[Guest]

Last week i was in cancun on vacation. I was coming back from a club and along side of my cab is a ford topaz. To my supprise i said what, a ford topaz, they dont exist. I thought someone maybe had like switched the badges but then i saw another one. i asked a guy who lived there and he said that they do exist. and they manufacture them there. Along with the ford fiesta. I included a link here to a guy whos selling one in mexico.

http://www.msaplicaciones.com/Marcas/ford.htm

Scroll down and look for ford topaz.

Quite odd but im sure if i would like to get my hands on one. i wonder if theres any diff between them.

 

[XR5TopazBri]

Ford cars from Mexico / South America

I used to live about 30 minutes north of El Paso / Juarez, so I can give you the skinny on your Ford Topaz.

In Mexico, hardly anything sold there is badged a Mercury. For the later years of the Tempo (after 1988), there were several different versions sold. Here they are from the bottom level tot he top. A 2-door Tempo was just that, a Ford Tempo. The 4-door version of the US Tempo was called the Ford Topaz. It had the same roofile as the US Tempo, same grille, just badged a Topaz. The 4-door Topaz was sold as the Ford Ghia. It had the European Ghia badging, nothing stating Tempo or Topaz. It also had the Ghia crest on the car. This car also had a working lightbar grille unlike the US Topaz.

To further confuse things was the Grand Marquis. On a US Grand Marquis built after 1992, on the rear you had the badge Grand Marquis GS or LS on the left side of the trunk, the word Mercury on the right side of the trunk, and the Mercury badge (cirle with three lines) in the center of the taillights. On Mexican GMs, the Mercury word was replaced with a Ford oval on the right side of the trunk, thus being double-badged as a Ford/Mercury Grand Marquis.

 

[XR5TopazBri]

P.S.

The same actually holds true for Dodge and Plymouth cars sold in Mexico. They are all badged Chrsylers. I've got pictures of a Chrysler Spirit R/T. I went to school with someone that drove a Chrysler Stratus R/T, and saw the following: Chrysler Caravan ES, Chrysler Spirit, and the Chrysler Neon.

The Chrysler Neon was interesting, the only thing that was different about it vs. the Dodge and Plymouth Neons (other than the badge) was that the Mexican Neon came with tri-color taillights with a seperate amber colored turn signal... where as US Neons came with a single brake/tail/turnsigal bulb. It also makes the Neon the ONLY car to be sold by the same name under three different makes!!

 

[Zach]

On a trip to Michigan last weekend my girlfriend and I saw a "Chryser Intrepid" from Ontario(instead of Dodge Intrepid) which is interesting because the Chrysler version of the Intrepid here is the Concorde. About 2 years ago I saw a Mexican 4 dr Tempo here in Illinois, complete with Mexican plates. It was interesting, it didn't have the black plastic trim on the doors and had different wheel covers (with a ford emblem) than any ford I've seen in the US.

 

[Guest]

yeah

Ive also seen a:

Dodge Neon
Plymouth Neon
Crysler Neon


Odd.

 

[GuillermoXR5i]

Interesting Stuff

When I went to Spain in 1999 and 2000 I noticed that Neons, Intrepids and Dodge/Plymouths were all labeled Chryslers and had the orange turn signal colour.

I noticed that in Europe some american cars are imported and are trimmed differently than US cars. American imported cars are rare to see there though. Corvette's there had different tail lights and had a side marker lamp. Same with Firebirds.

In Sevilla saw drive down the street a 1992-1994 2dr Tempo. In fact it was green, same colour as mine, but had some differences. Was a Tempo, but had 2dr 1988-1994 Topaz tail lights and clear turn signal lenses (up front). It had 14" multispoke wheels that I've seen on some Ford Sierra's. I also saw two different imported US version ~1983-1987 Escorts there. They had early Lynx tail lights and also had clear turn signal lenses.