My new 95 SE

[germanfordguy]

Just home home from a fantastic cross country trip picking up a sweet 95 SE. Found it in Gladstone Oregon, 97K miles, not a spec of rust, pratically show room condition. 3601 miles back home to MA, flawless travel. Back in 94 I ordered a one virtulally identical to this one, took delivery in January of 95. Gave the car to a family member in 2005 with 170K miles on the clock. Last fall, family still had the car, but rust had taken it's toll and the car was no longer safe to drive. I took it back as a parts car. Plan to swap the manual trans into the new car (really don't like an auto), but otherwise, I'm very happy with the car stock.

 

[Terry Haines]

Nice find. Car looks to be in very good condition.

[mondeoman]

Way beautiful '95. Same color as my '95 Zetec 'Tour. Sure looks great with the leather interior. I would love to hear more about your trip - that sounds like fun; how many days did this trip take? How did you hear about this fine 'Tour?

[germanfordguy]

Hey Mondeoman,

Well the story is like this: I owned a virtually identical 95 SE that I ordered as I wanted it, delivered January 95. According to my dealer (who was a friend) I took delivery of the first SE to hit the ground in New England. Put 168K miles on the car before turning it over to family in 2005. Always kept tabs on the car (was being driving by 3 teenagers). Late last December, the family called to say they did not feel the car was safe to drive, rust had taken its toll, rockers and rear suspension. They told me they had always promised the car back to me, and were calling to offer it back. I had always entertained restoring the car, but did not want to deal with rust. I declined. Feeling the Contour Bug, I did a search on a 95-97 tour (always had a preference for the pre-98 style) and found this one in Gladstone. Carfax was posted, 1 owner, dealer maintained, little less than 98K-- pictures looked like the car was in great shape. Called the dealer, talked about the car, dealer put the car on a lift sent me a whole list of underside pix, answered a bunch of questions, we settled on a price and storage until I could get there in May.

 

From there, we planned our trip-- 12 days. We flew to Portland on Tuesday 5/6, picked up the car on Wednesday. Got it checked out, balanced the tires, front was a little out of alignment. Went to the Zoo, Japanese garden, dinner out at a great restaurant. Have to hit Portland again, great city, not enough time. Left Thursday morning-- get as close to Yellowstone as we could. Took the northern route, made it to Butte Montana. Quick overnight, then into Yellowstone via the North entrance. Spent 2 days in Yellowstone-- snowy but beautiful. Too much closed to never return, so it is also on the list. Made it out the east exit (opened on the morning of our departure). Goal was to get to Rapid City South Dakota. Settled in on Custer SD. Next day, Crazy Horse Memorial, Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands National Park-- all amazing in their own way.

 

Another marathon drive brought us to Chamberlain SD-- Small town in the middle of almost nowhere-- lots of charm!

 

Next marathon drive to Baraboo WI-- 2 days visiting a niece-- she and her husband just had their second child. We had never met the new one

 

Left Baraboo for Dearborn Michigan- Henry Ford Museum, more family. Made a pit stop in Chicago IL, did the architecture tour by water-- a quick 1.5 hours, but a great experience to see a bit of the city. Henry Ford Museum is very well done, but was a disappointment because if my own misconceptions. I was hoping for a museum dedicated to the Ford Motor Company, acres of Ford cars, prototypes, history. Sadly, that is not what the Museum is about. Still a good museum, but not what I was hoping for. We did visit the Rough assembly plant, where they manufacture the F150- that was fantastic-- spend hours watching the line. Boring jobs-- but quite a marvel.

 

Next leg of the journey would bring us to Vestal NY, where we would be making the final walk thru before selling my husbands family home.We had just moved his mom close to us in Western MA. We detoured thru Canada stopping at Niagra Falls-- incredible power-- amazing amount of water passing over those falls. Truly humbling.

 

After an evening in the hometown, we made the last drive (a scant 4 hours) back to Northampton MA-- in the end 3601 miles. The Contour ran perfectly-- the only flaw-- the rear view mirror fell off in the day we picked it up-- a quick stop at Autozone fixed that. Despite 9 years of not driving the original, and mostly automatics since that car, I was still looking for the clutch in this one. Working on the details of swapping the auto trans out of this car. I did take back my original 95 so I would have a parts car for the swap, and whatever else might be needed. This 95 will be a fair weather car only from this point on. We now have 6 vehicles for our 2 member household-- excess, but only a start if I were to have my dreams.

 

It was a great trip-- I would encourage everyone to do a cross country trip-- 2 weeks is too short, take at least 4 if you can! Every part of the country we drove thru was beautiful in its own way.

 

Current stable:

2 Saab 93 sport combi's-- daily drivers

95 Contour SE -- plus the parts car

90 Mazda Miata-- 2nd owners, 5 speed

91 Nissan Frontier - mostly for trips to the dump, and winter

93 Airstream Camper - Ford 350 conversion van

 

Retired:

85 Merkur xr4ti

89 Merkur xr4ti

90 Acura Legend

85 Ford Tempo GL Sport 5 speed

79 Ford Fiesta - Quicker than you would expect, so tossable

76 Mercury Caprii II - 2.3L 4 speed

74 Toyota Corona Mark II - sleeper 6cyl 4 speed

 

Thanks for listening

 

Steve

Edited May 29, 2014 by germanfordguy

[Terry Haines]

...that is some history you have with the car...and it is in fantastic shape .  When I see a 95 in such good condition..I still get a shiver when I think of all the trials and tribulations it took,  from 1989> 1995 ..to drag that car..and Ford USA management..to production...What a fight it all was in both engineering and ideas ...Even now the 'look' of the car is ageless....Not many of us 'older' CDW27 guys around now....Such happy times....