chicagotribune.com's view

Merkur XR4Ti is hardly a name that rolls off the lips. It`s also a badgethat violates the longstanding rule that any name with more than threesyllables probably can`t be pronounced and usually won`t be remembered.

It also has proved to be a car that isn`t rolling out of the showroom and into too many consumers` driveways. At the beginning of December, dealers had a 163-day supply of the cars on hand.

The goofs are legend on this import from Ford of West Germany, startingwith the name and including its introduction solely with a finicky 5-speedtransmission until Ford Motor Co. realized that U.S. buyers favor automatic.

Ford convinced itself that European coupe buyers couldn`t wait to gettheir hands on a 5-speed. And Ford went overboard in hyping the car byfollowing the old, “If it`s German, it`s got to be good“ routine that istrue of beer, sauerkraut and the woman rearing our kids, but takes someproving when it comes to cars.

The Merkur XR4Ti came out in 1985 and fell flat on its aerodynamic nose.This year, it`s making a bit of a comeback, thanks in large part to Fordfilling rental fleets with the cars. That puts them on the streets, so people can start asking what the car is.

We test drove the `87 XR4Ti with its fuel injected 2.3-liter, 4-cylinderturbocharged engine teamed with automatic. The car is far more tolerable than it had been. The turbo provides one of those hold-on boosts even withautomatic that puts the XR4Ti in the same performance league with some ofthose nifty 16-valve rivals from Japan or SE performance models from Pontiac. However, when the streets are a bit wet, the turbo boost in the rear-wheel-drive XR4Ti is a little too much. And the car could shed a few hundredpounds so it`s as nimble handling corners and turns as it is lively in moving from zero to 60 miles an hour on a straightaway. For `87, Ford added larger15-inch wheels and Pirelli tires, not our choice of treads for wet roads. Wewould prefer the car on dry roads or with different tires.

In 1988, the XR4Ti is supposed to get a bit of styling change, with aless dramatic single wing rear deck spoiler replacing the dual wing or biplaneunit.

This spring, Ford comes out with the next car in the Merkur lineup, theScorpio four-door sedan. We drove the European, non-U.S. emissions equippedversion a year ago and were impressed with performance, ride and handling,looks and comfort. What that car needed was a little less weight, which isn`t going to happen when the U.S. emissions hardware is added.

What it needs, too, is an XR4Ti that`s so well accepted by the publicthat people will stop in showrooms to see the Scorpio entry.

The XR4Ti starts at $17,832 to which you add $427 for automatic.