Hot on the heels of Wednesday’s wheels, here’s another Ford Probe for me to feature. The earlier one was an earlier one, not lipstick red and had a fairly huge Mercedes emblem stuck on the front for whatever reason; this Probe is a later, swoopier 1993 example with any badges completely shaved off the front bumper. It also has two more cylinders than the grey one, but predictably comes without forced induction.

Take a look.

Despite the detailing touching the Ford Contour of the same age, the ’90s Probe still relies on Mazda mechanicals, and still is a sister car to the MX-6. I do admit i significantly prefer the Mazda, not because the Probe would be a bad looker, but because the MX-6 looks so damned good. It’s just so difficult to find clean examples of either, as they’re been beaten for the last 10 years or so and riced to the hilt. MX-6:s in particular suffer from wretched bodykit and colour choices.

I’m thinking the spoiler on this Probe is stock, but it’s almost as ungainly as the one on the Dodge Stealth. Problem is it doesn’t look good without one, either, as the shoulder line drops and there’s no visible C-pillar to back the looks up. The earlier Probe has more defined, albeit blocky, shapes; without the spoiler it looks shoulderless. Some angles work, some don’t. It’s just so… ’90s.

Ah, that’s better. The Probe looks so much better from the front. The sides swoop just great and there’s a real sleekness to the shape, nicely accentuated by the hungry black 5-spoke wheels. The panel fit up front isn’t doing so good, but that’s just probably down to having been shunted into something and repaired.

As the badge on the back declares, the Probe is a 24-valve V6 one with 170 horses available from its 2.5 litres, stick-stirred and shared with the Mazda. No complaints there, even if I’d probably – Probe-ably? – settle for the 2.0 four just as well, given a clean enough German import example with zero rust and untorn bolsters. And those dealer stamps, man, I really gotta have those to rest my head on.

I’ll leave you with this side-on shot. If I didn’t have to look it from the rear, it would be just fine, wouldn’t it?

 

[Images: Copyright 2012 Hooniverse/Antti Kautonen]