Genuinely cheap economy cars seldom get the kind of meticulous care needed to get past the 300,000-mile mark, in part because they tend to depreciate to near-scrap values by the time they hit age 15 or so. During my junkyard travels, I’ve found just a handful over the years, including a 312k-mile Ford Festiva, a 360k-mile Toyota Tercel, a 445k-mile Datsun 210, a 440k-mile Nissan Sentra, a 313k-mile Dodge Ram 50 and a bunch of Honda Civics. Today we’ve got the Mercury-badged version of a Mazda-based Ford Escort, found in a Northern California yard recently.
The original 1987-1989 Mercury Tracer was one of the few U.S.-market Mercury models that had no Ford-badged counterpart in the United States, though it was based on the Australian-market Ford Laser (itself derived from the Mazda 323). The Tracer skipped 1990; then the name went on a Mercury-badged version of the Ford Escort starting in the 1991 model year.
While this and all subsequent Escort generations were based on Mazda platforms (in this case, shared with the Protegé), the 1.9-liter “cam-in-head” Ford CVH engine remained the base Escort/Tracer powerplant. For 1991, a 1.8-liter Mazda engine was available in the more upscale versions.
A Mercury with a manual transmission? Yes! The base transmission in the Escort and its Tracer twin was a five-speed manual, and the original buyer of this car went in a very un-Mercuric direction by choosing the three-pedal version.
And that decision turned out to be a wise one, nearly 30 years later, because this car made it well past 300,000 miles during its life.
Based on this sticker and the very good condition of the car, I’d say that buyer was a sensible retired Navy man who bought an affordable, simple car and then performed every maintenance item on the dot. Perhaps something ruinously expensive finally broke, or maybe this car got traded in and the dealership was unable to find a buyer for a high-mile Detroit sedan with too many pedals.
In 1995, a new Ford Escort LX sedan started at $11,040, or about $23,104 in 2024 dollars. The base 1995 Mercury Tracer sedan listed at $11,280 ($23,606 after inflation), and it came with the slightly increased prestige that the Mercury name carried at that time. Meanwhile, the 1995 Mazda Protegé sedan, which was mechanically nearly identical to the Escort/Tracer but had a different body, started at $11,995 ($25,103 in today’s money).
The Tracer was to go through one more generation before getting the axe after 1999. The Mercury brand itself went away after 2011.
“Make ’em throw in an automatic!”
“I never thought I’d drive anything from an American car company.”
