1984 Ford Sierra XR4i - why it never hit the mark 

I had a B reg one in white. One day in the wet I approached a roundabout and in 2nd gear took the opportunity to enter it. The back wheels lit up and I ended up going round it sideways. It was brilliant

I've owned 3 XR4I's, 1 4x4 and an early 2.8i Capri 4 speed.Loved them all,that lovely Cologne V6.

I had a turbo fitted to mine and it was electrifying quick. I loved my XR4.

Had my Cosworth Turbo powered XR4i for 22 years. Just use it as a toy now but I used to drive it all the time when I first built it.

Back in the 90s a friend had two of these. I drove both and really like the ride, handling and the lovely V6 sound. Fond memories of them. However, I preferred the Cavalier GSi I had at the time, it was quite a bit quicker and achieved much much better mpg.

It hit the mark with me. I loved 'em!

Give me an XR4i over an XR3i anyday, and love the window arrangement

I had one it had a drink problem

Really enjoyed this My 18yr old brother had an xr4i when I was about 10. I was SO jealous! Still am 35 years later 😄

When released in 83 the XR4i was meant to steer people away from the Capri as it was an old design. However despite the Capri was out dated by modern hot hatches, it still captured the imagination of the public and people still loved it. The 4i was in the real world a much better car even though it produced 10 less horsepower of the 2.8i Capri and slightly slower 0-60. By 85 the XR4i was nomore. The Capri got upgraded In 84 (released in 85) to the special and lasted a few more year's. Unfortunately it just didn't catch the same special love the capri gave.

I remember a neighbour buying a brand new Black 1984 XR4i and going for a drive in it with less than 100miles on the clock, at the time the many warning light and car icon leds were amazing in ‘84. The body cladding and red stripe was of its day and looked really cool as did the bi-plane rear spoiler. Most cars back then had carburettors still and a 4 speed gearbox unless you went premium. It was the first car that I went over 125mph in. Fond memories of XR4i when new - oh a the new car smell back then was lovely and not plasticky

That’s a really good perspective on this fast Ford, thank you. From what I remember, when they were new, they looked great in black. The standard Sierra was really common, on every street across the UK, the XR4i, with its unique body, was a head turner. What did it for a lot of fast Fords was the 80s\90s joyriding phenomenon that made these type of cars difficult to insure. I loved the original XR3, before the i, a really (slow by modern standards) classic.

I really miss my red xr4i. One of the best cars I've owned. Unlike the very overated rust bucket other ford xr cars I've had. The 2.8 lump is wonderful and a hoot to drive.

That seems to rev up slowly, Ive got a 2.9i XR4x4 and it definitely pulls quicker than that.

My second car was a dark blue 1987 Ford Sierra GT 2.0 SOHC sedan and it's still, to this day, the most reliable car I've ever had. I used to drive it from western France to Copenhagen and back, pedal to the metal during quite long periods of time going across Germany (very unwise but I was young and stupid). It never broke down, never overheated, only the original Motorcraft battery gave up after 10 years of service during a cold Danish winter, unacceptable. My dream, back then, would have been to get hold of a V6 version, like the one featured here. But the idea was killed by French anti-automobile taxes that were already insane at the time, forget about Denmark's...

That engine makes all the right noises! love it!!

Ford had really ruled the roost with Capri and Escort models for years. By the time the Xr4i came out, most manufacturers were jumping into the hot hatch segment and they all shared sizeable sales figures. Great car just too much competition.

I love the XR4i! And the awesome Ford V6 soundtrack!😁

Absolutely amazing 🎉

Is that a standard colour? I remember them being a darker blue. Caspian blue?

The colour does not seem like the original blue they came in?

Nice Video, great car! very entertaining and brings back memories of the 80's. Cheers.

I had two of these, they were thirsty and the gearboxs kept breaking, thay also rust bad under the bodykit. It was a cool car to have when I was 18 though.

I had a b reg white 4i, I was very impressed with mine, had stainless pipes , sounded like thunder, loved it, was never impressed with the 3i , looked nice but preferred the golf in 1600: guise , the ultimate for me was my highly modified r5 turbo H reg. , cheers shane uk 🇬🇧, now 60 yrs old

Love these, they were sold ib the USA as the Merkur XR4Ti but with a turbo 2.3 version of the Pinto called the Lima.

Friend of mine had one with a KAT kit and was super charged. Real flying machine

Special car that! I love those. Would have one over a Cossie in a heartbeat personally.

Back in the day these were the cars people had to out do the XR3i. Problem was, the 0-60 was so close. But, the XR4i was not too difficult to wake up. The block was strong, and you could easily get a lot more power with a few simple mods. The joystick for the radio was actually not a gimmick. The Ford radios only had left and right two channel outputs. The joystick was needed to be able to have speaker front and rear. The compression needs checking on this one though, seems lagging, maybe a head leak.

That grille is not standard for an xr4i, they came out of the factory with a smooth painted panel upper grill, with the breathing going on below. I think that one has been lifted from a cossie. The sierra did have rather a lot of different front ends. I think they also had smoked tail lights, those are standard sierra tail lights.

My good friend had one years ago, good fun in the wet.

Gutted I never owned a Sierra, had MK3,4 and 5 cortina then ended up with a Cavalier 😭 Then onto the Mondeo 👌

Never confusing...... simply a wonderful car with plenty of poke.😊😊😊😊😊

Had one, loved it. It rotted away under all that plastic panelling and the gearstick snapped off on the motorway once. Get rid of the exhaust and put a nice big love trumpet in its place and it comes alive.

There's a head gasket leak , losing compression.

Had Sierras as company cars in the 80s. Cavaliers were much preferred. As a junior, we got 1.6 cars. The 1.6 Sierra was a hateful car, dangerously underpowered. The 1.8 was ok. Had a DOHC 2.0GL Sierra as I became more senior. That was very acceptable. That car seemed to have synchro on all gears including reverse. Company car; so I tried shoving it in reverse at 40mph, flooring it, and letting the clutch out. Nothing exciting happened, car slowed, a burning smell, and a cloud of clutch smoke in the rear view mirror.

Thats a cossie grille on it.

Great review, takes me back to my 2.0l Ghia

I knew a guy in the 90's who had a black XR4i, lowered on saph cossie wheels, that was a good looking car.

I don’t remember that colour???? Wrong grill aswell.

Ive still got my matchbox XR4i somewhere in the loft 😊

I really liked the XR4i it was a comfortable long distance cruiser .

For some crazy reason when Ford decided to sell the Sierra here, they didn't sell them as Fords, they didn't do like they did with the Capri and sell it as a Mercury. They created a new brand for the car, calling it the Merkur XR4TI. Just doing that probably cost millions. Then they still sold them at Lincoln/Mercury dealers anyway. The name was awkward. They only sold a few over about 4 years. They introduced one more Merkur sedan, a bit larger, built by Ford of Germany, the Scorpio, which sold even fewer numbers. Merkur quietly disappeared in 1989 and was quickly forgotten.

Lovely cars but they weren't known for being very powerful!!!

The thing to remember is that power steering was not more of an everyday item on even the most mainstream cars until well into the 1990's! Back in the 80's if you had a licence, powersteering was not a consideration as it did not exist in the majority of cars.

This car was fantastic when being a 20 year old then, all the power, bangs and whistles. Look seriously that the neighbours then had a basic ford fiesta or a rover 216, even an allegro.. This car was an Icon😢

Is that the original grillt for an XR4i as I thought they had the solid front panel. Isn't the one with the grille opening from a Cossie?

they were ok I had a couple of them ,one was a white janspeed turbo from what I remember they just rattled a lot of plastic rattling noises especially around the rear wing ,I remember the janspeed had turbo lag then would take off it was like a boat I prefererd the 2,8 injection capri ,over that the 3.0s 60mph in second gear , it was a long long time ago

Jelly mould style is generous. It has all the aesthetic appeal of a slapped arse, to be honest.

I had a second hand one of these in 1990. It went well but the brakes never inspired confidence and I found it terrifying in the wet.

What's that display next to the clock? Digital clock? My dad had a from 1992 Sierra ghia if you please 😂 upgrade from a capri gl

I have an XR2i, 1992. Yeah thats far more my style. I like my hot hatches really but i appreciate anything old school

Back in the day, as a teenager i preferred the look of the XR4i over the Cossies. Those Ford 2.8's were never quick and didnt have much character. I think of the day, the PRV was the better V6 and gave 155bhp in 2.7i format. I had a Renault 30TX 2.7i and it was fairly rapid for the time.

I think the engine in that car might not be set up right or is in need of a tune or a rebuild, I know from personal experience that those engines are more powerful and more highly revving than that. My dad used to have a Granada MK2 2.8i Ghia X with a 5 speed manual transmission and it was a real beast of a thing, you could put it in 2nd gear, put your foot down and it would do near 70mph before you had to change to 3rd, and it would handle the twisty stuff as well, it was a really amazing car, and the autos were pretty great as well. I hope you get to test drive one some day because even the lower spec Granadas are comfortable cruisers and great to drive.

One of the big reasons in the UK why it didn't succeed was that whale tail was a big set of blue flashing lights from any old bill seeing a bit of brownie points and traffic old bill absolutely hated the Xr4i's and so owners got unfairly hassled more often than not. It kinda went against the whole street sleeper ethos. Ford tried the American's with it called the XR4Ti under the Merkur brand and it flopped over there too, "oh its got only a V6 in it" whilst ignoring the fact the XR4Ti could mince pretty much anything on US roads at that time up to 150mph easily and so they stuck with their MK3 Escort bodied Fox Mustangs because no one told them under the skin was Britain's Escort... Same thing happened with the MK3 Granada's, the Americans abs despised them despite having one of the most option laden motors which could out pull most of American cars and do it on half the fuel used with superb agility, state of the art braking and with the Cosworth 32v variants Ford's most powerful V6 giving it BMW bashing top end. Its funny, the 2 door RS Cosworth Sierra's utilised Ford's "welfare" body the nasty 2 door Kent engined base Sierra which had zero options and could barely with 1300cc muster 60mph with a wind behind but stick Cossie stuff in and the folks wet their kecks for it :S Maybe you should do a vid on Ford's "lazy Cossie's" the 2500 Ford Sierra's used in developing the twin cam Sapphire Cossie, all badged GL and all arrived at dealers at very cut down prices with exactly 10,000 miles on them, some were hatchback, some were estates yes Ford were considering a Cosworth estate and some were Sapphire's. All were Weber carbed on a very powerful twin cam with an experiment timing arrangement, Cossie rotoflex drivetrain underneath and a very tight gearbox with some having LSD's still attached at the rear. I had my old man's one off the clock and it loved it, abs had more to give too bearing in mind it was a standard 150 clock so with discrepancy error of the clock it was still going an insane figure :)

The Cologne V6 had siamese exhaust ports. I think the front 2? I'm sure this was for packing reasons. And I'm sure Turbo Techics did turbo conversions for the XR4. Beautiful car though.

4i,s bad ass motor specially in black

The Capri until the cosworth went in it

Ford's anwer to the 6000 SUX in Robocop. 😁 Seriously loved Sierra's when I was a nipper, but preferred the facelift headlights.

very sort after ford back in the 80`s by joyriders i was at school ,then in the 90`s my mates had one of them he come flying round this corner and he snaked it form side to side for about 500yards it was fast back then he paid £400 for it

Its job was to replace the Capri and despite being superior in nearly every way, it didn't. It was outsold by the Injection Special which had decent half leather Recaro seats, a better soundtrack and a limited slip diff and was just so much cooler - if rather elderly. Creating something different in the XR4x4 was a very smart move by Ford, and adopting a decent breathing engine in the 2.9 was another.

Over the Atlantic it was called the merkur XR4I my parents Sierra a 2 litre ghia injection was the same colour

Non standard grille, thought they had recaro seats?

I used to own a sierra S/ a 4x4 sierra estate 2.8V6

Had a turbo technics XR4i and kept getting banned for speeding so had to sell it 😢

I disagree I love the front of these early Sierra top of the models with the quad headlights and even more so the space on the front on the xr4i. While no Cosworth beater, as a general grand tourer this 2.8i car is my favourite model with its unique windows and spoiler.

Sure caspian blue was only blue they came in, i had blue one and red one great cars and plastics should be lighter but still lovely car ❤

"let's try a little pull here..." 😂.. WHEN? I've seen NO PULL and not even a gearshift faster than my grandma usually shift when going at shopping 😂. Why don't you make content with cooking advices for widows, maybe there you will show some skills.. 😂

Is that definitely a 2.8 and not the earlier 2.3?

Loved them but they needed help as they were too soft as standard. Stiffened up and with a 4x4 LSD with slightly larger wheels made them a completely different animal!

Theres one in Robocop (1986)for some reason?

Ford should have used the Lima 170 bhp 2.3 ohc turbo engine like they did in the US, It's lighter than that lumbering old 2.8 V6 boat anchor.

Cool car, the unique bodywork did so much for it. Name me one other car in its time where the sport version had a different body! The Sierra was slaughtered in an unjustified way by "expert" journalist who criticised it for being rear wheel drive and technology inherited from the Cortina. First of all, whoever complained about a BMW or Mercedes being rear wheel drive? Secondly, the Sierra held up very well with the competition if you judge the car on its properties, which is what matters, not how they were achieved. Ford deemed that rear wheel drive wasn't necessary to get good accommodation and they were right!

Never understand why they bothered with that 2 piece rear window. Should of just stuck to the 3 door bodyshell

yeah this 4i isnt pulling right mate cos mine was pretty rapid

My Granada 2.8 ghia x 83 Y reg I had back in 1990 had no electric windows either. Pretty sure Ford didn't start putting them into cars until the Orion ghia came out. Even my Mk1 A reg XR2 and my MK2 B reg XR2 didn't have them either.

The front doesn't work because someone has replaced the flat nose with a Cosworth cutaway grill.

Think it was painfully underpowered with the ancient V6. Yeah it sounded OK but its days were numbered with much faster hot hatches appearing out of nowhere.

A very confused car more of a pudding car than the sporty car it looks like

Poor man’s Cosworth, thats its main issue.

Love this 3 window design and cant understand why it was not used in the Cosworth 🤔

Was the xr4 a turbo if so why isn't it faster than the cossie

Think these had the Essex v6 engine, Burton engineering up the road in Ilford had mods for them, a friend of mine had a black one, it was a Turbo Technics conversion and it was very rapid.

The XR4I didn't come with the cosworth grill in the front Always think the 4i without the grill is better looking

Is that an original colour? It looks a bit brighter than the blue we used to see. And the brick hole up front doesn’t look great… Wondering whether it and the white indicators were original... Cars like this one are getting really interesting, but only as long as they’re unmodified. The one you’re driving looks like it should look more like this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Hv3U7zvBWt8.htmlsi=ZsxlkjzSvQyx5KUP Still interesting though, and gives an idea of what they’re like to drive. My Grandfather had the same engine in a Scorpio 4x4 in 1985. He described it as being like ‘driving a bin wagon’…

I believe it was possible to buy a 5 litre Sierra, with the 302 V8 in South Africa, more like the business! Europe, the home of wheezy, small engines .

I love the seirra cosworth so much I love 80s cars I drive a Renault 5Gt Turbo she's my baby 😅

Definitely something wrong with that. My old Xr4i was a flying machine compared to this.

I had a xr4x4.. found it slow. if I'm honest with you

I love the sierra but these where robbed with that v6,,it was terrible. Should have stuck a twin cam turbo in it. But I guess it was all down to marketing and current line up ford had then.

Looked stunning in silver. Awful in the childish blue

It lost out to the Opel Manta GTE, barely any performance difference between them and the manta did another 10MPG over the xr4i

bad fur idash crackin on em n cozzies aw fords eh

I never really understood what Ford were trying to achieve with the XR4i.

It was too slow.....that was why it failed so hard IMO. I test drove one and was completely underwhelmed, even my later run out model 2.9i 4x4 was slow tbh.....

Once i sell my MG Midget iam getting one of those !!!!!

It's because COSWORTH built a better one ........

I thought they came with Recaro seats - that interior doesnt look original to me. Dreadful, antiquated oil burner of a slug engine, even in the eighties.

i had an xr4x4 in red.

Always looked good, however drove like shite. Another great video

I always liked the idea of these, I'd take this over the same engine in the Capri or Granada. They had ok levels of power but decent torque and that pukka soundtrack and you could surely tune the engine to get closer to Cosworth levels of power? (it's only 50bhp short) The engine is down 10bhp and 10lbft on the same engine in the earlier Capri and Granada?