Just a couple of points I wanted to add:
1) The Contour is a midsized car with the interior space of a compact. That's bad. The Focus, while classified as a compact is cavernous compared to the Contour. Now, IMO small cars with lots of room on the inside look like ugly bubbles, but hey that's the tradeoff. The Contour is the worst of both worlds in this regard: In parking lots it's a land yacht, yet if you're 6'3" or taller your head's going to be pressed into the ceiling and your knees hitting the dashboard.
2) Indeed the Contour replaced the Tempo, but any variety of Contour is MILES ahead of the Tempo; that thing was an underpowered piece of s*** IMO. I also find the Contour good looking, and of course the SVTC delivers some of the best performance-to-dollars ratio of any sports sedan, ever.
The pros and cons are both very strong. I bought one, obviously, and what's more is that I never get bit by the new car bug while I'm driving. I am concerned about reliability issues, though, and as I approach the point of being rightside up on the car I'm thinking about trading down to something Japanese. Unfortunately if I set out to do that, I'll probably succumb to the temptation to trade
up to something European and fast, or American and fast.
TJ's dad: "So, what'd you get? A Sentra, a Civic..."
TJ: "I got an A6 2.7 turbo 6-spd! Only a hundred thousand miles on it, Dad!"
--T.J.
