The facelift of the Ford Fusion w/ new engines....

[sailordave]

When it first came out, the base 4 was weak for a midsize sedan though it did give good mpg. the V6 had about 170 hp which was pretty good. It wasn't until it's last few years that the SVT team got to work on the V6 and bumped it up to about 200 hp. Read some reviews from Edmonds and Motor Trend and one of their biggest complaints was rear seat room for adults. Motor Trend's long term test revealed some problems that were corrected under warranty. About the only thing I didn't like about the Contour was the front end styling. Other than that I probably would have bought it.

[Drover]

Yeah, I didn't care for the Contour styling, but I thought the Mystique was pretty sharp. In fact I'm looking to buy a used 4-door in the 10-year-old range in about a month, and a V6 manual Contour or Mystique (preferably the latter) is near the top of my list. It's either that or a manual Maxima, whichever I can find. Ironically I just had a Maxima that I sold before the need came to have a 4-door again.

[Steve-o]

I have a friend that picked up the SVT Contour (with 130K miles on it) for 5K. I got to drive it and was quite surprised. Great midrange torque, decent top end, surprising (but not overly great) handling, nice brakes. The exterior looks great with the SVT body kit, dual exhaust (which sound VERY nice), unique wheels with lower profile tires. My only complaint were the cheap dash feel and ropy shift feel.