Re: The right rear caliper questions

[Tom Nas <tnas@euronet.nl>]

"G. Benedikt Rochow" <rochow@segosf.hlo.dec.com> wrote:

>When Phil said 'Granada',
>I pictured the angular predecessor, which was not
>available in the US.

Very good, tough cars- if not exactly elegant. Very tasteless fake wood
dash, superb V6 with great autobox. Given enough kickdown, you could hear
the fuel tank emptying on the 2.8. I drove the contemporary Taunus (Cortina
in the UK).

>Note that these export versions often had different constructions
>in significant details (e.g. the Sierra had either an extra
>B/C pillar, or that pillar extremely reinforced - can't remember).

The early Sierra XR4s had a weird construction with two rear side windows
with extremely wide pillars in between. Probably to compansate for the
not-exactly-rigid construction of the three-door Sierra (drove one for a
bit, very hard to close the doors when it was off level ground).

>I wonder how they came up with the 'Merkur' brand name
>as a 'German Mercury'. The badge says large MERKUR and small
>'Ford-Werke AG Ko"ln'. Interesting.

I've had the opportunity to look at a Merkur XR4TI at a local 'exotic car
dealer', and compared it to the Sierra I was running at the time. Virtually
nothing on these cars was identical- you're SOL when you'd buy the Merkur
and try to get stuff for it here. It was very quick, though.

Not well-built at all, BTW: I could hear it creak and rattle over every
bump. My borrowed Sierra was a little (but not a lot) better. And it didn't
compare to Audis by a long way (logical, given the price difference).

It would have been even more
>interesting to know at the time of manufacture that they were
>doing these special export versions - one wonders
>how many Opel Omega buyers in De. know that the US gets it
>as the much-lower-priced Catera.

Everything's a lot cheaper in the US, car-wise. Mostly taxes, BTW.

Tom

 _______________________________________________________________________
 Tom Nas                                          Zeist, The Netherlands
 tnas@euronet.nl

         I'm not a complete idiot: Some parts are missing.