You're probably lucky you did not get one. I knew a guy who owned one, and he had constant engine troubles. It was some kind of 4-cylinder turbo that wasn't designed to withstand it's own performance capabilities. The car eventually caught fire and burned to the ground. He was relieved of the problem... The European version - the Ford Sierra XR-4 supposedly had a much better 6-cylinder engine that never made headlines for poor reliability.

 

Combustion in cylinders good.
Combustion outside engine bad.

Why do I like basket cases. And I was attracted to the Maserati Biturbo's.
I've heard those like to do some external combustion too.

PS. I've had the fuel lines on the 928 replaced. Of course right before Rog100 offered up his fuel line replacements. Hope the factory U shape line lasts another 10-15 years. Maybe.

So maybe that custom 928 Weissach built with the fastback "shooting brake" back end had an advantage.

 

Well I lived it.... the fugly XR4 was nothing but a gutless crap. Then th XR6 came out and every SOB with a few bucks was thinking he could race you in your BMW. It became the poor man's street racer and was known as a low-class low-reliability POS.

 

ew you crack me up man .. I wish you lived closer, we would laugh our asses off till the break of day

 

When I was pretty young, I had a "World's Fastest Car" book - probably around '84. Cars were divided up by country, and I seem to remember South Africa made it on there with a V8 Sierra. A little Googling brought me to a Wikipedia page that they indeed homologated 250 V8 Sierra's down there, called XR8s.

Heinrich, know anything about that car?

 

Chris yes I do remember seeing them. I was VERY much a Porsche 911 kid back then, so anything V8 was unthinkable, and thus uninteresting. Plus, to this day the Sierra is to me one of the world's ugliest vehicles. My dad came into a regular 4-cylinder Sierra and owned it as a company car / delivery vehicle for a number of years around the 81 - 86 timeframe, and I could never understand why he held onto it. The Sierras were as common there then as Mitsu Eclipses are here today.

I note that the XR8 got a Rover engine. Those Rovers were really common and very popular, I recall hearing them often idle by thinking how un-Porsche they sounded. But they were powerhouses, as unreliable as they were.

Bottom line is, I saw the XR8's but never was interested at all. Opportunity missed. I lived in Johannesburg where they were actually not too rare.

 

Since this thread is already hopelessly off topic...

Is that the same Rover V8 that started life as a Buick engine and eventually found it's way into the Triumph TR8?

 

Same 215 cu inch alloy V-8 used in the 1961-1963 Oldsmobile F-85 the same body as the rear transaxle Tempest and Buick Skylark. Olds offered a Turbo version at that time ! GM decided the engine was too small and too expensive sold the tooling to Rover. Most of the Pontiacs ran half of a V-8 sliced down the middle just like the 944 a 4 cylinder leaning over on it's side. I ran the 1980 sans hatch because my daughter and son in law were filming a pilot for a T V show and the very brown 1980 was the camera car for so on track "racing footage" . The poor camera man after riding with me while shooting back between the seats got really ill from motion sickness. It was a private rental of the track so no inspections...

 

The 3500 and P6 was the 1970's Rover I remember hearing rumble around when I was a boy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_P6

 

http://poststuff5.entensity.net/0713...?media=add.wmv

 

Jim B,
Any chance there's footage of the 928 camera car in action. That would be cool.
Sorry about the "tail-gunner"getting sick.

just to brung this thread further off topic.


The super-duper Merkur with bi-wing configuration.

So will a nice german 4.5L V8 fit in the Merkur Xr4 engine bay? Hmmmmm.

 

Whack the Merkur (especially the wing!)

Paul Barrera
'91 $4 (with a whacked wing)

 

I will check with my daughter and see if she got any footage on her camera....

 

If you're going that far, might as well put it in the back.

 

Mid-engined V8 XR4(8)Ti.
With that A, B, C, D, E etc door pillars, there's certainly enough room to put it in the middle.

JB,
Lump that rear-gunner 928 footage along with your test drives of her automotive fleet.