Today's Nice Price or No Dice Contour is an SVT, and that makes it a Special Vehicle indeed. The question is whether the price of this seemingly well-kept Ford makes it all the more special.
As we discussed yesterday, the first generation of Land Rover's Discovery has developed a bit of a cult following. Fortunately, it's not one of those weirdo cults. Its bent is more towards outdoorsy folks who appreciate the truck for its capable off-roading prowess and flexible interior space.
The 2000 Land Rover Disco we looked at yesterday embodied this nature to a T. Featuring brush guards, skid plates, and a removable sleeping platform in the back, its "raison d'être" appeared to be overlanding adventures. Unfortunately, it was also an old Land Rover, with all the baggage that simple factor lugs everywhere the Disco goes. Owing to its reputation for frequent failure, few of you were willing to cut the Disco much slack at its $7,500 asking price, even if it seemed to be a lot of truck for that money. When the dust settled, that price earned the Discovery a somewhat dismal 60% No Dice loss.
Read more: These Cars Have The Best Wings Ever
All The World's A Stage
SVO, SHO, SVT... Ford sure likes their S-based acronyms. The earliest of them, SVO, stood for Special Vehicles Operation and was applied to a four-cylinder, turbocharged edition of the Fox Body Mustang. With the SVO, Ford attempted to build a Mustang that was every bit in the same league as the BMW 3 Series when it came to handling and driving feel. Ford came dang close. Following that was the SHO, which was, of course, the most awesomest Taurus ever made. What made that car so special was a Yamaha-designed DOHC V6 with its nest of snakes intake, an engine that apparently imbued the Taurus with Super High Output.
SVT stands for Special Vehicle Team, which, it would appear, has evolved from just being an operation. Over the years, Ford has applied the SVT badge to numerous models, including the Lightning pickup, Focus subcompact, Mustang Cobra, and the subject of our attention today, the SVT Contour.
Badged as the Mondeo elsewhere, and intended as a one-size-fits-all world car, the Contour was primarily designed in Europe but built in America—at Ford's plant in Claycomo, Missouri—for the U.S. market. It was a big car by Euro standards, but proved too tight, especially in rear seat ingress/egress, to be considered a class leader in the U.S.
Team Player
This 1998 Contour SVT might make you not care about squeezing your fat friends through the back doors, as it's one of the best handling sedans of the 1990s. And with its 195-horsepower SVT-massaged Duratec 2.5-liter V6 under the hood, it should be able to get up and dance, too.
The 24-valve V6 isn't the only part of the Contour that makes the SVT edition special. For the transmission in the model, you could get any gearbox you wanted, just as long as it was the Mazda-sourced five-speed manual. Brakes are larger than in lesser models, with the front rotors shared with the European-market Mondeo. Other improvements included revised suspension settings and 16-inch five-spoke alloy wheels that look like kissing cousins to those on the similarly massaged SVT Cobra edition of the Mustang.
Setting the SVT apart visually are revised front and rear facias, rocker panel extensions, and those cool SVT-branded wheels. Interestingly, the SVT folks managed to fight the urge to append any sort of wing or spoiler to the Contour's boot lid.
This 134,500-mile SVT is painted in Toreador Red over a black leather interior. Aside from a couple of scrapes on the lower half of the extended front bumper, its bodywork looks to be in good condition. Panel fit does seem to be an issue, but that was par for the course with these cars, even when they were new.
Small Wonder
The cabin presents as a full-send 1990s experience. The leather upholstery appears to be fully intact, but it is in dire need of a thorough cleaning. In addition to displaying the grunginess, the interior shots in the ad show the Contour's greatest weakness, which is its cramped dimensions. The back doors are especially comical because their length betrays a frustratingly small opening beneath. Legroom in the back seat is also "kid-sized," although some praise is warranted for Ford's attempt at bucketing the bench back there.
It should be noted, though, that this is a driver's car and back seat passengers would only weigh it down. Plus, who's buying a 1990s Contour SVT to carpool in? According to the very limited description in the ad, this SVT is a "Very rare sporty car in perfect running condition." No history is given about the car, but it is wearing current tags and is claimed to have a clean title, so a new owner shouldn't have much trouble at the DMV.
Is It Special Enough?
It should also be noted that the SVT Contours were not particularly popular when new, despite being included on Car and Driver's Ten Best list in 1999. Overall, only around 12,000 were sold over the car's short, three-year model run. Per the seller, only 405 of those were painted Toreador Red, although that seems a dubious claim, as most of the ones I've ever seen have been this color.
Regardless, that makes it a fairly rare ride today, and for any Ford fanatic, an obvious object of interest. This would be the perfect close to a collection trifecta that also includes the SVT Lightning and Cobra. That is, if we can get past the price.
That's $3,200, and it's now incumbent upon you to determine if that's a fair price for this rare sporting saloon. What's your take on this odd bit of Ford history and that $3,200 asking? Does that feel fair to get a good thing in a small package? Or at that price, would you tell this SVT to GTFO?
You decide!
Nice Price or No Dice:
Los Angeles, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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