Most of the cars on the road today aren’t that memorable. They dutifully serve their owners for a decade or two before disappearing from minds and memories. One of those cars was the Ford Contour, a vehicle some might describe as one of the cars of all time. For just a couple of years, Ford made a version that should still live rent-free in your head. The Ford SVT Contour was the rare sport sedan Ford pitted against the Germans and its specs aren’t too bad today.
This story takes us back to the 1990s. Japanese brands spent the past several decades crafting identities of affordable and dependable transportation while the Europeans challenged Americans to think differently about luxury and performance. Mercedes-Benz and BMW drew Americans away from their Cadillac land yachts and into svelte sedans that turned down the chrome and cranked up the power and technology.
Since then, America has long tried to beat the Europeans at their own game. In 1976, Cadillac launched the Seville, a slimmer and fitter luxury flagship designed to draw young people away from the European competition. The Seville was such a game-changer for Cadillac that the vehicle represented a unique time in Cadillac history when its smallest vehicle was the most expensive rather than the other way around.
The Seville was a financial success, but it failed to pull buyers away from European brands. This wasn’t limited to the 1970s or to American brands, either. Lexus and Acura appealed to buyers who wanted a spiffy car but didn’t want to drop the kind of coin commanded by the European competition. I suppose you could also say AMC had a sporty European-style sedan of its own with the Renault GTA that was sold here for just a year.
Things started getting really weird in the 1990s. General Motors convinced itself that the Oldsmobile LSS, which was more or less a pimped-out Eighty-Eight, was really a car you would buy over an Infiniti J30, Lexus ES300, BMW E39, or Acura Legend. And who can forget Oldsmobile’s better effort with the Aurora? Meanwhile, the folks over at Dodge had the Spirit R/T, which was nearly as quick as a BMW M5 but without any of the luxury or status.
Ford had a couple of irons in the fire, too. Most car enthusiasts might point out a vehicle like the Ford Taurus SHO, which is loved even today. Then there’s this, the SVT Contour, a sort of baby brother to the big bad SHO.
One Of Ford’s World Cars
Ford has long loved the idea of a “world car.” The brand has more than once attempted to build a singular flexible platform that could be developed with various regional Ford outposts and sold around the world.
For example, Ford originally wanted the Escort of the 1980s to be developed across both Ford Europe and Ford North America to save money and the vehicle itself would have a common architecture and components. Unfortunately, the Escort program would diverge and instead of the European and American Escorts essentially being the same, they shared only some parts.
As Adrian Clarke wrote in a retrospective, Ford tried the whole world car thing again in the mid-1980s when a car called the D-FC55 evolved into a project to create a world platform for the United States, Europe, and Australia to use. To call this platform ambitious would be an understatement. From Adrian:
The thinking was one platform could provide the underpinnings for every sedan Ford sold worldwide – modular in-line engines mounted transversely of four, six, and eight cylinders. FWD and RWD. This was where the bonkers T Drive concept originated.
What’s T-Drive? I’ll let its inventor, Donald L. Carriere, tell you:
A four-wheel drive powertrain for a vehicle having an internal combustion engine mounted transversely with respect to the fore-and-aft vehicle center plane and a gearing mechanism having a principal axis forming a cross-axis configuration with respect to the axis of the crankshaft of the engine, and a rearward controlled-slip differential adapted to transfer driving torque from the gearing mechanism to rearward traction wheels.
This doesn’t sound as impressive today when everything has a transverse engine, but it was a pretty novel idea in its day. T-Drive would have allowed for a transverse-mounted straight-eight engine to power the rear wheels, the front wheels, or an AWD system. Ford ultimately abandoned the cab-forward D-FC55 world car project, instead, in 1986 it dumped money into the CDW27 platform, another world car, but not nearly as grand. CNN Money gives us more details:
In Ford nomenclature, the Mondeo is code-named CDW27. CD designates the size category, W stands for world, and 27 identifies where the project fell chronologically. Three disparate engineering centers took part. Detroit designed the V-6 engine, the automatic transmission, and the heating and air- conditioning units. Dunton, just outside London, contributed the interior, the steering, the suspension, the electronics, and the four-cylinder engine. Cologne, Germany, did the basic structural engineering. It also designed three sheet-metal bodies for the car tailored to different markets — so much for the elusive goal of a single car sold worldwide.
BESIDES SOLVING intricate international logistics problems, Ford had to create uniform worldwide engineering standards. For example, every specification had to be expressed in the metric system, with no conversions into English measure allowed — except for the car’s basic dimensions, which top management in Dearborn wanted reported in more familiar inches. The company also had to create uniform standards for raw materials and design, procurement, and manufacture of individual parts. The list of vehicle specifications fills two 8 1/2-by-11-inch books each three inches thick.
So with all that complexity, why did Ford create CDW27? Developing a single car for the world market seems to violate Nineties wisdom about getting close to your customers. Wouldn’t it have been cheaper and easier to develop separate vehicles, one for Europe and one for the U.S.? Almost certainly. But a global carmaker’s bookkeeping takes other factors into account. Ford says it was really looking for more bang for its engineering buck. By having one 800-person engineering team produce the car for both Europe and the U.S., Ford was able to deploy the rest of its people and facilities to other projects. Says Alexander J. Trotman, 59, the executive vice president who is expected to take over when Poling retires later this year: ”The product development team that isn’t doing the CDW27 is doing something else: a new truck, or a new Taurus, or a new Mustang.”
This whole world car thing was Ford’s obsessive mission to save a ton of cash. Ford wanted to save $75 per car, but the engineering team got closer to $150. If Ford sold 700,000 CDW27 units a year, they figured Ford could save in the ballpark of $100 million a year as opposed to just building two different cars.
At first, Ford planned on selling the European version of the CDW27 to Americans as a Ford and, slightly modified, as a Mercury. However, potential customers felt that the test car was more of a car for the moment, not a car for the future. In other news, the car was going to be old news by the time it came out. So, Ford reportedly spent the equivalent of an additional $25 million per year to make the American version of the CDW27 more friendly to our market. This included a more rounded look.
But things didn’t stop there. Ford initially benchmarked the CDW27 against the 1990 Honda Accord, but then the Infiniti G20 came around and raised customer expectations for handling and ride comfort. So, Ford decided to spend another $200 per car to upgrade the CDW27’s suspension, exhaust, and engine mounts for a smoother, quieter ride.
Other hits to development costs included renovating and retooling nine factories plus the development of two new engines and two new transmissions. As CNN Money notes, sure, those engines and transmissions would find a lot of use in other models, but the costs were still charged to the CDW27 project.
The CDW27 platform was touted as a way for Ford to save a ton of cash, yet it still spent $6 billion making it a reality. The car that came out of the other end also wasn’t anything like Ford’s previous world car ideas. The Ford Mondeo, which came first, the Contour, and the Mercury Mystique weren’t as versatile. Instead, they were pretty basic front-engine, front-wheel-drive cars that replaced the Ford Sierra in Europe plus the Ford Tempo and Mercury Topaz in America and the Ford Telstar elsewhere.
The Grail
The Ford Contour launched in America in 1994 for the 1995 model year. Unfortunately for Ford, the whole world car thing didn’t really pay off. Reviewers praised the Contour’s handling while also damning its lack of interior space. Here’s one from the New York Times:
I felt such oneness again on a jaunt through the upper Midwest in an “electric red” Contour SE. After several days at the wheel, I was impressed by the Contour’s world-class performance, but my legs were numb from being unable to stretch out and my neck was aching for lack of headroom.
Now I am a hefty 6 feet 1, but hardly a giant. I never felt so confined in a Honda, even though the Accord’s legroom measurements show only a slightly larger margin between pleasure and pain. And speaking of pain — I coaxed three adults into the Contour’s back seat; once in, thigh to thigh and scalps to roof, they had the pinched expressions of New York tourists stumbling into an S-and-M club.
Aside from concerns about interior space, the Contour may be the best small sedan Detroit has yet built. The SE’s body was rigid and rattle-free, its handling was sporty-car sharp and its new 24-valve, 2.5-liter V6 was as impressive for its silence and smoothness as for its ample power.
Motor Trend also liked it:
As staff members began cycling through the Contour, ride quality and handling prowess quickly surfaced as standout features. The European influence is most evident in the suspension, which uses an independent MacPherson strut setup in front and a multilink configuration at the rear. The SE features a sport-tuned suspension with unique damper settings, stiffer springs, and a thicker anti-roll bar than the GL and LX trim levels. But beyond this bolstering, it’s the rear Quadralink system that gives the Contour its distinct corner-carving character, by creating passive rear-wheel steering. Also benefiting the SE are wider 15×6.0-inch alloy wheels shod with lower-profile Firestone Firehawk GTA 205/60TR15 tires. More than 95 percent of our surveyed Contour owners rated handling as above average, and they ranked it as the most liked attribute. A woman from New York wrote, “It handles very well on hills and holds the road really well in sharp turns.” Another owner commented, “The rack-and-pinion steering is wonderful. It gives a great feel of the road.”
The Contour’s performance inspired us to term the car a “four-door sport coupe” in a recent Long-Term Update, but this also referred to the limited rear seat room. While the Contour was positioned to fill the Tempo’s vacated spot between the Escort and the Taurus, at a humble 89.4 cubic feet of interior space it leans toward the Escort. Two-thirds of survey respondents felt that the rear seat provided better than average comfort, but our handful of vertically endowed six-foot-plus staffers found the Contour’s rear legroom to be quite limited.
The publication also noted a bunch of problems:
Overall quality was rated highly by surveyed owners; almost 46 percent judged it as excellent. Yet almost 35 percent claimed to have problems of some kind with their Contour. Like our surveyed owners, we found the fuel filler door reluctant to open at times, and the filler neck proved unfriendly to some gas pump nozzles, causing them to shut down midflow. We also had difficulty with the transmission, as did almost 4 percent of our surveyed owners. At 1000 miles, we experienced a malfunctioning overdrive switch. Our local dealer handled these problems under warranty, getting us back on the road in minimal time. Two months later, the automatic transmission would not shift out of Park; our dealer traced the trouble to a malfunctioning solenoid. A week later we returned with a broken rear brake caliper, which also was corrected under warranty. With these repairs handled, the Contour performed without fuss for five months until a suspension rattle developed. Simply tightening the rear shocks took care of the problem.
Ford would sell nearly a million Contours and Mystiques between 1995 and 2000, which sounds like a lot. However, that’s six model years and split between both brands. As WardsAuto reported in 1998, the CDW27 platform wasn’t a hot seller in America. WardsAuto pointed to the Contour’s small interior as the reason for its downfall. But Ford was also in a tough spot. It wasn’t like Ford could have made the Contour bigger without encroaching on the turf secured by the Taurus. It’s a shame considering how much the Contour was a technological tour de force. Even the vehicle’s 2.5-liter Duratec V6 was developed with Porsche!
Reportedly, a Ford executive told WardsAuto “If this doesn’t work, we’ll never try it again” in regards to the automaker’s world car strategy. This turned out to be untrue since Ford tried the world car thing again with the later Escort and Mercury Cougar. As for the Contour? It went out with a bang.
Ford wanted to deal damage to European sport sedans and it was going to do it with help from its Special Vehicle Team. The folks at SVT had already souped up the F-150 and the Mustang, but this would be their first four-door. It would also be their first front-wheel-drive vehicle. Ford Performance continues:
The 1998 SVT Contour was designed to compete against European sports sedans costing thousands more. It was SVT’s first front-wheel-drive and V-6-powered offering. Based on the sporty 1998 Contour SE, SVT added a large-capacity air cleaner, 34mm butterfly port throttles and unique pistons, as well as revised intake and exhaust camshafts, pushing horsepower from 160 to 195. The engine also benefited from an Extrude Hone Powerflow technology, a process that improves airflow in the upper intake manifold and the cylinder head’s secondary intake ports. Other hardware upgrades included bigger brakes, performance tires and suspension tuning and a dual-outlet exhaust system. Unique front and rear fascias and a specially equipped leather interior helped set it apart from the mainstream contour models.
What did this tuning do? Well, let’s look at what Edmunds said:
A triple-dose of fun, the ya-ya expunging Ford SVT Contour is the perfect remedy for those who have too much pent-up anxiety and energy. The SVT’s high-revving 195-horsepower DOHC V6 engine, slick-shifting manual transmission, and sport-tuned suspension allowed our drivers to experience the same level of excitement that a kid must feel when he finds out that he can spin around in a circle until getting too dizzy to remain upright. While we don’t recommend spinning the SVT in a circle until toppling over, we do recommend finding the curviest road your stomach can handle, and racing toward it with youthful abandon.
The SVT Contour is simply the best handling front-wheel drive sedan sold in this country. The SVT’s tires and suspension produce prodigious grip, allowing drivers of this Ford to pick a line and hold it through turns that would humble lesser cars. The Contour also has a communicative quick-ratio steering setup that allows drivers to change direction quickly and accurately. The SVT’s shifter snicks into each gear eagerly, saving drivers from having to hunt through sloppy detents, thus optimizing an already impressive power delivery.
The heart of the SVT’s dominance of this sport sedan showdown must be attributed to the car’s awesome engine. The 2.5-liter unit found in the belly of this beast differs greatly from the workaday motor found in the standard SE V6 thanks to extrude-hone polished ports and a lighter flywheel. The result is a quicker revving engine that makes 24 more horsepower.
Car and Driver pitted the SVT against a BMW 318ti Sport, a Honda Prelude SH, a Mazda MX-5 Miata, an Eagle Talon TSi AWD, and a Chevy Camaro Z28. The SVT Contour placed fifth, beating only the Eagle Talon TSi AWD, but the worst complaint levied on the SVT Contour was that it had a soft suspension. The fact that it was even able to hang with cars like the Miata and the 318ti is sort of impressive.
The performance metrics were pretty good, too. In Motor Trend’s hands, the SVT took 7.5 seconds to hit 60 mph and the quarter-mile came up in 15.7 seconds at 88.7 mph. The SVT Contour wouldn’t be much of a sports car off of the line today, but it wouldn’t be holding up traffic, either.
So by most accounts, it seems like the SVT Contour is just an aftermarket suspension away from being a genuine sport sedan. Yet, just like with the regular Contour, basically nobody bought them. Just 11,500 examples were built between 1998 and 2000 and sold for $22,900 compared to $13,310 for a base Contour.
Unfortunately, as Hagerty notes, these cars weren’t exactly reliable or easy to work on when they were new and they still aren’t today. For example, Mark Rowe, a former member of Ford SVT, explains what is like to change a simple alternator:
“Changing an alternator is the most absurd thing,” says Rowe. “Owners came up with ways to do it, like stacking a bunch of extensions on a ratchet, taking off the driver’s side wheel and going in that way to get to the back side of the engine on the passenger side. If you’re not going to do the work yourself, it can be quite the expensive little car to maintain.”
Rowe also notes that the SVT-specific parts are going to be hard, if not impossible to find and everything in the engine bay is so tight that injuring yourself will be a common thing.
In other words, these cars are like Volkswagens: Lovely when they work, a nightmare when they don’t. The good news is that it seems few people are collecting these cars, so you shouldn’t have a problem finding a decent example for around $5,000 or a little less.
It’s now been 24 years since the SVT Contour died and while it wasn’t the best sport sedan out there, it’s still a reminder of a different time. As it is, Ford won’t even sell you a sedan at all, let alone a sporty one. So, cars like these are pieces of history, when family cars meant sedans and it was a big deal when you souped them up. The SVT Contour may not have been a good world car, but maybe it’s a type of car the world should appreciate again.
(Images: Ford, GM)
I had a 1998 Contour LX with the 2.5 V6 and 5-speed, that engine was sweet and the handling was excellent. It was a little small but not that small.
I loved mine and miss it dearly. I got it cheap with 72k miles on it because it had a mysterious overheating issue and nobody could figure out that the water pump impeller was slipping. I drove it for another 125k miles relatively trouble free until it needed too much suspension work and the 2nd gear synchro went out to justify the cost. Handled like a go kart and was even good in the little bit of snow we get in MD. It could hit 140mph with enough road.
I had a 99 SVT. I remember crossing my fingers every time I started the car in the morning hoping nothing would break that day, In the first year I owned it, I had to replace the wiring harness, heater box, throttle cable and the idler pulley. The seats were loose in their tracks. The trunk mounted CD changer jammed at least once per week. The water pump and alternator went shortly after the warranty expired and both catalytic converters had to be replaced. It devoured Z-rated tires. The car was comfortable, It had good handling the sound of the engine when it wound out must have had the exhaust tuned by a musician. I loved driving that car but my happiest day of ownership was the day I sold it.
Had a 98 Contour SE V6 with a five speed! My dad loved it so much, he bought one for himself. Then when got too old to shift his own gears he purchased a Mercury Mystique with an auto and a V6!
Ah, Ford and their FWD alternator placement. I decided I’d never own a transverse V6 car again after changing the alternator in our 01 Escape. Had to disassemble the front suspension and pull the wheel liner out. I also really never liked the look of these, but then again I really don’t like most of Fords designs from this era.
I worked at a Ford dealer when these were new cars. the idea was great, but it was still a Conturd, and what’s worse (as illustrated towards the end of the article) they were impossible to work on Conturds.
Just ask anyone who’s had to replace cat converters on the V6 (esp under the recall).
OoooOOOO I LOVE THESE! From what I understand, Ford benchmarked the BMW 3 series for suspension compliance/performance and tried to copy it with the Contour SVT, and after driving on years ago, I think they nailed it. What a fantastic little car, and an actual GREAT effort at making a performance version of a mundane car; more power, better stuff all around, just fantastic.
The shifter was fantastic, and the engine sounded wonderful. These cars are very underrated….
We had bought new the 95 Mystique LX version of this, v6 5spd, 4wheel discs. We loved this car and was a good car for us. Sold to high school kid with around 187k miles on it. Everything worked but the A/C.
It did like to eat plug wires (and tires)…get about 40k before start misfiring. For a short time, Ford had ‘lifetime’ warranty on plug wires, got one replacement set only because I still had the box with ‘lifetime’ on it.
I drove a later version, 2000s?. It felt like it was deturned. Ours had the dual runner intake…was like a 4bbl opening when got around 3.8k rpm.
It’s kinda crazy this thing went for the equivalent of $45k in today’s money while the much better Fiesta ST went for $22-24k in the late 2010s.
I’ve driven and ridden in one…one of the most uncomfortable cars imaginable for a 6′ 3″ person…and I owned a Kia Spectra. The swoopy design was and is pretty, but it cuts down on available space, and it hurts to drive long distances in one. It did handle extremely well even against modern cars, but it was a shame I could only throw it around for 30 minutes or so without developing rigamortis…
…AND THEY NEVER BROUGHT THE “MONDEO” WAGON/ESTATE STATESIDE…the biggest shame imaginable. I STILL want a Fusion Wagon…
I had a ’97 Contour SE with the V6. It was a company car. What made me pick the Contour? Well, I worked for a bunch of cheapskates from Iowa. The other cars on the list all had hand crank windows and AM/fFM radios only. The smaller Ford had power windows and a tape deck; such was the basis of my decision. I didn’t really care about the size as I like small cars.
What I didn’t like was the driver’s seat. It was really uncomfortable with a very short cushion that put my legs to sleep quickly. I ordered a Recaro seat to bolt in with its appropriate adapter and that made the car feel quite a bit bigger inside, helped the leg room, and of course helped with the leg support. An unanticipated benefit of the Recaro was a significant boost in cornering ability as I was no longer sliding around on the stock seat.
With that V6 engine, it was quick. It surprised a lot of other people with how fast it was. That power and the handling abilities made it a really fun little car to drive. I didn’t mind hopping in it and putting 500 miles on it. I had to turn the car in when it hit about 80,000 mi. One of my colleagues bought it for his daughter whereupon the starter failed and he was swearing at me that he had to spend $450 to replace it. I moved on to a Dodge Stratus and about 9 months later moved on to a new gig.
Damn you must have been a very important person to drive a dodge stratus!
My friend’s dad had a black on black one. I knew it was special from the SVT badging but not much more. My friend was bummed that his dad had this awesome car but drove it conservatively. To be fair it was winter and we were heading skiing. We did blow around slower vehicles quite rapidly on a few occasions. Agreed about the back seat, as even younger me wasn’t terribly comfortable back there. I didn’t care since the hill wasn’t far away.
Ford initially experimented with shoving a V6 in the Focus for the SVT version, but thankfully they realized it was a packaging nightmare.
“Developing a single car for the world market seems to violate Nineties wisdom about getting close to your customers. Wouldn’t it have been cheaper and easier to develop separate vehicles, one for Europe and one for the U.S.?”
BMW doesn’t design separate vehicles for Europe and the U.S.
There’s just one 3-series for the whole world, one 5-series for the whole world, one X3, one X5 etc. Sure there might be variations in what engines are offered, trim levels, and lights due to regulations, but fundamentally they design one car and the whole world gets that one car.
It can be done.
So why can’t Ford do it?
Not completely true…left hand drive vs right hand drive is a quite heavy lift, even in times of electronic steering…
Worth remembering though is that most of Europe is left hand drive, just like the US.
I’m not aware of many brands that design and build a car for right hand drive markets only, aside from maybe some Japanese and Australian domestic market vehicles.
You’re not wrong, but the UK, Australia and Japan are BIIIG markets for BMW…
The blogger & auto journalist world’s antipathy for the Chrysler 200 / Dodge Dart echos the criticism that the Contour fell prey to more than a quarter century ago. All were great cars but the common refrain from reviewers was ‘almost but not quite big enough’ – which is odd because it’s not a big car. I mean look at it: not a barge. Don’t expect barge proportions.
If you want a big car, buy a big car.
My dad ended up buying a Stratus over the Contour back in the day because of the interior space difference. He probably would have been better off with the Contour, even if the three of us kids were crushing each other in the back seat.
Always loved the Contour, can’t really describe why, I always liked the way they, and especially the SVT, looked.
I wonder if it would have sold better with a better interior. As everyone else mentioned, the packaging sucks, these just did not have any room inside. But the plastics were also garbage. I knew two people whose dashboards warped after just a couple of Michigan summers, never mind that they were ugly and cheap even brand new. Ford just did not want to spend a dime on nice interiors back then.