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Junkyard Gem: 1993 Mercury Topaz GS Sedan

As long as the Mercury brand existed — a period spanning the 1939 through 2011 model years — nearly every Mercury sold in the United States was more or less a redecorated Ford model. The Torino had its Montego sibling, the Crown Victoria had the Grand Marquis, the Cougar was based on everything from the Mustang to the Mondeo, and so on. Naturally, when the folks in Dearborn developed the Ford Tempo compact, a Mercury version had to be created. This was the Topaz, with the official launch of both cars taking place on the deck of the aircraft carrier often referred to as the USS Decrepit. You can't make this stuff up! The Tempo/Topaz, also known as the Tempaz, has largely faded from our collective automotive memory by now, since it broke no significant new engineering or styling ground (this story would be much different if Ford had only put the amazing straight-eight "T-Drive" Tempaz powertrain into production) and didn't have any endearing features other than being a cheap domestic competitor to the Toyota Corolla and Nissan Sentra. Still, close to 3 million Tempazes left North American Ford and Lincoln-Mercury showrooms during the 1984-1994 period. As you'd expect, most of these disposable cars disappeared from both the street and the car graveyard long ago. It takes a very special Tempaz for me to break out my camera while I'm patrolling my local wrecking yards; generally, this means an ultra-rare all-wheel-drive version or at least a very early model in super-clean condition. Today's Junkyard Gem is neither, but I took one look at this spectacular Bordello Red crypto-velour-and-slippery-plastic interior and recognized that this was no ordinary junkyard Mercury. It appears that Mercury had dropped the idea of clever names for base-grade seat fabrics by the time of the Topaz, referring to this stuff as just "cloth" in all the brochures I could find. That's too bad, because Mercurys had cool names for upholstery (e.g., Chromatex) in the old days. The interior is in very good condition but the steering wheel shows substantial wear, so I think this is a high-mile Topaz that got meticulous care from its owner or owners. Ford used five-digit odometers on these cars until the end of production, however, so we'll never know if this reading indicates 65,404 miles or 365,404 miles. The body is very straight, but there's some nasty corrosion behind the right front wheelwell.

NHTSA will investigate some Ford Fusion, Lincoln MKZ models for power steering issue

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is opening an investigation into the 2010-2012 Ford Fusion, Fusion Hybrid and Lincoln MKZ, the 2012 MKZ Hybrid and 2011 Mercury Milan because the agency has hundreds of complaints of electric power steering failure in these models.
According to NHTSA's data, it has received 508 complaints of the power steering allegedly suddenly malfunctioning and resulting in increased effort to turn the wheel. In four incidents, these failures resulted in loss of control and crashes. According to the reports, in some cases a power steering warning message came on as the fault occurred, and other times the system restored itself by turning off and then restarting the vehicle. NHTSA said it has also received further field report data from Ford, but that information hasn't been publicly released yet.
For the moment, there isn't a recall for this failure on these models. NHTSA is just investigating them to "assess the scope, frequency and safety consequences of the alleged defect," and the agency says an estimated 938,000 vehicles could potentially be affected.

Icon and Stealth EV are building an electric Derelict Mercury

Icon, a company known for its high-quality restomod vehicles, is building another Derelict, this one a 1949 Mercury coupe. While the fact Icon is building another one of its sleeper hot rods with patina isn't the most shocking, what's under the hood is. The company has teamed up with Stealth EV to turn this latest Derelict into an electric car. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The car was shown in the above Twitter post with video. The exterior is just what you'd expect from an Icon Derelict. It's solid but with a weathered finish. And even as the guy from Stealth EV approaches the car, it looks like it has a V8 under the hood. But as he explains, there's actually the two motor controllers and half of a Tesla battery pack under there. It's just that they've all been given some classy looking metal casings and mounted to look like a V8. Apparently the motors themselves are in the transmission tunnel. The Stealth EV rep says it uses a pair of AM Racing motors. Depending on which motor controllers the companies are using, those motors could produce as much as 700 horsepower. Power will go to the rear wheels and no transmission will be used, making it direct drive. It will have a limited-slip differential, and the whole car sits on an Art Morrison chassis with independent suspension. This actually isn't the first electric Icon, nor the first developed with Stealth EV. Before this, the companies created a totally awesome electric Volkswagen Thing. That little truck made much less power at 180 horses, but it was also a way smaller and lighter vehicle. Related Video: