Some people know exactly what they like, and I can easily imagine that these two Tempos belong to the same person. Both facelifted 1986/1987 models with two-tone paint, they represent a very particular taste; why else would they be posed in the same spot for nifty43’s camera?
If one of these is a rare 4WD model, it would be among the rarest CCs ever caught on film; we’ll never know, but both appear to be LXs. By 1987, the Tempo already seemed long in the tooth, despite only being in its third year of production. I doubt anyone would’ve imagined their continuation until 1994, but like their owner, Ford wasn’t going to be trying anything new in this segment for quite a while. After all, they were otherwise cranking out some of the most up to date domestic cars at that point, and after some radical change after years of static engineering, it seems they’d gotten their fill of “change” for the time being. Luckily, Jack Telnack’s design would wear well as these two still handily demonstrate.
Related reading:
Fourth year of production–1984 was the debut year. While none of these models with the original roofline are very common, it seems like I see more ’84-’85 Tempos than I do ’86-’87. Probably a very strong seller the first and second model years, and then a decline despite the slight facelift with flush lamps? I do like the “Taurus Jr.” look, which they lost when the roofline was reworked in (1988? 1989?)
Very cool find to see two parked next to each other like this, though!
Suddenly its 1987!
If only…
Had an ’85 Tempo some years back, dreadful little car. But seeing as I only paid $80.00 for it I guess I can forgive its (many) sins 🙂 . Put 20k on it and sold it for $375.00. Not bad.
Tempo sales actually ticked back up about the time the re-skin was instituted. Tempo, even in not so good years, sold MORE than a quarter MILLION a year. The 1st 2 years sales were near 390,000!!!
I was a huge Ford fan until the company “threw away” any ideas about building World Class small cars in North America.
The Tempo is THE lowest point for Ford in the second half of the 20th century. An engine built by “chopping” 2 cylinders off an ancient OHV 6 cylinder engine. A “chassis” that was just a lengthened Escort chassis, no attempt to make the car wider. The only high point was the styling, but in my opinion that was spoiled by each succeeding “facelift”.
The 2 doors are mildly interesting, but it’s Chevy competition is a better engineered car.
BTW, these were available with diesel engines via Mazda. While living in Texas in the mid 80s I saw a Topax diesel…on a small Ford/Mercury dealer’s lot. It was loaded and carried a sticker of about 11 or 12 THOUSAND dollars.
I think I will take the Tempo. Its Chevy competition starting in 1987 was the Chevy Beretta which was a rubbish car. I had a blue 1990 Beretta and it should have been painted fecal matter brown because that is what the car was. The 2.3l Ford engine was nothing to write home about but compared to the 2.0l and 2.2l GM engine it was top of the line. Those 2.0 and 2.2 engines ate head gaskets and was actually designed so you got to see a part of the head gasket as it was exposed on the drivers side front of the engine(which ironically would be where it leaked when the head blew)
The Tempaz is wider than the Escort, not much but it is wider, the driver’s side axle interchanges with the Escort but the passenger side axle is an inch or two longer to compensate for the wider track. The sway bar is also wider since these cars use a true MacPherson strut suspension system where the sway bar also serves as the fore/aft locating member. There are some serious changes to the Tempaz 4cyl from the Falcon six. The reality is that the only thing in common is the bore spacing and basic layout which was done so they could use some of the same tooling as was used on the Falcon six, not a single part interchanges between the two engines.
The Tempaz is a much better engineered car than the GM competition, by a mile.
After owning the tempo for 5 days, i hit a light pole in the middle of a parking lot when hesitating if to turn left or turn right. I was so happy to say goodbye to this car. This car isnt that bad, considering as a basic transportation. But after owning this one, I truly appreciate my K-car New Yorker with worn out tie rod and falling apart front end, my Slant Six Plymouth Volare and my ’95 LeSabre with cold out. I cant be more satisfied with my ’94 Lincoln Mark VIII than ever, all because I owned a tempo for 5 days.
however, i wonder if owning a Beretta would make me so satisfied with the tempo
We must be twins separated at birth!
We had a 1992 Escort that we bought new until 2007. Reliable, but I was happy when it died.
We replaced it with a 1989 New Yorker and drove it for about a year. I now drive a 2001 Audi A6 wagon and a 1995 LeSabre.
Both the Chrysler without A/C and my $700 LeSabre make the Escort seem like the piece of garbage it was. But, then again, both the K-Car and the LeSabre were way pricier than the Escort. If I drive a Plymouth Sundance or a Chevrolet Cavalier, I may appreciate the Escort more. I think I’ll pass, though.
my ’93 New Yorker Fifth Avenue is plushy, comfortable. but the major complain comes from a buddy too overweight to fasten the seatbelt in comfort, since when it’s cold enough in Michigan, the doors would open at the curves. my complain is, when i wear as little as i do in summer time with heater on, the 0 degree wind was way too freezy in a sudden.
I praised a lot about how nice the doors closed in the LeSabre, however i still think the seats are better in New Yorker.
They represent a very particular taste indeed. No taste at all.
Never liked the C-pillar window, though it was probably there for better visibility. The Topaz of the same era looked more formal with a solid C-pillar.
I kind of see the Tempo as the Vega of the 80s, both had what I’d consider the best styling of their class but were let down by utterly horrid engineering under the skin. Plus these effectively sullied the rest of Ford’s 80s lineup by sharing that design language, and a big reason why you don’t see first gen Tauruse/Sables, aero Tbirds/Cougars/Mark VIIs gaining much enthusiast interest, even at their near scrap value prices they go for today – They look too Tempoish and EVERYONE of driving age today probably has a not so fond Tempo experience.
Unless you’re talking purely about guilt by association, are you really comparing the looks of the Mark VII to the Tempo? There are no similarities other than that they’re both “early aero” era.
Now the Taurus, on the other hand, definitely shares a resemblance. I don’t think that’s all bad…
one day I was driving in foggy North Michigan in a Corvette C4 and pathetically thinking I saw an early ’90s Grand Marquis but it turned out to be a Mark VIII driving by a teenager. and there was one day I saw a late ’80s early ’90s Continental but I thought it was a Grand Marquis. and more pathetically in another occasion I thought the coming car was a Continental on Taurus platform but it turned out to be a weird mint Topaz. Only one step to Tempo, full ALARM!
Jeff, you need to stop driving and visit Lenscrafters, STAT!
As I said I don’t think the Tempazes look bad either, and there are a lot of “Aero Ford” touches in these that can be spotted throughout the whole lineup. I don’t think it looks exactly like anything, Mark VII, Taurus, Tbird ect, just that there are details that associate it firmly to those Ford’s of this era, the closest to the Mark VII probably being the coupe’s roofline somewhat. I think many people who had such poor experiences with them formed so much vitriol towards them that EVERYTHING on the cars must be bad – the styling, the keys, the lug nuts they were all horrible too! lol I do think the association to the Tempo has tainted a lot of Fords from this era in many would-been enthusiast’s eyes.
The Tempo wasn’t THAT bad. Like all of Detroit’s early forays into front-wheel-drive in the early 1980s, the first paying customers also performed the final development work. But I’m not recalling the Tempo as being any worse than its Detroit competitors in that regard. Ford added modern fuel injection to the engine in 1986, and worked out most of the bugs by then, so you had a dull but otherwise serviceable car. But it was not the 1980s version of the Chevrolet Vega.
The main problem was that the Tempo stuck around for far too long without a major revision. It definitely needed a major rework by 1989, but Ford let it linger until the Contour debuted for 1994. By that point, the main problem wasn’t the Detroit competition – it was the Accord and Camry, which had moved far beyond the Tempo (and the GM and Chrysler entries).
That’s it in a nutshell. The first ones were pretty underdeveloped,with iffy quality and driveability. Good luck finding one of those still on the road; I finally found one after years of looking. But like so many Detroit cars, after building them for years, they turned into cockroaches, for better or for worse.
No one that had experienced an Accord would have even remotely considered buying one in its later years, durable or not.
The tipping point for where the Tempo achieved cockroach status seems to be when they revised the roofline, going away from this distinct six-window shape to the more upright C-pillar and blacked-out B-pillar. The older ones aren’t as rare though–maybe what Eugene is to a great variety of old cars, Richmond is to a select few (like Tempos and Rabbit pickups). I’ve seen at least five different six-window Tempos in my two years living here, two of the “aero lamp” variety like the featured cars here and three of the original ’84-’85 sealed-beam cars.
Apparently not all Topaz/Tempos are driven slow nor are they totally gone from the roads The Mercury Topaz is one of the most ticketed cars in the USA
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/speed-traps-americas-10-most-ticketed-cars/
As for the Tempo picture above. The first one looks like it was a “premium” Tempo because it has lighted locks where you grabbed the door handle and a lighted ring around the door key hole lights up to allow you to see to put the key in the lock.
It would be funny if it was simply because the speedometer was wildly inaccurate. I don’t think the Tempo demographic otherwise would go above the speed limit.
That study was called out as being severely flawed:
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/10/01/most-ticketed-cars-story-is-junk/
Yep…Ford Tempo is Andante or Adagio.
Looks life nifty43 and I are hanging out on the same street corner!
Never was a fan of these, they always looked a bit plodgy.
It’s funny, although definitely not surprising, that the sight of twin Ford Tempos inspires mostly negative reactions, while the sight of twin Fiat X1/9s about a year ago inspired entirely positive reactions: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/cc-outtake-x19-x-2/ The U.S. market was not very kind to the X1/9 while it consumed huge numbers of Tempos, as Howard Kerr described, so familiarity breeding contempt is probably at work here!
An interesting comparison, really. Both the X1/9 and Tempo/Topaz were designed to be cheap and share a lot of off-the-shelf, out-of-the bin parts (from the Fiat 128, in the X1/9’s case), but the philosophy was radically different. The Fiat was intended to be fun to drive (which it was), which seems to have been the Tempo’s lowest priority. The Tempo was all about bare-minimum utility at the lowest possible price, never mind the subjective experience.
Obviously, the X1/9 was not ever going to sell in huge numbers because it was a little two-seater with a 1.3-liter engine and no automatic transmission option, and there weren’t a whole lot of ’70s Italian cars that were what you’d call dependable. But memory is a lot kinder to cars that are cute and entertaining to drive.
As much as I appreciate these from a ‘childhood nostalgia’ perspective, the late 80s/early 90s was such a sad time for domestic cars. Between this, the N-bodies, and the Spirit/Acclaim/LeBaron… it was all so bleak, awkward, and plastic-y. Slightly rounded boxes on old, under-engineered platforms, built with the absolute cheapest, flimsiest components their parent companies could round up. Guaranteed BHPH material in 5-7 years.
I remember them well though. One childhood babysitter had a 94-ish Tempo, another drove a purple 90-ish Acclaim LX with matching interior, and a third guy had a bright red 92-ish Grand Am coupe. I remember thinking the Acclaim was a “grandma car”, the Grand Am was falling apart but looked cool (to an 8-year-old), and the late-run Tempo was the most generic thing on four wheels. Another sitter had a Plymouth Laser and it seemed like a spaceship compared to any of those cars! As I said, sad times in retrospect, at least for the Big 3….
In the late ’70s a young family near us acquired two very nice 1965 Pontiac Catalina four door hardtops as their daily drivers. It always seemed a bit odd, but maybe that was one of the things they were going for. It was a bit easier to assume that the owner had some affection for the Catalinas as they were always spotless and parked inside at night.
I’m amazed anyone can say these had the “best styling of their class” or “the only high point was the styling.” The moment these came out I thought, “Are you kidding me?” They made me sad and embarrassed that this is what America was capable of producing. These were bad cars, and they remain among the dopiest looking cars ever made. And I mean “dopey” rather literally–they simply don’t look very bright.
+1
Especially these 86-87 models with the early flush headlamps. They almost look cross-eyed.
The glass-headlighted ’84-’85 models looked ever-so-slightly better…
A friend and I rented one in 1992 from the Seattle Rent-A-Wreck franchise for a day trip to Vancouver, BC while on a mini-vacation. It got us there and back but other than that it did not impress us at all. Underpowered, loud, thirsty, and unattractive. Even giving it credit for the questionable rental purveyor it still wasn’t good. That’s the last time I got into one of these, we were quite happy to give it back. If whoever owns these two also owns the Civic in the back of the frame, I’m guessing the Civic is what gets driven most.
You’d be surprised how fun those Civics are with a stick and despite the gap in time, it’s a valid comparison. Compare this Tempo to any Honda or Mazda in those days and you wonder how Ford could’ve made such a soggy chassis, claustrophobia-inducing interior and dreadful engine.
The engine was probably the worst sin compared to the Japanese alternatives. A lot of people don’t care about handling or steering feel as long as there’s a decent ride, but having an engine that groans, wheezes, drones, and buzzes no matter what you ask it to do is another matter. A painless drivetrain goes a long way.
Agreed. Am I the only one who noticed that the cooling fans on these cars seemed to always be running?
Well if you are running the AC then yea the engine fan will always be running and that applies to basically every vehicle with an electric fan and AC. Some will cycle the fan with the AC clutch but others will run the fan when ever AC is requested.
A couple thoughts about having two Tempos.
-you don’t realize what a POS it is because you never drive anything else
-you don’t have to remember which car you are in when you’re driving, because all the controls work the same.
On that second point, some years ago, I drove a lot more miles than now, so had a second car to spare the hatchbacks miles and road salt. First I had two Mazda GLCs, an 81 and an 85. Then I had two Civics, a 97 and a 98. Never got tangled up with the wrong lever or button.
I was thinking maybe it was because the person knows how to work on them.
Maybe somebody who worked for a dealer and had an employee discount, but still didn’t have a lot of money to spend?
The models with the Tarus 3.0 V6 weren’t all that bad of a driver.
I’ve always wanted to drive one of the V6 versions.
It was a friend of mine’s car; I drove it several times.
Emerald green, tan cloth interior, chrome luggage rack, perhaps 20K on it at the time.
The 3.0 V6 had a restrained, low pitched growl as you tipped into the throttle. It wasn’t 5.0 Mustang fast; but plenty peppy and somehow “sporty” feeling.
I think the V6 made you forget all the other Tempo shortcomings,
My future wife had an 84 topaz when we met. Sticky vinyl seats designed for scoliosis. uncomfortable ride. carburetor. distributor prone to moisture. eventually solved with a vented cap. fed it lots of dry gas. The cooling system in that car was a real cluster-f. there was some short steel tube coming off the back of the engine with an odd swivel connection. Of course it rusted through. And was absolutely impossible to get at without real tools and a lift. The guys at ford dealership found the part in their fiche. claimed to never have needed to order one before. we dumped the topaz for a same year, higher mileage mazda 626 when the front end started falling apart. That was the last Ford I owned till the neighbor gave me his 01 Taurus a couple years ago. Damned if Ford didnt still put steel tubing in their cooling systems. An assembly of steel piping affiliated with the heater mounted on the firewall. Same rusting issues. Same miserable access. After fixing that, I dumped the Tore-_ss for an older buick regal. 3800 series 2. Now there is a nice engine.
Tempo/Topaz and Escort/Tracer had been quite popular in some euro countries especially when these were younger. Mostly had came by private imports. BUT as these are very very durable, some Tempos are still on the road in my neighbourhood. I had owned a Tracer as I didn’t found an exact Topaz/Tempo at those car buying moments in the past. A Topaz that had been available had its trunk swamped with water (!!!). But another Tracer appeared fine… Few years later the Tracer’s trunk had started to be swamped TOO after heavy rainings.This was the only serious blemish that I was complainting. Anyway the Tracer was the most reliable car that I’ve ever owned…
While these are almost universally derided they were durable cars. I still see them regularly on the road. Today I went to a couple of wrecking yards looking for parts for my latest purchase/project car I saw a couple of them. The first yard had one of the early sealed beam Topazes and the engine and trans had been removed. I didn’t notice one at the second yard but the 3rd yard had an early aero light Tempo. I was surprised to see it in the yard at the 3rd one since they buy a lot of their cars by the pound and they go straight to the crusher as their parts yard is pretty small and they pay the most per pound of the yards in the area. Unfortunately I didn’t find the parts I needed but I did find a Crown Victoria LX-Sport. Unfortunately the seats and much of the console was already gone, or I would have inquired about purchasing them.
Opps forgot to add that these are not the AWD nor 4WD versions, as they have a decal on the front fender denoting that. Initially they called them AWD but wtih a part time transfer case they were actually 4WD so they changed the stickers on the outside and the label on the switch inside for the final year. They also made the 4wd a model instead of an option package. So you got all the goodies of the LX standard. In the early years you could add AWD on any trim level though. The interesting thing about the transfer case is that it replaces the transmission oil pan and is driven off of the ring gear. Because of that the pan gasket was selective fit since it was what was used to set the back lash.
I rode in a Tempo once. Once. It seemed a remarkably unremarkable car, not one that I would ever consider buying. The clincher was that this specimen had the most horrendously rough-shifting automatic I have ever encountered. Not good!
Ah the car I love to hate and hate to love…well I never loved the Tempo in my life. My bride had a 4 door when we started dating back when she was an itinerant symphony musician racking up miles to fun placed like Wheeling, WV, Erie, PA, Ashland, OH, Mansfield, OH, or where ever she could get a gig. It had replaced a Ford Grenada [sic] deathtrap she had been driving.
Well, it was better than the Granada anyway. I put so much time into keeping that car on the road. To this day if a see a Tempo with the hood up I say it is getting a new water pump, if I see one on the road I say they are driving to the auto parts store for a new water pump. Hmm, I think I replaced *every* electric motor on that car – from door locks to heater blower.
The scariest part for me was one of the times it was at the Ford dealer for emissions diagnosis and I was in the showroom actually was pondering a *new* Tempo because as a basic transportation appliance it did the job and the new ones at that point (near the end) were so bloody cheap (and I knew how to work on them.)
The Tempo is the reason the sound of the 2 ton floor jack rolling across the garage floor takes my girl back to our courting days…it *is* our song.
When I see domestic cars from this era, they remind me that, since 1980, we’ve witnessed the destruction and complete recreation of the domestic auto industry. It’s a process that continued, with fits and starts, until the bankruptcy and rebirth of GM and Chrysler, and near-bankruptcy of Ford. Cars like this remind us of how rocky that road has been for all three of the major domestic auto makers.
Between government mandates, foreign competition and changing customer expectations brought about by those two factors, the industry had to literally recreate itself from the ground up.
Everything changed. The old Sloan Brand Ladder went out the window. Detroit had to change the basic configuration of vehicles from rear-wheel-drive and body-on-frame construction to front-wheel-drive and unitized construction. The pillow soft ride of the Broughams fell out of favor. Factories had to be rebuilt with new equipment, and workers and supervisors had to drop the old adversarial relationship between the blue- and white-collar factions that had existed since the 1930s.
This Tempo represents one of the first baby steps in that very long and often painful journey.
Craptacular cars, even if they WERE fairly reliable turds. These have few redeeming qualities beyond being cheap transportation. The driving experience was wretched when I worked for a Ford dealership. If someone bought one of our program cars, Id have to detail it and fill it with gas. The 2 doors with the 5 spd at least had SOME shred of appeal, but all we stocked were slushbox 4 doors. An abysmal car that appealed only to the broke and the cheap who literally cared nothing beyond lurching from point A to point B.
I have to correct Szilard – these were never sold in Europe. Euro Fords were vastly superior dynamically and in every other respect – Sierra, Granada, Capri, etc. They are all remembered fondly, whereas…..
The Tempo/Topaz was, quite simply, a hideous car. I travelled a lot in the early 90s and it was on my short list of cars I would not accept from rental counters. This was hard won knowledge, of course – a Hertz Topaz in LA where the door weather stripping literally fell out onto the pavement, loose seat belt anchors in a Seattle Tempo, taking the in-laws around Oahu and getting cramps as I was driving, etc etc….Frankly just a highly, memorably unpleasant driving experience in each case made worse by the sheer cheap and nasty feel of these things. Plus there was something utterly charmless about them. I recall looking closely at one I had rented (the Seattle car) in the winter of 1993, walking around it in the parking lot of the Southcenter Mall before taking it back to Sea-Tac, and just marveling at how bad it was.
The charm issue matters, as there seems to be some confusion on the point. A car can be unreliable but interesting, significant and fun, such as the Fiat X 1/9 and endless 60s and 70s UK cars, all exotics, the Citroen SM, etc. etc. But boring and faithless is unforgiveable. The Tempo, to me, really doesn’t have any redeeming qualities from a car person’s perspective…