The ridicule is coming. It’s worth it. I really mean to stick to enthusiast unicorns but sometimes nearly extinct cars get my attention. I’m tracking cars I expect CarMax to stop carrying and this is one of them. Mercury abruptly discontinued the Grand Marquis line in 2010 but sold a few (248 to be exact) 2011 models. This life-long Florida car is a throwback to another era. It’s not a great car, but the last of it’s kind. With an anemic V8 (I still don’t know how Ford only gets 224hp out of this), bench seats and a column automatic four-speed, it’s a bit dated. But with 41,000 miles and only $14k, it’s almost a cheap piece of history. And only 247 others have one like it. Probably less. Here’s the CarMax link – if it’s dead the car is being transferred, on hold/sold. Here’s a great NY Times review “Heavyweight for a Requiem” from back in the day. My favorite lines:
- It’s the kind of car dad bought because his buddy at the Kiwanis Club owned the
dealership and he didn’t want something flashy like a Lincoln. A car you could wear
a hat in. - Wallowing anachronism that it is, the Grand Ma has its charms. It rides as if the tires aren’t just smothering out the road’s divots, but giving each of them a somber, dignified burial.
- The engine’s initial response is strong, but it quickly runs out of breath and by 5,500
r.p.m. it’s exhausted. The transmission sort of slides at that point into the next gear
and heaves a sigh of relief. - InsideLine.com clocked it accelerating from a standstill to 60 m.p.h. in a leisurely 9.3 seconds; it also plowed through a quarter-mile run in 16.8 seconds while reaching 83.9 mph.
- Somewhere along its developmental journey the Grand Marquis
picked up power rack-and-pinion steering that is shockingly sweet, with good oncenter feel, precise calibration and good feedback. - This is a car unconcerned with carving corners or blitzing across the
autobahn. It’s built for people who have lived long enough to have already had all the drama they want in their lives. - INSIDE TRACK: You may miss it, but you didn’t really want it.
