would but im more than happy with my T-red Contour SVT. Id take it over and v6 mustang. Ill get one eventually, when im done modding the contour most likely and need a new project. I absolutely love my car and it shows in the money i spend on it. Already have over a grand in it(wheels, sound system) and i still need new paint, lowering kit, tint, exhaust and headers(both custom too) and some more good stuff. I want to go and visit the guy i bought it from and show him what i have done to it someday because he really loved the car and didnt really want to sell it.
 
The Cliff's Notes version :

Back in '97 , my brother was looking for a Contour to replace his Escort GT . One evening , he & I got together & went to look at one in Lebanon (on a carlot) . We got out of his car , and I saw the Contour . The lights of the parking lot shown down on the teal paint like the beam of god outta the sky (no shizzle) , and I knew I had to have it ! The next day , I bought myself a '95 SE Contour . I had no intention on buying a car that day . It took my brother another month to find HIS Contour - a teal '95 SE . We had twins !
It was that day till January 2001 when I traded my '95 in on my brand-spankin' new '00 CSVT . I put a lot more thought into this purchase :) . Enough thought ?? Who knows ;) ??
 
I blame worldtour. Literally, he showed me CEG when my stratus was on its last leg, and sent me a video of his exhaust.
 
My 95 Escort GT had become a huge money pit (fun beater car, but I sunk way too much money into it), so I was looking around on AutoTrader.com for a SHO or Super Coupe and just happened to put in Contour also. Wouldn't you know it the only 3 hits for cars with in my area, 2 beat SHO's and a black E0 SVT. I had said that after my Escort I would never own another black car, but I was in love with the SVT. I went and looked at it in the end of Nov. and by the end of Jan. it was in my driveway. It was a mess trying to get the car due to the guy I bought it off of owed $5700 on it and the car was only worth $5400, and I talked him down to $5300. He had recently lost his job at a Saturn dealer, so the toys were up for sale first. His loss was my gain, well sorta...d@mn curse. Anyway, I was in love at first sight of the car and knew I was going to buy it. A little over a year later it's still with me despite being stripped of her tint and being involved in 2 hit and runs....again d@mn curse.
 
Well i was in the market and casually looking and hoping that i would be able to get a bimmer or audi some day. My saturn had about 155,000 on it and it was on its 3rd exhaust (which was on its way out) needed a water pump and the brakes were pulsing like a wooden roller coaster. So I got offered a 318 Bimmer for $8k and that was a little over what i wanted to spend and not willing to spend at that time..So I started thinking why do i want one of those when I dont even know how to work on them or know anyhting about them? So I started thinking of different Fords (family Tradition) and I only could come up with a SVT Contour. I thought there would be no chance finding one local in Upstate NY. But a couple months later iwas going home from work and parked on the side of the road was a T Green Contour SVT. stoped and checked it out. Low Milege, 58,000, 2000, tan leather, exhaust, intake, sunroof, power everything for $6000. It was everything i wanted out o a German car, but it was a Ford and most important RARE. So i concidered getting for like 2 weeks or so. and it still sat there. Well I thought it was meant to be. so i bought it! and minus the Check engine light not working (OOOPS!) and IMRC and a ****ty Power wire cnnection and VSS, I was a pretty good two months until winter. :crazy: Now I have to do the IMRC, check engine bulb (crossed fingers) get my inspection , then we will have a great summer.
 
My daily driver, an XR4TI, died on me so I rented a contour for a week while I looked for a replacement.

It was pretty darn comfortable. So when my GF (now wife) was looking for a car, the dealership had a bunch of leased Mystiques for sale.

I remembered the Contour , which was a 4 cylinder, and we test drove several V6 Mystiques...that sealed it.

Comfortable and peppy! Her only problem coosing was to get the one with leather or the one with the sunroof!!

Leather won.
 
I was out looking for a car to replace my beat up 92 Sunbird and ran into a "Buy Here Pay Here" car lot. They offered $500 for my car towards which ever car I wanted. I had it narrowed down to a Taurus with 100,000 miles or a 96 Mystique with 50,000. I had never seen a Mystique before then, but when they brought it out all clean and shiny I knew I had to have it. Took her home that day and loved it the whole time I had it. It got totaled in Tennessee on a trip and I bought a 98 Mystique GS with the insurance money. My brother was in the market for a good car so I sold him mine when I found my new 2000 Contour.
 
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