How do you tarnish the launch of a great car? There are plenty of ways to unintentionally accomplish this task, and Ford utilized a couple of them with the introduction of a new sports coupe in 1988.
As it turned out, this was one of the best cars you could buy from Ford at the time, but it unfortunately became the center of a crowd-displeasing plan of action that never came to pass. Oh, it was also given a name that became the butt of jokes, if you can excuse the terrible pun.
Let’s push that all away once and for all and give the belated respect that the Ford Probe GT Turbo deserves.
The Boss Had Become A Hogg
Over the years, Ford has made some decisions that initially befuddled the public but, in retrospect, were absolutely the right choices. Building a mainstream sedan that looked like a jellybean for 1986 was seen as an insane move by many, yet it turned out to be a game-changer. Dropping all of their sedans a few years ago to make only crossovers and SUVs? I wasn’t happy about it, but ultimately the rest of the industry followed their lead.
One of their most controversial yet successful choices Ford made was to replace the oversized 1970-73 Mustang with a Pinto-based compact akin to a Japanese or European sports coupe. The 1974 Mustang II still gets the ire of enthusiasts, but it was released just as the energy crisis hit and became one of the best-selling Mustangs of all time.
For 1979, they addressed much of the criticism of the so-called “Puny Car” with a somewhat larger but still relatively efficient version based on the new “Fox” platform. Much better received by Mustang faithful, you could still get a Pinto-powered model to address the economy-minded crowd.
It’s hard to understate how quickly things were changing around 1980. Fuel prices were seen to be on an upward trend that wouldn’t stop, and those pesky imported coupes were gaining ground on the old Pony Car market quickly. Behind the scenes, big changes were happening, and Ford chose to fight the Japanese onslaught with a brilliant solution.
Why Beat Mazda When You Can Buy Mazda?
Henry Ford II always despised Asian automotive competitors, but in 1971, his company began a partnership with Mazda that culminated in the American company purchasing a 20 percent stake of the Japanese firm in 1979. This would form a great basis for the if-you-can’t-beat-them-just-join-them approach to hitting the likes of a Toyota Celica, Honda Prelude, or Datsun 200SX that were rapidly replacing pony cars as go-to affordable coupe choices for buyers.
What would be dubbed the “ST-16 Mustang” was to share not just components but an entire platform with the upcoming Mazda 626 and its coupe sibling, the MX-6. However, despite being developed in Japan, the new FWD Mustang and Mazdas would be built in America at the newly acquired Flat Rock, Michigan plant just south of Detroit. Internally, the idea was to keep the old Fox Body car alive for a time, side-by-side with the new car as the “Mustang Classic” before dropping it in favor of the Mazda-based version.
The exterior design of this new Mustang was done in the U.S. and locked in by 1984, after which the project transferred to Mazda in Hiroshima.
Now, nothing can be kept secret forever. This new Mustang broke cover on April 13, 1987 when Autoweek ran a cover story revealing the existence of the ST-16 that included a rendering which was quite close to what the Probe GT would end up looking like. You can imagine the uproar from the public; a letter-writing campaign in these pre-internet days demanded the heads of the Ford executives responsible.
Reportedly, people outside of Ford were not the only ones unhappy. According to Neil Ressler, small car engineering chief for Ford at the time:
There were a lot of people who thought that was a great idea—a modern car. There were also a lot of us who were appalled by that. It was like the champagne sipping crowd replaced the beer drinking crowd. The idea that we would replace the Mustang with a Japanese car—a different car from a different culture aimed at a different audience—this is not going to work.
John Coletti, a Ford engineering manager who would eventually become head of SVT, put it more succinctly:
I would rather have seen the Mustang name die than put the Mustang name on the Probe.
At this point, of course, it was too late for Ford to stop the launch of this small coupe. Also, as it turned out, it was way too good to cancel anyway.
145 Horsepower Ford? Really?
After the shock and awe of the debut of the Taurus, it would be hard to impress the American public with a new Ford product. However, the ST-16 certainly created a stir when it debuted in 1988 as the Probe. Named after the series of Ghia-built Ford show cars designed with maximum aerodynamics in mind, the new hatchback cut a sleek profile with retractable headlights and a wraparound glass back somewhat reminiscent of the 1986 Celica but sleeker and longer than that Japanese competitor.
This was no pale impersonator; Ford now had a real imported-style sports coupe that just happened to be made right here in America.
Inside, the styling also looked less like a Detroit product than it did the Mazda that it was in many ways.
The 2.2-liter four up front produced 110 horsepower and offered reasonable enough performance for the class; a far better fit for the entry-level sports coupe market than the Pinto-powered Fox Mustang LX (“Mustang Sally’s Daughter’s Car,” as one magazine described it). As a legitimate competitor for the current crop of coupes, the design and specifications were rather expected. What was not expected was the lengths that Ford would go to with the enthusiast’s version of the Probe: the GT.
Typically, “GT” versions of sport coupes give you stripes, thicker roll bars, and maybe a few more horsepower. With the Probe GT, this wasn’t the case. You got four-wheel anti-lock disc brakes and a Mazda-developed three-way adjustable suspension dampening; features that were still heady stuff for affordable cars of the time. Still, neither of those advancements was the biggest change: adding a turbocharger to the Probe’s normally aspirated four bumped up power to a claimed 140 horsepower, or 40 more than the stock engine. However, like with the similar-year Buick Grand National, that figure was considered by most to be highly underrated.
Based on the acceleration figures and unofficial dyno runs, the blown Mazda four was believed to be cranking out nearly 200 horsepower. That’s only 25 less than the 5.0 V8 in the Mustang, and in a lighter car. Car and Driver pulled off a stunning 6.4-second zero-to-sixty run, which was only 0.2 seconds behind the vaunted Fox Pony car.
Quick aside: If you liked this hidden powerhouse of a motor but needed a more family-sized car, you were in luck. Mazda sold a statelier two-door notchback version of the turbo Probe called the MX-6 GT, but the real version to have would have been the five-door 626 GT Touring with this very engine and even an available five-speed gearbox. This anti-Camry was a reliable and practical sleeper that could embarrass any number of far more costly European sedans. Naturally, it was larger and heavier than the Probe GT but still capable of zero to sixty in around seven seconds, making this proto-Saab 900 hatch a rare Holy Grail today.
Of course, the Probe really wasn’t a direct competitor to the car it was reportedly going to replace before the public outcry; it was meant to hit the import onslaught of more advanced small coupes. Could it really handle these formidable opponents? In a word, yes. Handily, in fact. A 1989 Car and Driver test pitted the Probe GT against the Toyota Celica, Nissan 240SX, Subaru XT6, Mitsubishi Eclipse, and even in-house rivals: a Mustang LX with the 5.0 V8 and the Probe’s Mazda MX-6 twin. The Probe came in second place behind the Eclipse with glowing praise from the often-prickly Car and Driver editorial staff. As the old stalwart Csabe Csere wrote:
The Probe GT is the best of the new generation of sport coupes. It’s blindingly quick, thanks to a turbocharged 2.2-liter four-cylinder engine that clearly produces considerably more than its rated 145 horses. The Probe GT also offers a slick-shifting five-speed gearbox, front drive for good all-weather traction, and—thanks to its modest weight and small engine—decent fuel economy.
The fully independent suspension uses tautly damped struts, firm springs, and beefy anti-roll bars front and rear. Four-wheel disc brakes provide ample stopping power, and the optional anti-lock system keeps the binders at their best under any conditions.
Combine these mechanical delights with a sleek, wind-swept shape and you can understand the Probe GT’s appeal. At less than $17,500 fully optioned, the Probe GT is a tremendous value. Let the Neanderthals keep their Mustangs.
A bit harsh at the end there, Csaba, but we got your point, and the fourth-place finish of the old Fox in the comparison test proved him right. If you weren’t a dyed-in-the-wool Mustang person and cared about sharp handling and fuel economy, the Probe likely made far more sense for you.
We have to let John Davis tell us a bit about the Probe, too, don’t we?
The original Mustang soldiered on until 1994, since the budget needed to redo it was mainly spent on the Probe. Oddly enough, the sagging sales of the now-eight-year-old Fox Body Mustang increased due to people’s fear of the “real” Mustang’s demise. Amazing how some things that look like PR blunders turn out to be windfalls for sales, isn’t it?
You Need Not Probe Your 401K For One
As with most Autopians, I’ll waste 45 percent of my waking life scouring used car ads. I tend to look at vehicle purchases as two separate categories: “Toys” and “Actual Cars”. A used 1988 Probe GT could really be either one or both together, and I’m shocked at the values online. This red one offered on Cars & Bids was in outstanding condition with barely over 100,000 miles on the clock
Full instrumentation sits in a rather tasteful Mazda-style dashboard. I like how the dampers for the side vents are on the dash, while the vents themselves open with the doors.
The rear seat isn’t great, but it’s better than a GM F-body and far better than the Escort EXP that the Probe essentially replaced, which had no back seat at all.
The interior is obviously that of a Japanese-developed car, and I’m impressed by how well it’s held up for a car this age.
What did this car go for in 2021? Somebody stole it for a mere $5100! To get any as-new, dependable, and dull Japanese sedan for that kind of money today is a win, much less a cool sub-seven-to-sixty coupe with a manual transmission.
I love how Mazda literally bolted on a FORD placard onto the valve cover.
A current ad lists a somewhat similar car (but with the scary red seats) at a dealer for an asking price of just under $9000, but even if it sells for anything close to that, it’s still a bargain in anyone’s book. Is the stank of the whole New Mustang controversy still tainting the Probe? If so, thank your lucky stars that it’s keeping one Radwood icon affordable. I bet you’re putting “Ford Probe For Sale” into Google right now; be sure to add the “Ford” in front of “Probe,” or you’ll get very strange search results.
This Alien Probe Was A Good Thing
Replacing an icon is never an easy task. Still, despite the opinions of people who were the automotive equivalent of “if it ain’t Sean Connery it ain’t Bond”, the Probe really could have been a modern equivalent of the Mustang. Had gas prices continued to rise as they had been expected to in the eighties, it almost certainly would have worn the pony logo. The Probe did find a lot of admirers, with production of over 77,000 units in 1988 and rather strong sales up until this version ended in 1991. In retrospect, despite the uproar, Ford’s product planners were spot on: for about 90 percent of buyers around 90 percent of the time, a Probe made for a far better choice than the old FoxStang. A mid-cycle facelift seen below added a different nose with a prominent grill that I don’t think was an improvement, but the rest of the car was relatively unchanged.
The new-for-1992 Probe with the BMW 850-style front end had stunning looks and a turbo-lag-free V6 engine that in many ways eclipsed (sorry for the Mitsu pun) the earlier car. However, based on some road tests, it wasn’t necessarily any faster; it certainly didn’t have to suffer the slings and arrows of Mustang faithful that the first car did.
I love the sound of a 302-powered Mustang revving and burning up its rear tires, but when it comes to less-than-eight-cylinder coupes with an eye towards handling and economy, the Probe had it all over the base-level Pinto-powered Stangs; it wasn’t even a contest.
Ford might have backed off from their radical plans of changing the Mustang to truly meet the challenges of the time, but ultimately, we ended up with not one but two great sporting coupes for sale at the same time. An old-school Mustang and a high-tech proto-Mustang? That’s a rare win for enthusiasts anytime.
Go ahead, now. Make your damn jokes about the name in the comments.
topshot: Cars&Bids
These could do big miles, too. I knew a couple people with Probe GTs approaching 300k that showed no signs of imminent failure and seemed better put together at that mileage than even nearly new Fox Mustangs. IIRC, the guy who had the first gen one said he replaced the turbo and the other one was a V6 second gen. Both manuals, so I have no idea how the automatics held up. I preferred the 2nd gen MX6 styling, but none were bad, if not especially memorable.
My uncle had a 1st gen Probe. It was black and the windows were tinted really dark. I thought it was so cool at 10 years old or so.
I will say that the styling did it no favors. I don’t mind the Probe’s appearance for either car, but the first gen is the most 80s Coupe possible of the 80s Coupe Meme. Someone at Mazda seemingly had to try to make such a grabbag of T160 Celica, A70 Supra and 3rd generation Camaro design elements look so boring.
In that Motorweek video, there is a pair of Citroen CX’s at the 3-minute mark hiding behind the test track 😛
My mom picked up one of these right when they came out. Traded in a rusted 85 Cavalier (with Rusty Jones stickers still on the rear quarter glass). Apparently in those days they could send you out the door before everything was set in stone because she was called to return the car like a week later because some financing did not go through. Amazingly, they had her Cavalier and it didn’t go straight into the crusher like on National Lampoon’s Vacation.
She got a few more years out of the Cav and then got into a 1992 Hyundai Elantra
Elantra or Excel?
Elantra
Was lucky enough to have a ’89 626 Touring nearly identical to the one in the photo as my second car in high school after quickly realizing the 1st, a 4×4 SUV wasn’t where my heart was.
Stupidly I only kept it for a few years before selling it to buy a flashier ’88 Trans Am (The clutch had started to slip and I wanted something more stylish-I was 18 /shrug). Regretted selling it within a year or two of firebird ownership would’ve been such a great all around college car. My only “mods” were to saw off the muffler and put in a short shifter intended for a Probe/MX6 and some Kumho summer tires, even then it was pretty easy to smoke the tires off the line but on premium gas would get 31 mpg on the highway, decent enough in the snow with studded tires and a great canyon carver that could readily burn up freeway stints. Used the funky notchback hatch to haul a surprising amount of construction gear working summers for my dad’s construction company. Drove it with a buddy from Bozeman, MT to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and back without a single issue-on a car with 128K miles. Oh yeah it had great seats and funky AC vents that could swivel back and forth between passenger and driver. I don’t think I’d want to own one again, but it would be a lot of fun to try driving one again, seems unlikely though given I’ve only ever seen one other example on the road.
Good friend of mine had one of these in high school. He had the GT with the five speed and the trip computer that had a bagillion buttons on it.
That thing went way faster than you thought it would. Neck snapping acceleration even.
My dad bought a first-gen 1989 LX (4-cyl, as the V-6 didn’t become available until ’90). It was also, unfortunately, an automatic. At the time, in my 10-yr-old eyes, the Probe was really nice looking, but the Diamondstar triplets owned my heart at the time.
The Probe turned out to be a pretty great all-arounder. With decent tires, it was amazingly capable in the snow. I’d learn, a handful of years later, that with awful tires, it could be REALLY slidey. The Probe remained as my dad’s daily until early 1995, when he’d decided it was time to get something new. He had his eyes on the new-for ’95 Probe GT, which I was in FULL support of, but he wasn’t able to get the kind of deal he thought he should be able to get for one, so he ultimately went with the just-released Chrysler Cirrus LXi. I’m fairly certain we briefly had the only cloud car in our small WV town.
Around the time dad bought the Chrysler, I was coming into driving age. The Probe was handed down to me (despite me really wanting my mom’s old ’90 Taurus wagon instead). I think mom and dad had already done the math of giving me access to what was essentially a rolling bedroom and thought smarter. The Probe saw me through 4 years of college, and finally got put down after a failing transmission rendered it without functional reverse gear.
But, turns out, if you lay down the back seats of the Probe, there was a TON of room, and even a bit more privacy available than a glassy station wagon might offer.
When I met my now-husband he had a ’90 Probe LX auto with no reverse! He’d have to park in pull-through spots or on hills, or else he’d be stuck.
I, fortunately lived in Morgantown, WV at the time, and I challenge you to find a flat parking spot anywhere in that town. I got REALLY good at planning out my entrance-exits from parking lots.
I definitely was a fan of the Probe as my tastes leaned closer to something like a Celica / RX7 / Integra / etc. at the time, but the one thing that really annoyed me about the Probe was Probe owners. To them this was God’s gift to handling and every other car had to be inferior, meanwhile I’m thinking “Congratulations, you’ve finally experienced what a normal good car felt like for the last 10 years.”
i d pay big bucks for that red celica in the piture.
That Probe backseat looks reasonably comfortable and spacious, to me. Headroom doesn’t even look to be a big issue.
I can tell you from experience (freshman year of high school) the rear seat absolutely does not have enough headroom if you’re over six foot.
So you didn’t do a lot of…probing…from your Probe?
I had a 1990 GT in highschool. There was most definitely probing going on back there.
Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t doing any probing, just banging my head on the roof every time the senior behind the wheel (intentionally) hit a pothole or bump in the road.
Headroom was even an issue in the front seat for me, but I’m an ogre.
The 1st gens never did it for me but I’ve always liked the 2nd gen, at least styling-wise. Sorta slots in with the similar year Celica as a car that I never actually wanted, but always noticed on the road.
As a field Service engineer in 1988, I picked one up at the Rochester NY Airport from Hertz, and loved driving it. They gave me a Taurus for a company car , (and I bought is when the lease was up and drove it about 5 more years) so I would have never had a chance to buy a probe, though I might have.
As much as I like the song Mustang Sally, gotta believe Probe Sally would’ve been more fun on a date.
This is an underrated joke
Discussion I was having today with another auto writer:
Ford always loses its nerve.
They get spooked and instead of being confident, they back off.
I bet the whole “save the Mustang” crowd was actually kinda small, but loud. And we’ve seen how that works out.
You thought I was going to go….THERE, didn’t you?
Nope, gonna pick up the other obvious example:
New Coke.
New Coke was better. New Coke outperformed rival Pepsi in blind taste tests. New Coke was handled so, so poorly.
People get threatened by change, especially when you punch them in the mouth with it. And Coca Cola compounded its clumsy introduction (did you need to say the formula awas all-new, people?) by getting snared in a media coverage frenzy (especially in the ’80s, the news really wanted to get as much mileage as possible from any outrage that threatened “The American Way of Life.”)
They also backed off. So they looked stupid. Though, the same thing happened in terms of sales – Coca Cola Classic dropped and Coke basically dared everyone to put up or shut up. “We gave you what you wanted, now go buy it.”
Same same as the Probe/Mustang thing. They kept the Fox body alive, sales didn’t nosedive, and they scraped some money together to update it two more times before rendering it into memory after 2004.
But the Probe was the better car.
“People get threatened by change”, explains so much about politics.
New Coke wasn’t ‘better’. Here’s my theory on the ‘taste tests’. Pepsi and New Coke are sweeter than Old Coke. So they taste better for a sip or two. However, drink a whole can or bottle, and they get too sweet. So they initially taste better, but for the entire drink experience, old Coke tastes better. Which is why Old Coke always wins the most important test – sales. It’s my theory that they couldn’t quite match the taste of Old Coke when they switched from sugar to HFCS. So they needed to get everyone to forget the exact taste – enter New Coke. Have it on the shelves just long enough that when they reintroduced Classic Coke it tasted a lot more like Old Coke, enough that people were happy and resumed buying it instead of Pepsi. Incidentally, Diet Coke is also supposed to taste more like Pepsi, which helps with a diet drink that contains no sugar, while Coke Zero tastes more like Coke.
Looking at the photos of the original Probe, I am surprised how bland it looks. I must be misremembering it from when it launched; I recall seeing it on the lawn outside of the Ford dealership and thinking it looked so futuristic, and along with the Taurus, I thought Ford was really leaning in on the future; it’s no wonder the Taurus was the featured car in Robocop.
I think the first gen is one of those that looks better in real life than in pictures. In particular the side view, which looks kinda flat in pics, but has a cool spaceship feel when you actually see it.
I have never been a Ford fan. It’s still one of the few brands of which I haven’t owned. But the Probe is one of the few Fords I look back fondly on and think, “I would by that.”
As an avid automotive press reader back then, it really was a open secret joke that Probe GT made a great deal more HP than listed. I really wanted to afford one or a awd Eclipse GS turbo back in the day, rotten graduate school poverty.
I’ve always liked the Probe, but there’s a reason why Foxbody Mustangs are still desirable and hold value, while Probes are pretty much forgotten.
Yep. Boomer nostalgia and aftermarket.
Probably more Gen-X. Boomers fondly recall the classic era cars.
Also, at the time even, the Fox Mustang was seen as a bit of a relic. Which made it, for plenty of us, even more desirable, the sense of something old in a new body that it conveyed. That’s only deepened with age I suspect.
I was there – the V8 was awesome, the rest of the car was kinda suspect. It was definitely a relic, but the much-better-performing F-Bodies never sold as well.
I guess early Gen-Xers would have been able to buy Fox Mustangs by the 90s. Boomers were definitely doing the nostalgia thing, though. I’m a late Xer, so if I had chosen better, I would have had enough money to make an SN95 mine by the end in ’04.
By the 90s? I had a Mustang SVO in HS in 1987 and there were a bunch of 5.0s.
I was talking brand new – definitely possible to get SVO or V8 early Foxes, for sure.
I guess the biggest barrier was the insurance for young drivers; a friend really wanted an 86 GT on the used lot and the salesman basically told him “no, you can’t afford to insure it until you make it to 25 death-free”
We had a girl in high school (mid to late 80s) wreck her 5.0 convertible 3 times in before she graduated. Her father was rich but apparently not too bright.
For all the condescension, V8s are better. They sound better, they are smoother, and the power is down low where you need it.
Give it the Ford Probe V’s aerodynamics(minus impracticalities like front wheel farings) and screw styling to get them, make it RWD, and you could have had an affordable 60+ mpg sports car with a 180+ mph top speed with a 4-cylinder engine.
I always like both generations of the Probe, but I’m a sucker for flip-up headlights.
Always liked the Ford Probe.
I REALLY wanted a 1993 Probe when I was in my late teens. The plan was to sell my 87 S15 Jimmy and boat and get the Probe. In the end I ended up with my grandfather’s 1991 Cavalier wagon with the 3 speed auto and no other options. I spent the sale money on tuition instead of a downpayment on that Probe which would have still came with a loan payment.
The right financial decision and the wagon was much better at moving my apartment every 12 weeks than the Probe would have been. 18 year old me still wasn’t happy about it though.
If it makes you feel any better, Chevy stopped making manual Cavalier wagons sometime in the late 80s so your grandpa didn’t get any options at all.
Unless there was a radio (that you didn’t put in yourself) because my aunt had a ’92 sedan with a blanking plate.
Didn’t know that. I would have prefered the manual myself.
It did have a factory AM/FM AC Delco radio. Somebody broke my window and then destroyed the dash with a crowbar or screwdriver to steal that $5 radio a few years after I inherited the vehicle.
Yeah, a real car with real engineering is better than a cheap POS that was haphazardly thrown together with little care at all.
Too bad the Probe wasn’t available with AWD
What the Mustang timeline should’ve been:
64-68 original Mustang
69-86 German Capri
87-97 Probe
98-03 New Edge Cougar
04+ S197 and successors
Man this has to be one of the worst takes I’ve ever read!
A (Probe-based) AWD turbo Cobra would’ve been an awesome competitor to the Celica All-Trac and GT-Four 😀
The Probe was the best car you could buy new at a Ford dealer during its time. The second best was the Festiva/Aspire, which in turn was also a Mazda (though license built by Kia)
What about the T-birds (supercharged V6s or 5.0) or the SHOs? They were all pretty awesome but overpriced as new, but I still think both of those were better cars than the Probe.
Still not as well-made as a Mazda 😛
While the proto-Mustang controversy obviously hurt Probe sales in this timeline, I think in an alternate timeline where it debuted with promises that a new Mustang would soon follow I think the two lines would have still run into problems.
To wit, like the Camaro/Firebird not being able to step on the toes of the Corvette, or the Boxster/(and especially) Cayman having to avoid 911 territory, I think we would have eventually seen a similar dynamic develop between the Probe and the Mustang. And who knows, maybe in that timeline Mustang sales do dwindle enough to the point where the nameplate gets retired?
And I can’t leave without agreeing with everyone (so far) about the looks of the 2nd gen. *chef’s kiss*
Perfect, no notes.
Those 2nd-gen Probe GT’s were gorgeous.
Yeah, it has aged remarkably well. Pretty sexy car.
I think the contemporary MX6 may be even more handsome, but literally do not exist in Northeast where I live any more.
We in the rust belt feel your pain.
Summer rain and winter salt kill cars within 15 years so the only classics available are low-milage-high-value garage queens. Meanwhile, California and the rest of the Southwest have plenty of not-pretty but still perfectly drivable examples for less.
People from the South don’t understand why I get excited when I see a generic 80s Japanese economy car running around that’s not about to snap in half.
I posted basically the same thing before reading the 1st page of comments! Agreed!