parisienne was a pontiac in (massive) coupe and 4 door models.

 

One of my neighbors has an early-80s Parisienne....even has Antique plates for it.

The name Parisienne replaced the old full-size Bonneville when the Bonneville nameplate was moved down to a mid-size offering (the former LeMans).

 

Anyone know?

 

Looks like a Merkur XR4Ti...an 80s vintage attempt by Lincoln-Mercury dealerships to sell German-designed imports. The larger Merkur Scorpio was also sold alongside them. They were unreliable, and ultimately not successful.

 

Impressive MM. you truly are an expert

 

Thanks. I remember those cars well, although I don't recall ever test-driving one.

And, BTW, just to be fair, I know most of the production-cars, but do sometimes get stumped on the exotics and/or kit-cars.

 

I had one of these in 1985 just as they became available. At the time it seemed like a neat car but the luster wore off pretty quick. I lost my shirt on it when I traded it in a Accord since it had been discontinued.

 

I wanted one of these soooooo bad, only cuz the interior looked so euro to me.
Plus compared to other cars back then I thought they looked kinda sporty as a knockin' around town kinda car.

Wasn't it made in Sweeden?

 

Did you have problems with your Merkur? They were not known for Toyota-like reliability.

 

No. It was built by Ford of Europe in a German plant. It was actually a version of the German Ford Sierra, revised to American specs.

Since it had RWD, Ford actually wanted the XR4Ti to compete with the then-rapidly-growing numbers of BMW 3-series here in the U.S., but, for several reasons, that was not to be.

 

I didn't have any problems with it just increased maintenance with more frequent oil changes due to the turbo (kind of primitive compared to today's turbos). Occasionally it would run a little hot in traffic. The ride and handling was good though.

 

Correct. They were sold thru "selected" Ford-Lincoln dealerships and turned out to be fairly low volume.

 

I don’t recall the rear wing being so low. It split the rear window view on the one I drove. It wasn’t so low to the body like the car shown here.

 

OK, Folks.........next one:

 

Nissan Pulsar. True to the quirky styling of a good number of Nissan models, then and onward.