The Ford Probe .. an oldie but goldie?

[TW]Fox said:
Unfortunately, most of the British public do not have any common sense.

Every year, thousands of people will go and buy a Corsa becuase:

a) They look cute
b) The dealer is at the end of their road
c) The salesman was dishy
d) They liked the colour
e) Its easy to drive (Come on, its a car, it has a steering wheel and pedals, unless its a Challenger Tank whatever you try isnt going to be rocket science)
f) The lovely man at the dealer said it would only be £99 a month (for the rest of your life, mwuahahahaha).
g) You can have 'free' insurance (For people who don't realise you never get something for nothing, and that the 'free' insurance is paid for by the fact you just paid list price for an SXi, ahahhahahah etc)
h) It's not a Ford/Citroen/BMW/whatever - basically, in 1976 their parents had a ____ and it broke once, so they'll never touch that marque again.
Click to expand...
lmao. So true it's funny :)
 
I remember when the south west motor show was on last year. You had all your usual clubs there,scooby owners club,rs owners club etc etc obviously all showing a lot of cars

anyway walking round I came across the probe owners club stand....with 3 cars lol :D

well maybe not funny to some but couldnt help having a giggle
 
JRS said:
Ford only managed to shift a little under 840,000 of the things across the entire world in the 8 years that they built them - all those people who went out and bought something else can't have been that wrong :)
Click to expand...

They sold well in America - cars dont have to handle that well in the US.
 
great advice said:
They sold well in America - cars dont have to handle that well in the US.
Click to expand...

They didn't sell well in America though - buyers just carried on doing what they'd done since 1964 and bought Mustangs.
 
JRS said:
They didn't sell well in America though - buyers just carried on doing what they'd done since 1964 and bought Mustangs.
Click to expand...

They did :D there was a letter in last months Performance Ford mag, where a guy was asking where he could get tuning parts and a body kit for his probe. Once they had finished laughing at him they went onto to say how well it sold in the US (they loved it) and what options were open to him if he bought parts from abroad. Suprised me a bit tbh, i knew they liked them but they have a proper cult following.

Gotta remember though, they have very low standards when it comes to cars. The bigger a car is the more "luxury" it is and all that lol
 
great advice said:
They did :D there was a letter in last months Performance Ford mag, where a guy was asking where he could get tuning parts and a body kit for his probe. Once they had finished laughing at him they went onto to say how well it sold in the US (they loved it) and what options were open to him if he bought parts from abroad. Suprised me a bit tbh, i knew they liked them but they have a proper cult following.

Gotta remember though, they have very low standards when it comes to cars. The bigger a car is the more "luxury" it is and all that lol
Click to expand...

How, pray tell, does 837,273 cars sold in 8 years worldwide make the Probe a good seller?

As for your last statement - I'm not going there, there is only one way that argument can end and it'll get me PermaBanned.
 
Friend of mine was stupid enough to buy one, didnt keep it long as he hated it.

Its slow.
Its thirsty.
Its ugly.
Its lardy.
Its about as much a sports coupe as my 406 diesel estate (infact my 406 handles better in his opinion).
He even went on to say its worse than a Calibra, and they're a steaming pile of dung.

Hope that helps :D

Fog
 
Foghorn Leghorn said:
He even went on to say its worse than a Calibra, and they're a steaming pile of dung.
Click to expand...
Gotta say I diagree with that, they're obviously showing their age now but they're MUCH better than a Ford Probe and certainly not a 'steaming pile of dung.' Personally I think they're pretty good looking cars, especially considering their age and an xe powered calibra is faster than a v6 probe. A turbo calibra will show up a lot of current hot hatches. Didn't mean to take this OT but I couldn't help saying something when I saw that statement.
 
McHaMmEr said:
Gotta say I diagree with that, they're obviously showing their age now but they're MUCH better than a Ford Probe and certainly not a 'steaming pile of dung.' Personally I think they're pretty good looking cars, especially considering their age and an xe powered calibra is faster than a v6 probe. A turbo calibra will show up a lot of current hot hatches. Didn't mean to take this OT but I couldn't help saying something when I saw that statement.
Click to expand...

The V6 was faster!! Im a fan of the Calibra too, its one of the very few Vauxhalls id actually own. My mate runs Club Calibra so ive had the chance to drive a fair few - all of them excellent.
 
But the Calibra is just a Cavalier with a fat suit on. It suffers from the same problems as the Probe does.

Its thirsty.
Its slow, the 2.0 8v and 16v are ridiculously slow for what is supposed to be a sports coupe. I would also hope that a 4x4 turbo would be quick!
It is better looking than the Probe i'll give it that.
It doesnt handle well.

It is better than the Probe but it certainly isnt a good car, and it most definately is not a 'Sports coupe'.

Fog
 
The 2.0 16v Calibra does 0-60 in 8 seconds.

Just how much faster do you want a 2 litre Coupe to be? There is no rule which says a Coupe isnt a Coupe unless it does 0-60 in 4 seconds flat.
 
That must be the early model 2.0 16v, the newer 2.0 16v had the new ecotec 4 engine with less power (way to go Vauxhall) and was barely faster than the 8v.

It was still also slower than the equivalent 4 door rep mobile Cavalier.

Fog
 
[TW]Fox said:
The 2.0 16v Calibra does 0-60 in 8 seconds.

Just how much faster do you want a 2 litre Coupe to be?
Click to expand...
Faster than that otherwise you are better with a hatch tbh. For me a car has to walk the walk.

Edit: but such rules needent apply at the <£1K banger end of the market.
 
Trickle said:
Faster than that otherwise you are better with a hatch tbh. For me a car has to walk the walk.
Click to expand...

We've got to remember here that this is a car which was sold between 1990 and 1998. Back then, you didn't have Focus ST's and 182bhp Renault Clio's making everything else look slow.

Back then, even a Golf GTI was no faster.

0-60 in 8 seconds is a perfectly respectable performance figure for a 2 litre Coupe.
 
I car shared for a year with a guy that had a 2.0l Probe:

Good Points:
Cheap to buy
Excellent steering lock for a FWD car

Bad points:
Everything else

I remeber the HT leads broke down on the way back from work and it started running on 2 cylinders. Because it's some odd Mazda engine rather than a Ford one, none of the local motor factors stocked replacement ones. £130 later he was the not so happy owner of a set of OEM HT leads.
 
Foghorn Leghorn said:
That must be the early model 2.0 16v, the newer 2.0 16v had the new ecotec 4 engine with less power (way to go Vauxhall) and was barely faster than the 8v.

It was still also slower than the equivalent 4 door rep mobile Cavalier.

Fog
Click to expand...


"Rep mobile" Cavaliers cam with 1.6L or cooking 2.0L engines, I don't suppose many reps got to have a Cav SRi/GSi with the C20XE engine.

The Calibra may well be a bit dated these days, but I'd take one over a Probe any day of the week.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom