Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General What's your Contour story? (How did you find your Contour?)

At 187,XXX miles, my Infiniti crapped out on my on the highway...after I walked a couple miles and went home, had it towed...$4000 for a new engine (crankshaft broke, no oil in engine)...screw that...My friend's grandfather sold Fords for like 50 years, so he went down to the dealership, found me a T-red contour or an orange focus..the 'tour was used, focus new...I took the contour...I hate the look of Foci...

the day he called me and told me what he found, I searched for contours on the net, found Coldair.com, FC.org and Contour.org...I knew I was here to stay...Wish he had an SVT on the lot, though!

First, found CEG just by searching for shizzat about Contours.

How I got my car: I decided to drive my Cavalier RS into a drainage ditch upside-down on Christmas morning, 1997. Totalled the car ("no kidding!?!"). I said that there was no way my vette was ever touching snow & salt, so I got to talking to my dad about finding another daily driver. His girlfriend was one of the top sales people at John Lance Ford in Westlake, OH. I told her I need a car and I need it soon, but I'm not driving a 4-banger and it's NOT going to be an automatic. She said how about a used Contour? I said let's see it. She showed me a '95 2.5L Dura, automatic. "Take it for a spin around town and tell me how ya like it."
Well, coming from a beatdown 2L 4banger Cavalier with 120K+ miles, the 2.5L Dura was a screamer, even with an automatic. Brought it back and said, I like it. Now show me a manual transmission model. She went in, did some searching. Came back and said, "Only one we have is down in Florida. It's fully loaded, leather, 95SE 2.5L Duratec, 15" 6-spoke aluminum wheels, power everything including moonroof, premium sound system. 19K miles. Gonna cost about $12,500." I told them to get it on a truck and bring it up. I had the car a week later and signed the papers on January 13th, 1998. Merry Christmas to me! I asked about the SVT, but they aren't an authorized dealer :-(

Update: I have 118K miles on the car. Had all the typical problems you read about here. Plus some you don't. Some of it was the car, others were because of thier piece o' shiznit service dept who wouldn't be able to find the bottom of a lake if they were standing on it.

I was going to drop some money on the car this year (intake, exhaust, blah blah blah.) Figured I just spent $1650 on wheels/tires/rotors/pads, I might as bump the performance as well. Just recently I came to my senses and opted not to. 118K miles. No warranty. Too much money to spend for not enough performance gains. I'll get a chip to remove the speedlimiter and be happy with that. I have other cars for driving fast. No need to drop more money into this car. Anyways, I'm buying a big motorcycle next year to add to my toy collection, so I'm saving up for that instead.

turned 16 and got my permit...

my grandfather turned 87 and was sufering from parkinsons pretty bad, and he told me he wanted me to have it...almost exactlly two years later to the date of when the car was purchased from the dealer my grandfather passed away...

to this day i still have my gold plate i had made and put it in the interior and it reads "thanks pop-pop" on it...the plate is easy to spot as soon as you get in, everyone sees it when they get in and ask what its for...car is very special to me

he made it possible fro me to drive, cause i def wouldnt of been able to afford something this nice...

"THANKS POP-POP!"

oddly enough my first car was a POS 95 GL. It actually wasn't a bad car, just beat on. I got it for 3 grand. Then i rear ended someone, which gave me an excuse to get a better car, which came in the form of a mint 92 Integra GS. Dumped about 4K into and still miss it to this day. Then I came back to the contour for the bang to buck ratio. The 95SE at Morrie's Mazda was calling my name, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Went away to college, never had a car. I needed a family car to make trips from OK to NY 2 times a year. My best friend said that he drove his girlfriend's mothers V-6 contour and told me that it had kick ass power for what I was looking for. He also knew someone that worked for Tulsa Auto Collection, which is a whole lot of FoMoCo dealers that all work together, all their cars have the lowest price they will do on the sticker, so its no hassle no bargaining, nice and easy to deal with. Went to Tulsa, test drove it, learned how to drive stick on the test drive actually, and I loved the car from the first drive. Paid cash for it (they had to fix a punch list of small items before I would take it, which they gladly did), and drove it home 3 days later in the nastyness snow Tulsa had in a long time, and they dont have any plows, and the car handled great in the snow! -Nick

I saw a picture of one (a silver SVT diving into a hard right turn) in a car magazing that posted all new cars. The only thing was it didn't say what it was! NO where in the rag, not even a caption below the picture. I was IN LOVE & had no idea what it was! No clue it was a Ford, to say nothing about it being an SVT (never heard of SVT before). Six months later I figure out it's a Fraud. A year later I find out that there is a difference between the cars (SVT is rare).

I finally find it at a car show, a year later, after I pretty much gave up on it cause I really didn't hear anything about it. But the friggin car was locked & no one was there to tell me about it. I was like WTF????? I later did all my homework on line, no help from Ford or the dealers. Once I found out a little bit about the car I came to this BB and listened to ALL the gripes.

I had driven a beat up 74 Capri, a couple of beat up Bugs, and a Yamaha 180 scooter. My first "modern" car was an 89 CRX Si that I loved until it was totalled in an accident with my 7-months prego wife driving. Luckily, no one was hurt, and my son is a happy and healthy 6-yr-old.

Anyway, I was in Turkey at the time, and the task of finding a new car fell to me via long distance. It was late 1995, and the whole internet thing was still pretty rough, but I managed to narrow it down through some exhaustive research. I needed a family sedan that offered handling akin to my CRX, and from all that I read, the Contour would fit the bill. A friend of mine test drove one at a local dealer back home, giving me his driving impression over the phone. That was the last straw, and soon the deal was made.

Get this, I bought this car without ever test driving it, and my only regret is that I probably paid too much for it, owing to the long-distance negotiations. Otherwise, when I went to pick it up, it was like a fantasy internet relationship come to life. (that is, this one turned out well.) She's been my baby ever since.

Previous car was an 84 Cutlass Supreme: 3.8 carb'd V-6, RWD bought off a mechanic at a local garage. I replaced a fender, grille pieces, headlight bezels, and spray bombed it primer red, planned on dropping in a 400 V8 from a pontiac i have. but the passengers door didn't close right so i always had to close it from outside whenever someone got in, major PITA in a michigan winter. One day my best friend lets me borrow his 91 sentra se-r with intake, exhaust and suspension mods for a few days and i decide i have to have somehting more sporty and fun. i was looking at buying his car and went loan shopping with my dad, we were having squat for luck so on a whim decided to stop by the ford dealer cause he knows a saleslady there from back in the day. I tell her I want a small or medium sized car with a stick, had to have a stick or no go. They happen to be having a sale on Tours so we go look on the lot, I find the one stick they have out there, and oh my, it's a V6 to boot. took it for a nice long test drive and I was sold, Ford credit was nice enough to give me a loan at at grab your ankles interest and the rest is history. As for finding the CEG, I did a search for contours and came up with this place......

I had always loved the SHO MTX, but 4 years ago when I was looking for another car I test drove a brand new 98 Silver CSVT and loved it. However, I still had this void in my heart from selling my first 87 Mustang GT, so I opted to get a 95 yellow GT convertible. I had a great time with the mustang, but this last summer when the tranny went and then the engine, I put a lot of money into the car and had it over 300 RWHP. Finally, in Dec. I decided I needed a more reliable car. I sold the Mustang to a guy in PA. Then I found my 98 CSVT in Deerborn, MI. I flew up there, drove the car and loved it. Paid $11,500 for it with 27,xxx miles. It runs awesome, most fun I've ever had in a car and I've owned two mustangs.

When I was 18 I bought a 93 SHO for $5,000. I loved that car! Drove it for 17 months, then a kid at work offered me $6,000 for it, I figured I would be pretty stupid not to sell it to him. So I went out looking for cars, I really liked the look of SVT contours, but couldn't find any for sale. I was about two signatures away from buying an explorer when a friend called me and said he saw an SVT at a dealership a few towns away. I left the dealership with the explorer, went to the one with the SVT, I didn't even look at the car, I just found a salesman, and told him I want the SVT Contour. End of story