Meerkat-o-lader

Roush Merkur XR4Ti, Scott Pruett, Road America, 1988

Over the years, Trans-Am cars have gotten more and more forgettable.  Another tube-frame V-8 silhouette racer?  Spare me.  The exception, which has stuck in my memory for 20-odd years, was the Merkur XR4Ti.  I saw it run only once, in the Saturday support race for the CART event at Road America in 1988.

Jack Roush Racing brought two cars, one for Scott Pruett and another for Wally Dallenbach, Jr.  Pruett was obviously quick, so it was no surprise when he graduated to CART a year later.  What struck me as odd was that Roush, whom I thought of as a drag racer, was running a road racing team for Ford.  With benefit of hindsight, this was the beginning of the Roush empire.

Even more surprisingly, the car was powered by a 2.3 liter turbo 4.  Its pop-off valve charmed me.  It chirped, with three rapid "chit-chit-chit's," as fast as you can make the sound, when the drivers got into the valve.  Which was all the time: the car was set up to overboost.  Pruett would fly into the braking zone for Turn 5: chit-chit-chit!  He'd fly up the hill from Turn 5, shifting once: chit-chit-chit!  When he lifted for Turn 6, chit-chit-chit!  Sounded like "Meerkat Manor," but louder.

The XR4Ti's ran for only one season.  The road version was fast, but a sales failure.  It cost as much as a Corvette: big bucks for a hot-rodded German Ford Sierra.  It was sold through Lincoln-Mercury dealers--not your best demographic for sellers and buyers of Autobahn Burners.

We keep complaining, over here, that we don't get the best of Ford of Europe's stuff: they always soften up the car for our market.  Ford tried us once with the XR4Ti.  Now they're going to try us again with the Focus ST, which is identical to the Euro-spec car--at a more realistic price point than the Merkur's.