The Special Vehicles Team at Ford have been tuning vehicles for some time now. They’ve tuned plenty of Mustangs, a few trucks, the Focus and even the Ford Contour.
The Contour SVT was 200hp 2.5 liter naturally aspirated V6. At the time it was called the best handling FWD sedan for sale in America. It was built for 3 years from 1998 to 2000, a little over 11,000 of these little hot rods were produced.
SVT took a slightly different approach when building its high performance economy sedan than most other car companies at the time. If you had a small sedan with sporty intentions it was most likely to a be a turbo-charged or high performance 4 cylinder. The Contour SVT took a page from BMW and built a quick reving 6 cylinder albeit in a “V” configuration instead of BMW’s inline 6 format.
The problem with rare and special cars like the Contour SVT is the enthusiasts know about them and snatch them up or modifiy them away from their original setup. A search of Autotrader shows a 2000 Contour with only 37k miles or only $8,000.
If you’re an enthusiast with a limited budget, don’t settle on used Kia, just take a short trip back in time and pick up one of these little bad boys. It may be a bit of hunt, but it will be worth it.
1 response so far ↓
1 Jeff // Jan 30, 2009 at 4:18 pm
This is truly a great car with minimal modifications. Has the handling of a Porsche with the attitude of a Cobra. It’s unfortunate that Ford stopped producing these because they really are something to be appreciated. Upgrade to a 3.0L motor for the ultimate ride!