Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General JUST a Contour...?!

Okay, I've been having a lot of trouble with people bagging on our cars lately. It's happened three times in the past month, and each time I have had to jump to the defense of the Contique!

1. Last month when my uncle, his friend and I were leaving Kansas Speedway after the IRL race we were trapped in an endless sea of cars and drunk people. While trying to merge into a line of cars a Contour pulled in front of us and just SAT there for like 20 mins! My uncle said "C'mon, make them FEAR that Ford!" His friend then said "Dude, it's a Contour! No one's going to fear that thing! HAHAHHAHH!"

2. While on this very site at my in-laws house, my father in-law walked by and said "Are all the Contour enthusiasts senior citizens? HAHAHAHHAH!"

3. And at work last week, when a customer brought a '98 GL Contour in for a detail the receptionist sent the car to an Acura/BMW/Jaguar dealer to be cleaned. One of my co-workers made the comment "I can't believe she sent that car to BMW to be detailed... it's just a freakin Contour!" (This same person was very quiet after I smoked him in his modded Protege5.)

Anyway, I don't mind these comments. After all, part of the charm of this car is that it's a sleeper. No one expects the 4-door Ford to come through and impress like it does! Anyone else have similar stories?

In all honesty, I really don't want our cars to have much respect. The more you can impress through experience, the better. Besides, the moment we get "respect", that's the moment we get a wave of clowns dressing Contiques up in the cheap aesthetic crap from parts stores (windshield washer LEDs, "chrome" wiper blades, etc.). Look what happened to Honda. I don't know where their respect came from, but they've been exploited big time.

On a side note, I saw the worst example of an Uncle Ben's special the other day. It was a circa 90 Civic hatchback. It had the usual: beehive muffler, and wing. Funny thing is that on those hatchbacks you have to put the wings on the roof of the car. And it was a huge homemade wing, too. He also had a tach that took up half of his dashboard. Wish I had a digicam to snap a pic of that joker.

Yeah I am always trying to defend Contiques all the time. My old friend had his 89 Firebird taken away from him, because he was talking smack and we raced at Rockfalls(legal track) for titles. Needless to say he was doubting me that it was a 4banger Contour.

Where ever I go I seem to get "Why are you trying to make that thing fast when you could buy a 'Stang or a 'Maro for alittle more and it will still be faster STOCK." I just tell them when I have kids my car won't have to leave me.

But I have countless stories about them.

That doesn't suprise me. The car was not heavily marketed, and no one realizes that it is more or less Ford's answer to the Jetta. The base Contour is very docile looking, and being best-known as a fleet car for Hertz doesn't help either.

I like the fact that the car is largely unknown...makes for some interesting faces for my passengers and spectators

I have to defend the 'tour all the time. Sometimes it's fun, and people are sometimes suprised to hear about how fast a 'tour can be. Give me a few years and I'll show the world how fast and good looking a contour can be.(just hope I don't go overboard and make it not street legal)

That is the whole point of this group, a misunderstood car that was unceremoniously dropped.

New management at Ford regrets it now and will bring out a new mid size based on the Mazda 6, which should be helpful. Just that we have to wait till 2005 for it! But, the Mazda is here in the fall.

Driving a sleeper is all fine and dandy, but one reason I would like the Contour to have a better public reputation (remember the Audi 5000?) would be for some RESALE VALUE!

In my experience, the guys my age (27) who have been working several years and who now have enough dough to think about possibly their first new car invariably have a shopping list that looks like this:

1. VW GTI 1.8T (why is a boring box so popular with the yuppies?? What is VW doing so right?)

2. Honda Civic Si-R (Si in the United States)

They all rag on domestic cars as being "crap" and apparently the quality Japanese reputation helps them immediately eliminate some very good cars out there.

GM totally misses the boat on cars for Gen-X ers (unless you count the laughable Saturn Ion), Ford only barely catches the frugal ones with the Focus, and Dodge will skim a few with the Neon R/T but that's it. (PT Cruiser is for the boomers, generally.)

Up a class, there's the Saab 9-3 which might just be a real drivers car this time, Acura RS-X which was styled by students, Toyota Celica, Infiniti G20.

However, the newest cars in the parking lot at my office are a bunch of Cavaliers and a Kia Spectra. Sort of proves that the purchasing power of the Canadian dollar is in the toilet. Most popular new car here in Canada is the Civic and the Protege.

Bringing this back on topic, the Ford dealers don't even think much of the Contour. However, I've never had anyone say "just a Contour" to me. They usually don't know *what* my car is.



Kerry

Alot of people respect the SVT badge initially, then they see the contour and either didn't know SVT made one, or rag on it cause they've seen a rental tour.

On an opposite note, I was at my buddies house the other day and some guy comes up to my car (parked outside on the curb) and does like 3 walk arounds, looks inside, checks it out. Here I am ready to defend my tour at all costs (thinking he's gonna break in) and he comes up to the door and proceeds to try to convince me to trade him my tour for his jeep cherokee! He came up and praised the looks of the car, and when told about the stock numbers he was very impressed. I've never had anyone react so feverishly about my car before. It made me proud of the tour...

I went to my friends house the other day. I haven't seen him in about four months. I just got my Contour about a month and a half ago. Anyway I told him that I wanted to by the BAT euro handling kit and he said, "Chris, leave it alone. it's a Contour." This is the same guy that when I told him I was getting at Contour he said, "A Contour? Chris, you're flaming." And flaming he didn't mean going fast. He meant flaming, like gay.

People used to rag on my Contour. Once I got a KKM & SVT exhaust w/no res and went blowing by them, I got some respect.