Welcome to Wednesday Want. Each week, our team will pluck a car from our thousands-strong Car Suggestions forum and give it some time in the spotlight. From the weird to the wonderful, we’ll be covering the full automotive spectrum. You can check out past Wednesday Want entries right here.
We’ve recently covered the forthcoming change to Audi’s naming system on GTPlanet. The change has caused some confusion and discussion, but ultimately it highlights the value of a solid, recognizable name.
Manufacturers spend a lot of money trying to find exactly the right name for their new car. Sometimes it’s right and sometimes it isn’t, but sometimes it’s a catastrophe. Ford found this out the hard way in 1992 with its new coupe.
As we’ve previously noted, the 1990s was the age of the coupe. Most manufacturers had one and those that didn’t made one specifically for the sector. Usually they used an ordinary saloon as a basis, but it worked.
In Europe, Ford hadn’t had a decent coupe since the legendary Capri, and the Mustang in the USA was foundering. Customers were becoming conscious of gas mileage, and the 205hp, V8 Mustang was neither fast nor frugal. Ford needed a solution to both.
It hit upon a plan to replace both cars with a single new model. This new Ford coupe would use technology from Mazda — at the time Ford owned a quarter of the Japanese brand. The case for a front-wheel drive replacement for the two cheap rear-wheel drive darlings either side of the Atlantic was not convincing, but there was an air of cautious optimism.
The Ford body took inspiration from a series of streamlined concept cars from the 1980s. With a great platform, that Mazda would use in its MX-6, and the robust 2.5-liter K-series V6 as a soundtrack, Ford must have felt like it couldn’t lose. It looked great, sounded great and went pretty well — although Mazda saved the 200hp version of its engine for itself, and gave the 167hp version to the Americans.
Except it could lose. In its infinite wisdom, Ford USA decided to name the new car after the concept streamliners that gave its shape. Ford went ahead and called it the Probe.
The Europeans couldn’t believe it. Contemporary publications insisted it sounded more like a sex toy than a car. Before the first models landed on UK shores, two years later, interest in the new Capri had tanked. It wasn’t long before it became a punchline for one of Steve Coogan’s many characters either.
And it was a bit of a pity, because Ford had made a reasonably sound vehicle. The price was a bit steep — for £19,000 in 1994, Ford may as well have priced it at £19 million — but the car was decent. It was a good looker, with pop-up headlights, the Mazda engine was faultless and made the right noises, and even the cabin was spacious (ignoring the rear seats).
The Probe went without the MX-6’s rear-wheel steering system, but it handled rather well too. Performance figures were not necessarily dazzling, but it gave a good account of itself. You’d rarely find the Probe at the top of a group test, but you wouldn’t find it all that far down one either.
But the name was a hammer blow. Ford withdrew the car from Europe after just four years with dismal sales (for a Ford). It would try again with the overweight, Mondeo-based Cougar – later sold in the States under the Mercury brand — while Ford USA replaced the Mustang with another Mustang instead.
It seems that Ford learned its lesson with the Probe. An apocryphal tale goes that, instead of letting the suits run riot, Ford Europe created public panels to debate new names. The story runs that the first two names that its New Car Focus Group came up with were “Ka” and “Focus”…
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