I just got my phone installed in my new place and have been dying to comment on
this merkur thread. Overtime someone mentioned the xr4ti I wanted to wretch. I
owned one of those things, traded a perfectly good ski boat for it, WORST car I
ever owned by a long shot! First, the motor was nothing but a turbo PINTO motor
and (mine was without intercooler) was slow as hell, a contemporary supra would
eat it's lunch, the seats truly were the most excruciating little devices I ever
sat in (I clearly remember the pain). I took a temp assignment in Aspen Co. one
winter as an xray tech and the freakin little POS threw a rod in SL city Utah (we
won't talk about how I fixed it). On the way back I had several things go wrong
the most memorable was a rear wheel bearing that went bad and I had to fix the
thing in the parking lot of some little podunk wrecking yard in... oh who knows.
By the time I got to Seattle it took all the restraint I could muster to keep from
putting a brick on the gas pedal and letting it fly into puget sound.

I have had probably close to 150 cars in my rather short life (no kidding) and of
all the ones I've owned, that's the only one that the mere memory of it causes me
to become livid.

I will say that it did handle "ok". I remember rather fondly winding my way up
north of SF CA and this girl in a Subaru station wagon decided to push me along
the curves. I must say I was quite impressed with the handling of the subie, and
the driving skills of the young woman. I finally had to really get hard on it to
dust her, diving and braking hard before the corners and then jamming it to the
floor, giving that wimpy little turbo a real work out. Since then I've discovered
what a real sports car is like. I have had two Porsche 928's in the last couple
years, one a 83 euro at 350 (slightly moded) HP (hand built by god), and a plain
US 79 which I still have but is awaiting some restoration.

thanks for letting me vent,
mark...