Tested: 1993 Ford Probe GT

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DAVID DEWHURST, KEN HANNA

From the August 1992 Issue of Car and Driver.

“This time, we were in on the project earlier,” Ford designer Mark Kelly told us. All along, we had thought the Ford-Mazda partnership that produced the Probe and MX-6 front-drive two-plus-twos had been an even-Steven deal from day one, so we wondered: had Ford just been tagging along when these cars first appeared in 1988?

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Kelly and product development chief Neil Ressler explained that the first time around, they were handed an existing Mazda platform, that of the 626 sedan. For their half of the joint sports-coupe project, they could only restyle the skin and fiddle with chassis tuning. All the “hard points” had to remain fixed in space. Cowl height, suspension locations, wheelbase, track—the key mechanical-architecture cards had already been dealt before Ford walked into the room.

For the second-generation, 1993 models, however, Ford engineers were able to spec out the new platform the way they wanted it. They started with a considerably bigger and more stable footprint by stretching the wheelbase almost four inches and pushing out the track, front and rear, more than two inches. Dropping the cowl height a dramatic three inches and pulling the windshield base forward nearly four inches provided the canvas on which a lean, long, contemporary shape could be drawn.

Ford is hoping this two-pronged attack—improving handling dynamics and styling—will extend the car’s productive lifespan, which is usually fleetingly short in this hotly contested sports-coupe category. Company marketing people acknowledge that a catchy new player has about eighteen months (often less, we reckon) before its drawing power fades and everyone starts looking to the next hot debutante. Ford’s intent with this new Probe was to lay on the good looks and driving fun so thickly that the new Probe would hold its own in this fashion-fickle market segment for something closer to its four- or five-year product cycle.

We can’t see clearly that far into the future, but we can report that the 1993 Probe packs a lot of appeal into its sleek new package. It looks fresh and flowing, with none of the slab-sidedness of the previous, high-cowl body. And it drives with spirit and maturity, feeling stiff, stable, sporty, and controllable.

Probably the biggest single aesthetic improvement is one you can’t see, because it’s nestled under the gently arched hood of the Probe GT model. Mazda’s small, free-spinning V-6 engine has been punched out to 2.5 liters (from the MX-3’s 1.8) and called in to replace the reasonably strong but unreasonably raucous turbocharged four of the former Probe GT.

We found in our April 1992 sports-coupe comparison that time and relentlessly rising standards had overtaken the 2.2-liter twelve-valve turbo motor. Its 203 pound-feet of torque gave the previous Probe GT great mid-range thrust, and the car trounced all corners in street-start 5-to-60-mph acceleration and in the top-gear 50-to-70-mph roll on. But it was a noisy, buzzy bugger, and it contributed to the twitchy full-throttle torque steer that grabbed and held adrenal glands better than it held a heading.

In marked contrast, the new six spins out a liquid stream of torque, whisking straight to its 7000-rpm ceiling in an easy rush. It never generates the obvious kick of an abnormally aspirated engine, and the apparent flatness of its torque curve minimizes the sensations of acceleration. But its 164 horses (compared with a very conservative 145 for the previous turbo four) do a fine job propelling the car. The new Probe GT’s performance is a touch better than that of its stablemate, the Mazda MX-6 LS, all the way up the speed range. The Probe hit 60 mph in 7.0 seconds, 0.2 quicker than the MX-6. Its quarter-mile clocking of 15.5 seconds at 89 mph also edges out the MX-6’s 15.6-second/88-mph performance. And the Probe’s 133-mph top speed is 4 mph faster than the MX-6’s.

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