Posted on 07/18/2002 9:39:46 PM PDT by Paladin5
Right Wheels
A car for conservatives.
By Eric Peters
July 18, 2002
National Review Online
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-peters071802.asp
It's huge, V-8 powered, and has rear-wheel drive — the perfect car for a right-thinking conservative?
The '03 Mercury Marauder (gotta love the name) is probably the last true American-style muscle sled that will ever see production. It's a throwback to a time before the automakers cringed in fear of Ralph Nader and Joan Claybrook — when cars were built to satisfy the buyers, not self-appointed nags in the "public-interest" lobby. The attraction of a full-frame titan of the road as big and heavy (4,100 lbs.) as many SUVs is often lost on drivers reared on 2,500-lb. front-wheel-drive compacts. But if you can just get them to go for a ride, the virtues of a burbling V-8 and rear-wheel drive might even win over the most ardent liberal — at least long enough for them to admit the thing is kinda cool.
Smokey burnouts will do that.
Here's what you get for about $5,000 more than you'd pay for a loaded regular "grumpy grandpa" Grand Marquis LSE — the car the Marauder is based on: Sinister all-black paint job, hunkered-down suspension with gas-charged Tokico performance shocks, and pretty much all the heavy-duty stuff the cop cars get — only the police don't get those gleaming 18-inch rims and Winston Cup stock-car-style 50-series ultra-performance BF Goodrich G-force tires. And the law doesn't get the hot, 300-hp version of Ford's 4.6-liter V-8 engine, either.
The much-higher-output Marauder engine has four-valve cylinder heads (like the SVT Mustang Cobra) and a free-flow intake manifold to better suck in air and fuel — the result being an 80-hp boost over the standard 220-hp Marquis/Crown Vic 4.6-liter power plant. That alone should get your attention when you hit the gas, but the Marauder also features a higher-stall torque converter in its four-speed automatic transmission, for faster off-the-line starts — as well as aggressive 3.55 rear gears and a limited slip differential. Twin duals (real duals, not just dual exhaust tips) let loose the V-8's rumpety-rump muscle-car idle — but slightly louder Flowmaster or Borla mufflers would be great.
Though it has more on-paper horsepower than the now-defunct 1994-96 Chevy Impala SS (260-hp), the similarly large, similarly heavy Impala SS bullied itself off the line with more authority than the Marauder (6.5 seconds zero-to-60, vs. about 7.5 for the Merc) because the Chevy's Corvette-based 5.7-liter V-8 engine was larger and had more low-end torque. Once rolling, however, the Marauder lives up to its name with absolutely ferocious passing pull that'll leave your nail imprints on the steering wheel. The 140-mph speedo would almost certainly present no great challenge were it not for the governed maximum of just 117 mph — a concession to the safety nags. All that weight just keeps hurtling forward until the computer says "Whoa!" — the inertia of 4,000 pounds and 300-hp building like a diesel locomotive run amok.
And for those lunatics who crave even more — well, there's always the option of defeating the governor and then adding a bolt-on supercharger kit such as those offered by Paxton and Vortech. These retail for about $1,800 and would goose the 4.6-liter V-8's output by another 75- to 100-hp or so, putting your Marauder into the 400-hp range — and you into orbit.
What else?
There's a manly center console shifter instead of the old-folksy column-mounted unit typically found on big sleds like this — and sporty, brushed-aluminum-style trim plates in the dash. High-capacity four-wheel-disc brakes with anti-lock and panic assist — a feature that electronically applies full braking force during panic/emergency stops, should the driver fail to push down all the way — easily haul the two-ton monster down from the land of the triple digits. Traction control isn't offered, but the kind of person who buys a car like this surely could care less. The whole point is to leave the line in a haze, tire smoke rolling off the back tires. (Traction control will likely be offered as an optional extra later in the year, though.)
The Marauder package is finished off with nicely done art-deco images of the Greek god Mercury, embossed on the seat backs and wheel-center caps. You can order an electric moon roof and an up-level CD changer — but otherwise the car comes fully loaded.
The whole deal carries a sticker of $33,790: not cheap, but certainly very "thinkable" in a market where the typical new vehicle sells for about $22,000 — and finding an old Impala SS in anything like showroom-new condition would easily cost just as much. And there's no warranty or new-car smell.
A brand-new Marauder will cost you about what a new Mustang Cobra would, and give you comparable seat-of-the-pants sensations. But you get the palatial interior space of a full-size American sedan instead of a cramped two-plus-two coupe, and a trunk that'll hold a full-size spare — plus a body or two.
Al Gore, eat your heart out!
— Eric Peters is an automotive columnist for the Washington Times.
Motor Trend is also running a contest where you can win a 2003 Marauder plus$10,000 in aftermarket accessories !
It was a sweet running car!
This sounds like a sleek muscle car of the old days!
Now here is a car worth lusting after:
394 horsepower, 4.8 seconds 0-60, quarter mile in 13.3 seconds at 108 mph, top speed electronically governed to 155 but easily capable of 25 mph more.
And your wife can drive the kids to school in it, without drawing a second glance.
Yes, it's twice as much as the Mercury, but it's three times the car.
-ccm
literally, my wife cried when i insisted on buying this car. she's come around, though. big, fast, powerful, comfortable, quiet. it floats at 95 mph. milage low 20's.
it weighs 5600 or 5800 friggin' pounds. more than those new macho dodge ram things that look so intimidating. (i'm gonna win, should you be so foolish as to run into me.)
i could happily drive this car for the rest of my life, but for one thing:
a circa 1995 +- lincoln town car.
*sigh*
my heart's desire is to find one in showroom condition, and transport it to, and drive it around paris.
yeah, i know. you see lots of mercedes benz, jaguars (they're actually called something entirely different there), ferrari's, etc. you name it.
but let me tell you ... driving a midnight black 1995 lincoln town car around paris would set you apart from the crowd.
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