1993 Ford Probe GT - Regrets, I've Had a Few

Although I claim to be a GM girl, if I could go back to the mid-1990s, I'd buy a Ford Probe GT like this rather than the 1994 Chevrolet Lumina Z34 and 1997 Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS I did buy. I have few regrets, so if I regret a handful of automotive purchasing indiscretions, I can live with that.

A big part of my motivation for going GM back then was that I had a wad of "GM Dollars" on my GM Mastercard. That was real money I could throw at the purchase of a new GM car or truck. If I recall correctly, back then you could pile up as much as $3,500, which could be applied toward the purchase or lease of a new GM vehicle.

Was such a deal enough to get me into one of these sleek beauties? Driven back-to-back, I don't know how I could possibly have gone with what I did. Although, truth be told, I don't recall even looking at these cars back then. Funny how, at times, we fumble big decisions in life.

Then again, "GM Dollars."

I know I looked at a Honda Accord coupe when purchasing my 1997 Monte Carlo, but I wasn't enamored enough with its styling to stray. That was before Honda stuffed a honkin' 3.0-liter V-6 in them, too. This pretty girl has never bought a daily driver with a four-cylinder engine. I have my standards, you know.

I also had extreme myopia. My focus when I got the 1994 Lumina Z34 was to upgrade my 1990 Lumina Euro 3.1. The 1997 Monte Carlo was more driven by the GM bucks than the Z34 was. 

Dream big, grasshopper.

The 1993 model year was the first for the second-generation Probe, which Ford developed in partnership with Mazda. Ford had owned roughly a quarter of Mazda since 1979, and the relationship between the two companies was already well established by the time the second-generation Probe arrived.

The O.G. 1989–1992 Probes, though, were little more than "Fordified" Mazda MX-6s. The second-generation cars were still based on the same basic Mazda architecture, but Ford was involved much earlier in the engineering and had considerably more influence over the finished product.

Starting with a substantially larger and more stable footprint, Ford's engineers stretched the wheelbase by almost four inches and pushed the track out front and rear by more than two inches. That gave Ford's stylists a much larger canvas on which to drape what I think is still one of the prettiest designs of the era.

And underneath that gorgeous skin, the GT got a Mazda-engineered 2.5-liter, DOHC V-6 making 164 horsepower. The wild and crazy turbocharged four-cylinder that powered the first-generation Probe GT was gone.

Supposedly, the first-generation Ford Probe, which I thought had the charm of a block of wood, was originally intended to replace the Fox-body Mustang. Mustang Nation pushed back hard against the idea of replacing its rear-wheel-drive pony car with a front-wheel-drive, Mazda-based Mustang, and Ford ultimately kept the Mustang while introducing the Probe instead. 

Ford sold the Mustang and the Probe alongside each other through the end of the Probe's production run in 1997. 

Seems odd now that a manufacturer would target two of its cars at roughly the same buyer, but pony-car loyalists are cut from a different bolt of cloth than most casual fans of sporty two-door coupes.

Had Ford followed through with badging the 1989 Probe a Mustang, or at best come out with these cars then and done so—would the world have come off its axis? Well, to us car wonks, it would have, briefly. But driven back-to-back, I don't think you could make a legitimate argument that the old pony was any match for the new one.

Of course, that's hindsight talking. And hindsight has never required a car payment.

This particular Probe sold on Cars & Bids for just $12,500 back in May of this year northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana in Brownsberg. With just 26,000 miles on her 33-year-old ticket and looking almost showroom fresh, someone got a lot of car for their money. 

Granted, there's a lot to consider when buying a car that hasn't been made in nearly thirty years. Parts and trim specific to the Probe can certainly be less readily available than for something with a much larger enthusiast following. Still, it's not exactly a "catalog car."