Car of the Week

My first car of the week is the 1989 Merkur Scorpio! Woo Hoo!!!!

The Merkur Scorpio was a North American version of the European Scorpio Mk. The car was offered at select Lincoln-Mercury dealerships from 1988–1990. It was offered as a luxury executive type car. However, the Scorpio was also plagued by auto transmission troubles, electrical gremlins, and a wide range of reliability issues which hurt its luxury image with consumers. The failure of the Scorpio can be blamed on the Mercury Sable, as it looked very similar, was sold on the same showroom floors, and was considerablly cheaper and just about as equipped. Ford dropped the Merkur nameplate altogether after 1989. The car continued to sell in the UK and went through several name changes and design updates.





It was my dream at one point to go overseas and buy the latest redesigned Scorpio model.

I choose it as my first car of the week because it was the first car I ever bought. I got it for $2500.00! Well technically, my dad helped me pay for half of it, but I did end up paying him back. That car saw me through some tough times during my first semester of college! I pampered that car more than anything else in my life! No joke! On the weekends, I would condition the leather, vacuum the interior, and wash the outside. I used to take an ATM card, wrap it around a paper towel, and go through every nook and cranny of the car and remove all traces of dirt. I even changed the engine coolant on my own. However, I did it in the parking lot of my school, which is actually illegal. Sadly, the car started to suffer from my love of driving it. The electrical system started to break down, and there was something terribly wrong with the front wheel axle. It eventually needed about $1500 worth of work to keep it going, and as a freshman in college I certainly couldn't afford it. So one dark night, I went online, posted an ad to sell the car, and had a "cult"-buyer contact me within one week. I sold the car for $3000. I made a quick $500.00 on the sell, but I had to give $1,000 back to my dad, and $1,000 to my mom (b/c of a phone bill I wracked up during my first months at college!!). But I got to keep $500 of it!! And bought myself a Gateway Computer!!!