cjcz92 has found a unicorn, and posted it at the Cohort. It’s a 1984-1987 Mercury Lynx, a rebadged Escort, of course, and with the rare diesel option. When was the last time you saw or heard one?
Here’s the proof.
And here’s the section from the 1984 brochure on it. It’s a Mazda engine, 2.0L and rated at 52 hp. “this new engine should offer impressive performance”. Undoubtedly. By the time it came out in 1984, fuel prices had moderated, so this is something of a Johnny-come-lately.
It came with a five speed stick. No three-speed automatic, thank you!
Not a whole lot of thought went into the graphic design relationship of these two badges. But then that kind of applies to these cars in general.
Without license plates in what looks ot be some sort of storage lot, I’m not sure this car has much of a future, but it does now on the pages of CC, where it’s now been immortalized. So well deserved too.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Lynx diesel but I did know someone who had the Ford version. My friend’s father worked in the local Ford field office and got one for his daughter to drive for a year or so.
This is why I love this site! I had no idea Ford had a diesel option for these. Mine was a 1982 Escort, so it was not offered when I got mine new.
You can badmouth these for many reasons, but I got almost 100K miles out of mine, and it is remembered fondly for all the stupid things I did in it as a young man.
I have similar sentimental attachment to ‘Scorts’, even though I know enthusiasts dislike them, and I’m “not supposed to”. 😉
I have fond memories of my ’84 Escort, she was a pretty damn good car. Almost made it to 100K miles before the typical head failure, had it replaced and drove it to about 190K miles before selling it for $100.00, still running great. And trust me, I didn’t baby that car! I worked in remodeling back then and my Escort was a rolling toolbox, and more than a few times I’d fill the cargo space with bags of gravel mix, bundles of shingles, and multiple 5 gallon buckets of paint and drywall mud! She took all the abuse like a trooper!
I had a 1982 Escort for my first car. Specifically, the interesting combination of a wagon with the 1.6L HO (yep, there was a high output version of that engine) and a close ratio 4-speed. It was surprisingly quick in its day. Mine made it about 150K miles.
Ed, I had an ’82 2-door with the HO and close ratio 4-speed as well. Fourth gear met the technical definition of overdrive at .95.
Congratulations!
You have found the MISSING LYNX!
Sorry – just had to be said by someone.
I have a feeling I know what it would be like to drive this: There are three pedals, and at least one pedal should be fully depressed at all times.
0 to 60 . . . barely.
0 to 60 on one tank.
0-60… eventually 😀 !
I have seen a Ford branded version, but never the Merc.
3 second start performance? That’s overly optimistic, isn’t it? I’ve lived with diesels around all my life, as they were really common around here, and even new cars in the ’80s needed much more than 3 seconds (unless they were still warm, in which case they’d start outright). If I remember correctly, even pre common rail Mercedes would need some glowplug time before starting.
“even new cars in the ’80s needed much more than 3 seconds”
If the PR folk included start performance in the copy (something you never see in other press releases), that tells me someone at Ford did a survey of potential buyers, and discovered diesel start times were keeping folks from pulling the trigger on these new-fangled diesels.
As far as it being overly optimistic, I’m also sure their engineering group researched the topic and certified that 3 second value. However, you know they followed a very careful maintenance schedule during the research, and closely monitored the battery reserve capacity for maximum glow plug performance.
I’d also like to see the environmental conditions established for the test- They may have used “real world” data from the Phoenix area….
Wow, if I ever knew about these I had forgotten all about them. I remember “Diesel Fever” in the American auto industry, and Ford showed up late. Between this and the diesel Continental Mark VIII, they sold, what, 30 of them?
Diesel Fever was well and truly over by 1984, partly due to the awful reputation GM gave diesels and partly due to moderating fuel prices that did not make the price premium for the diesel seem like a good bet. I also suspect that word was also out by then that going diesel called for more changes to one’s driving lifestyle than many Americans wanted to sign up for, what with searching for stations, fuel gelling and no-starts in cold weather, not to mention the crummy performance.
Had Ford been out with this in 1981 there would have been waiting lists for these.
My parents almost pulled the trigger on buying a Dasher at the height of Diesel-mania, but the performance finally scared them off. Man, that thing was sluggish.
I’ve seen at least 2 of these over the years, well, the Ford version. And I even saw a Tempo on a small Texas Ford dealers lot in the early 80s with this diesel engine along with nearly every other optional extra.
BTW, there are 3 different badges on the back of this car, and NONE of them use the same type of lettering.
Back in the early 90s I drove my little brother’s 84 Escort once. His had the regular/gas engine and manual transmission, with a clutch that slipped badly. I had no fun driving that car but suspect it was probably a pretty decent little car before my brother nearly killed it. My brother and 2 of my 4 sisters would own 6-7 Escorts/Lynxes in the 80s.
It has been a a while since I have seen a Lynx of this generation. Not sure if I have ever seen a diesel variant as they were not very common here. The last few Escorts of this age I have been spotted in the scrapyard.
https://youtu.be/D5K8R-CqNRc
Well, I’ll be damned!
Didn’t know about these! In fact, had no idea Ford did any diesel passenger cars in the ’80s…
Love the poke at GM in the ad copy: “Designed as a diesel from start to finish!”
Escort/Lynx, Ranger, Tempo/Topaz, and Lincoln Mark coupe are the ones I can think of.
There was a diesel option also for the Ranger as well from 1983 to 1986.
http://www.dieselhub.com/rigs/ford-ranger-diesel.html
Good car for the beater challenge!
I don’t need anymore good beater quality cars! 🙂
Actually, the Mazda RF engine shares its basic block and internal dimensions with the FE gas engine. The head is of course different.
http://www.trucktrend.com/cool-trucks/0902dp-1982-chevy-chevette/
Here’s yet basic Chevette diesel!
The Chevette diesel seemed to be well-known, perhaps because it got alot of ink in car magazines (“Chevette Diesel, because the gas version wasn’t already slow enough”). But like many others here, I either didn’t remember or never knew there was ever an Escort/Lynx diesel.
The usual placement of the badges was “Mercury” on the left side of the hatch and “Lynx” on the right. I think the “5-Speed” would have been under “Lynx” on the right too. Was this the last car to have a callout about the transmission choice? Seems so quaint now, even in an era where some cars could brag of a “10 Speed Automatic” or “7 Speed Dual Clutch”….
Nope.
Bragging about a CVT…. just, wow.
My pet theory of the Escort/Lynx “5-Speed” callout was that it was a dealer-inventory tool more than anything else. Automatics didn’t get one because in that era of low cars with see-through rear windows it was easy enough to walk the back of a row of cars, peer between the front seats and see a manual stick or an automatic T-bar; the “5-Speed” callout confirmed a car with that option without having to move to the side and check the sticker, lack of one in conjunction with the stick indicated the standard 4-speed manual.
I test drove a couple of these back in the day, and we settled on a sweet and underpowered Rabbit Diesel that we put 230k on trouble free.
The Escort/Lynx diesel was either Mazda or Isuzu, and a great engine! It had 2 oil filters to extend the oil change miles; it had a water separator; and was capable of 50 mpg’s easily in the days of 55 mph speed limits! (And it had more torque than the little VW 1.6 diesel)
This reminded me that the Ford Ranger pickup also had a diesel option in the 80s using a different Mazda diesel. Both are seriously rare. The only small diesels from the era I remember seeing are VWs, an Isuzu P’up and a South American market Toyota Carina (looked like a 1st gen Camry) around 85-86. The Toyota had diplomatic plates which was common in the NYC area between UN missions and consulates. My neighborhood had several Mercedes W123s in that odd butterscotch pudding color that belonged to Germans.
Everything Japanese and European could be had in diesel within reason, and a three second glow sounds about right, you simply adjust your driving habits ignition on glow put on seatbelt start, been doing it for years in a diesel Citroen with an 80s designed engine and a diesel Toyota Corona before that, water seperator this is all standard stuff every manufacturer fitted their diesel engines with. Probably as good of a car as the gas version with half `th`e running costs.
One small thing I generally liked about cars from that era, is their branding and badges were more discreet. Taking into account the larger scale of modern cars, the Cougar in profile badge on the grille might likely be significantly larger if applied today.
The small print at bottom of advertisement…
*RS Turbo equipped with 2½-mph bumpers
I had no idea that Ford would stoop lower than the ‘corporate mandated’ 5-mph bumpers in its North American passenger cars during the 1980s.
That was a Reagan era, anti-regulation move to drop 5mph bumpers. What else was dropped? The requirement to label speedometers in KPH (in small print), because the U.S. had been on a path to the metric system, and the new attitude was “America doesn’t change to suit the world!”
Buddy who was a car killer first class had an Escort diesel.
He said it was the only car he ever owned that he actually got rid of by choice. It was still running, he just got tired of looking at it every day.
How many of these could be left in the world, at all? And how much would a replacement taillamp lens and/or assembly cost or fetch online? I hate to think of this car’s inevitable fate… or of driving it on an upward-sloping expressway entrance ramp.
Well, I just had to look. And rather surprisingly, new tail lamp lenses aren’t unreasonable. At under $20, it’s the cheapest car part I’ve seen in a long time:
Wow! Eric, seeing this also reminded me of how similar the taillamp lenses of the original Lynxes were similar to those of the c. ’84 Escort GT. I think that listing is mislabeled – that lens is missing the horizontal ribs the Lynx’s had. But I could be wrong – I am hardly the expert on these cars! LOL
I’m no expert on these but it looks like the lens changed to the ribbed design in 1984, while the 81-83s were flat.
That tail light is for the 1983-early 1985 Lynx RS and LTS (basically a four-door RS) and the Escort GT of the same vintage. For 1981-82 Escorts and Lynxes used standard taillights for every trim level. Some 1981-82 Escorts however have a matte black extension on the taillight housings that makes them as wide as the Lynx lights. Whether or not these are detachable I don’t know.
This reads like an item-by-item response to a list of customer-facing things GM fuсked up on the dieselised Olds 350.
This little footnote represents a fair amount of substance. I can’t see the block of main text that bore the referring asterisk, but I imagine it promotes the car’s 5-mph bumpers, which were made into a promotable benefit by the Reagan Administration’s weakening of the bumper regs as well described here; take a look at those repair cost differences.
Daniel,
Regarding the bumper standards: Many years ago my sister crashed her ’92 Mustang and it was impounded. She gave it to me for the cost of getting it out of impound. That yard towed that car and an ’87 junker to my house for cheap, and let me take whatever I wanted off the donor car. I was surprised by the difference in the bumper design. The ’87 had energy-absorbing struts and a steel frame. The ’92 was only a block of foam. Everything else was the same and I drove that little Mustang for years.
In the early 1980s, a local Dodge dealer had taken a 1981 Pontiac Bonneville diesel as a trade. For a few weeks, that car was sitting in the back lot, and its engine had obviously been removed.
Then it re-appeared in the used car section, with the words “New Engine Installed” written in neon-bright colors on the windshield.
No doubt that was the only way the dealer could hope to sell that car.
I don’t remember these, and had no idea that Tempo/Topaz could get that 2.0 diesel, either. But I do remember the late-70s and early-80s flurry of diesels coming to market, for better/worse. I know EPA mileage computation has changed, but still some impressive numbers back there 35 years ago. (Yes, I realize cars were lighter, and had fewer gadgets, etc.)
Whoops—forgot to JPEG-ize the photo:
Just reading the title of the article gives me the creeps.
It hope the “Mercury” on the trunklid was owner-added. It looks dumb, like when owners of ’78-’82 F-series trucks glued the Blue Oval in the center of the eggcrate grilles, with the FORD letters still on the front of the hood. Blecch!
Nope. That was the Mercury emblem for a while, in the 80’s at least. It was on the back of my 86 Marquis and a friends 82 Grand Marquis
Strange placement, every lynx I can find pictures of online has the Mercury badge where the 5-speed badge is on this one. It makes me wonder if the emblems got shuffled after a collision repair. The 5-speed badge is especially curious, no other Fords or Mercury’s from this era advertised this.
You’d have a better chance of seeing a lynx in the wild (and they’re reclusive) than you would of seeing a diesel Mercury Lynx in civilization today. Nice find!
MotorWeek period review of the ’84 diesel Escort—says they got 50mpg on their test loop for mileage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DcWfR08fN0
“Designed as a diesel from start to finish” must be Ford’s dig at the Oldsmobile LF9 350 cu in diesel V8. The LF9 was also designed as a diesel, but somehow rumor quickly became legend as it was cemented in Americans’ minds as a converted gasoline engine.
This would be a 1984 or 85 model. The Lynx (and Escort) were updated midway through the model year (sold as 1985 1/2) with flush headlights and new grilles and taillights.
Wow, never heard of it. At least it was a Mazda designed engine vs. American at that time.
I had an 83 Mercury Lynx as my 3rd car back when I was 16 in 1992. Good car, cheap on gas. I gave $300 for it. Nice body, nice indterior. The car was grey and I painted the raised portion of the hood and the lower half of the body black and I added grey pinstrioing. It hydroplaned easily. A transmission problem developed where the car would pop out of gear. It started with 4th, then worked its way down to all gears. I had to hold the shift lever in gear or it would pop out. Probably due to love of squealing tires back then. Traded it for a Snapper riding mower.
My middle sister had a ’85 Escort as her first car, sometime in 1987. Hers was automatic, she can’t drive standard, with the gas engine. I remember it as a pretty good car, she used to have to drive it pretty long distance to her first job which was in another town. Only problem I think she had with it was an ignition module and also she had to have an auxiliary fuel pump added, for some reason they didn’t replace the stock pump.
One of my friends bought an Escort when they first came out, would have been in 1981, to replace a rusting Audi Fox…the floor was so bad that the driver’s seat “reclined” down into the floor. His was a stripper, 5 speed, and I think he bought it new because the interest rates on used cars was extremely high (I think 21%) so it was an incentive to buy a new car
“…Should offer impressive performance”
Upon which the “journalist” who wrote this burst into flames.
Those were also available as a wagon. A friend had one sedan and a wagon, both went a few bazillion miles before being sold off. I am pretty sure that they are still local though. This might bear looking into.
A diesel Lynx or Escort in North America is new to me, and it arrived at the same time as the UK spec diesel Escort, interestingly. That though was a 1.6 litre, with a similar power rating.
Rare does not always equal desirable, though.
I worked in an independent garage in that era, and one of these came in for a timing belt change. None of us had seen one at that point. We did some research and discovered, if I recall, that there are two cog belts, one for the camshaft and one to drive the injection pump from the other end of the cam. I’ll never forget the first line under the servce manual heading “Timing belt(s) — Replace.” It said “With the engine removed, ……” We didn’t, but the job wasn’t pleasant either way!
This is a 1984 or early 1985 model. Normally I would have to see the dash to rule out 1983, but the diesel option does it in this case.
The “Mercury” badge on gas engine Lynxes is normally on the right where the 5-speed badge is. At first they were on opposite sides; this changed for 1983. One thing I find odd though, there’s no trim level designation; the “L” trim level became the base model for 1983. However, the rims, mirrors, door trim and wing windows tell me it’s a GS; wing windows were not available for the L and the rest of that stuff is standard GS equipment, for 1984 anyway. I can’t imagine much if anything changed options-wise for the early ’85 models.
Around 1991 and for a few years thereafter, a man in my old neighborhood in Denver had 3. All Lynx models. no Escorts. 2 wagons and a 2 door hatch. They all were pre-1985 facelift. He lived on a corner lot and had a chain link fence around the backyard where they were parked, so they were visible from the street. I dont remember them moving much until they were just gone sometime in the mid to late 90’s. But I remember thinking he must be pretty fond of those cars to have 3, especially all Mercury models.
My mom has also told me stories of her college roommate having a first year Lynx 2 door hatch with no A/C in Albuquerque, NM. She said she hated that car, mainly for it’s lack of A/c.
When I was a kid in the late 80s, early 90s, the Lynx was a car that for whatever reason appealed to me. Maybe it was the rarity of seeing them but I remember being curious about them. I actually used to like to compare the Mercury vs Ford styling treatments. More often than not, the Mercury was usually my favorite, but the brand always had the kind of obscurity that drew me to it. Mainstream, but lesser known and less sought after.
I always feel bad for a Mercury like this. Survived so many years in reasonable shape, but few even know of it’s existence anymore and even fewer would appreciate it. Possibly has some decent service life still left in it, but would either end up trashed by some young new driver or sent to the junkyard.
We had the diesel 5 speed. 46 mpg or better average. 52 mpg was the best we got.
Interestingly, Ford in Europe debuted their smaller diesel on Fiesta and Escort in 1984, but it was their own design, a 1.6 with 54hp, which then was developed into a 1.8 (aspirated, then turbo, then even direct injection and common rail until its demise in mid-00s). On the Sierra and Granada/Scorpio they used a Peugeot engine (2.3 aspirated, then replaced by their own 1.8 TD, for the former; 2.3 and then 2.5 aspirated and turbo for the latter).
Wonder if they considered the 1.6 diesel also for US market or if they directly went to Mazda?