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

My parents gave my a 95 mystique zetec to get back and forth to work/school with. Drove it about a year (the zetec is bulletproof) and during my first summer with the car I started getting interested in mods. Searched for contour/mystique on google...and found contour.org. I watched more than I posted at first, but for a few weeks I kept asking myself, WTF is this "SVT" they keep talking about!?!? Finally I saw a pic of one, and at that moment I knew it was going to be mine one day. I lusted after oen for the rest of that year. I finally got a good paying job, and so after many 60+ hour weeks I put down enough money to go get my own car. I will admit I started looking at 94 ish camaro's, preferrably an SS. But practicality was an issue, as well as insurance. After a few days I was back after an SVT. I looked at 2 from private sellers, t-red (yummy!) but I could not get a loan from anywhere to take them off their hands...so I had just about given up when I saw a 2000 T-RED at a dealer (back in june) and he wanted 20k for it! I put up one last autotrader search, and found my baby in denville NJ. Silver/Blue w/50k miles. I took a ride, and right then and there I told the man I was going to buy this car. A week later I was heading home with a giant smile on my face. Still there....

My first car I got from my Mom. It was a 2.2L 4cyl 5sp. 91 Maxda mx-6. It was a really nice car and this is when I fell in love with driving stick. I drove it for about 2 years. When I got rid of it, it had about 110k miles on it and I just felt something bad was going to happen to it in the near future, plus with me driving 40 miles to school everyday, I didn't think it would've held up. I went around to a couple of used car dealers and didn't find anything that really interested me. I was driving by Saturn Used Cars (of all places!) and I saw the Contour. I've always liked the way they looked..even in the early years. Took it for a test drive a fell in love with it before I even got it on the road. The fact that it was a v6 and had power everything was well worth the $10k I spent for it.

Walked into the dealership. End of September 99

Said I wanted to order an SVT Contour out of their allotment.

Negotiated the price (a steal more like it)
They ordered it.

Picked it up Dec 13th, 99.

Paid it off Nov 01.

Still having a blast every single day...

Well the list of vehicles is long but it goes like this. My first car was a 84 Ford Bronco II. I drove it to death almost, 2 clutches, 1 driveshaft, 1 engine rebuild, and 1 tranny rebuild. After the driveshaft snaped, I decided that was enough, so off to the dealership. I really wanted to stay with a truck and the F150 was justed updated with the new body style in 97. I finally found a dealer willing to work with me, and got my first new vehicle, a 97 F150 with 4.6L V-6 and 5 spd manaul transmission. I loved that truck but as luck or lack there of would have it I lost it to the wife in the divorce. Now I have no transportation and credit problems because she let it get repossesed. Finally a dealership helped me out and I was soon driving a 96 Taurus V-6 auto, loved it would have kept it but I was traveling alot at the time and was getting worried about mileage coming up on 100K. So on a whim, (big mistake) I buy this really sweet Nissan Hardbody 4x4 already lifted with the big mudders and all. Short lived finally met someone couldn't do the family thing with a two seat truck so we went looking for a SHO Taurus. I had once driven a friends SHO and thought one day I will have one. I finally found a 99 SHO and went to test drive it. After the test drive I said ok lets see what kind of deal we can do, and we walked into the showroom. My jaw dropped and I told the sales rep forget the SHO I want that (that being a car a never heard of or new existed, my 99 Silver Frost CSVT) So with some serious haggling the sales people in the showroom did the circus act and moved tables and people to pull my baby off the showroom floor. I love my car and I will never let it go. The people at the dealership made such a big deal all the other people were looking in aw and I just stood proud and went yeah she's mine. She now has 42K and running great, with the exception of a slowly dying clutch. By the way the Unorthodox Racing Stage 1+ clutch and the UR lightweight flywheel, as well as the Quaife LSD will be going in when the clutch finally goes. That's my story hope you enjoyed it.

I have to admit, these are some great stories :p I thought I'd post a picture of my old Cavalier, just so you guys know what I was driving before my 'Tour.

My '87 Cavalier when I bought it:



My Cavalier after my dad and I painted it (Photoshopped, since I don't have any pics of it blue):

I was driving a 89 Maxima SE and a 88 T-Bird TurboCoupe, both sticks since that is all I will drive unless it is a truck. Was starting to make some money so I thought it was time to get soemthing different. I had read Car&Driver's rave reviews of the Contour, especially the handling. The Bird was fun to mess around with, but I had grown accustomed to the 4 doors of the Nissan. So I started looking. Lots of slushboxes out there but no sticks. Looked for months, and 2 used Contours appeared at the local Subaru dealer, of all places. The beautiful black one, oh shiit it was pretty sweet, but a damn slushbox! Then I checked out the teal one, um not really my color, but low and behold it is the Holy Grail, SE 2.5 mtx!!! It was so loaded, with tan leather and moonroof and only 32k miles, I said what the hell I will overlook the girly color. Traded in both cars and the rest is history.

To make a long story short. I pulled into the dealer and saw the car. 'Love at 1st sight' Test drove I loved more. Gave me a pretty good deal and this car was mine.

to try and make a long story somewhat shorter, i was tired of the moneypit 87 taurusaurus i was driving and couldn't bare the thought of putting more money into a dying car....decided i wanted to upgrade to a 93-95 sho (which are still my faves til the broken cam sprocket v8's get a little cheaper)....anyway i test drove a 94 on a used lot...green, loaded love at first sight....then i drove it....sucked...smelled old felt old no brakes and didn't feel all that quick overall (atx)...and then to top it off the dealer tried to raise the sticker price while we're sitting in the showroom and played the usual 'my salesmanager says this' game....

walked out.....tried to see another one...a white 95 for sale at some private dealer in an office complex.....they were never in the office and when i called the guy to let him know i was waiting he was surprised that no one was in the office....i figured they didn't seem to want to sell that car so i gave up....

the two experiences made me think a bit more and decided that maybe the sho wasn't the best idea.....so i started checking into the v6 contour...did my research online which led me to this site (march 2k1)...finally get approval thru imotors.com and was set to send them a check for 250 to start them hunting for my black 95 v6 with leather, snrf, etc....next day or so they go belly up!!!

so i lucked up on a blue se located just down the freeway across from the auto center....when i got there to see it...i fell in love with it...another private dealer that specialized in porsches, bimmers etc...and the boss was rolling in a hummer....my car was the poopbox of the lot but the salesman told me that he had been driving it alot since they had it adn that it was fun...

let me take good test drive alone and i was hooked....the deal went smooth as any deal ive ever been part of really nice people and very cool salesman...i would buy from them again and again...

since my credit is shot due to health and financial and layoff issues my mommy was wonderful enough to use her excellent credit to buy the car for 5100 and now im paying her 188 per month for a few yrs but i want to increase the payment to the loan company to get it paid off sooner

anyway i've been the proud owner since apr 2001 and officially joined the ceg family in aug....

i love my car quirks and all....my bro has a bmw 528 leased that he's about to get rid of maybe....im sorta thinkin of talkin him into testing out a svt if he can find one

overall i kinda hated to get rid of the taurusaurus since i had basically remade the car but we sold it to a neighbor who kept bugging mom about it for a cool 100 smackers which nearly killed me cuz im sure we could have gotten close to 1500 with all the work that had been done...i learned recently that the taurusaurus finally went to the big ford dealer in teh sky a few months ago...the electrical system finally finished frying itself....we appologized (an elderly woman bought the car) but she said no need because she bought a car for 100 dollars and got alot of driving out of it that she wouldn't been able to do otherwise....that taurus required alot of repairs near its end but it really was a great car for 15yrs

hopefully i wont have to drive my tour everyday for 15yrs

I found it on yahoo classieds at dealership. It had come it that day off of a year long lease. I bought it then an there.

I was driving an '81 Cutlass with a Olds 350 on it. I loved the car, but the body mounts were rusting out and the rear tires would rub sometimes on the inner wheel well. I bought the car for $700 (perfect shape at the time, no rust, new 350) but needed a tranny. I replaced it with a stage 2 B&M from Summit. The Cutlass ran high 12's low 13's (some mods). I worked 2nd shift and every night after work for 3 weeks I stopped by to look at the Contour. I didn't know about SVT at the time, I kept saying "there's something different about that car" but I didn't think there was anyway that I would be able to afford it... Finally, one day I decided to stop by the dealership and test drive it. An hour later I drove to work in my brand new SVT Contour. (I was 18 at the time) 3 trannies. 2 sets of tires, a clutch, and an engine later I still can't bring myself to get rid of it...