At $19,500, Would You Let This 2003 Mercury Marauder Steal Your Heart?
Today’s Nice Price or No Dice Mercury is a one-owner car that, according to the ad, has been pampered all its life. Let’s see if it’s priced to ensure a second owner will take over the car’s coddling.
The eighth track on Cheap Trick’s 1979 album, Dream Police takes its title from a repeated phrase in the song’s chorus; “I know what I want,” which is then followed by the lyrics “and I know how to get it.” In contrast, the sellers of many older items tend to live by the motto of “I know what I have” which is typically followed by “and I know what I want for it.”
Those specific words were actually absent in the ad for yesterday’s relatively rare 1986 Buick Century Gran Sport two-door sedan. The context, however, was implied by the car’s $7,000 asking price. Most of you didn’t like that implication, giving the car a hefty 78 percent No Dice loss.
So far, that gives us one win and two losses for the week. Let’s see if today’s 2003 Mercury Marauder ties it all up, or if its price puts us further in the hole.
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Mercury initially adopted the Marauder name in the late 1950s to denote its line of performance-oriented V8 engines. The nameplate transitioned from just naming names on engines to representing the performance sub-model for three of the brand’s car lines in the early 1960s.
The last of those Marauder models was the X-100, introduced for the 1969 model year and discontinued at the close of the model run a year later in 1970. The main reason for its elimination was the rapid decline in the acceptance of the brand’s large-form performance models by Mercury’s traditional buyers.
The nameplate then lay dormant for more than three decades before Ford dusted it off and applied it to… well, a performance version of Mercury’s then-largest luxury car, the Marquis (not de Sade). Those who can’t learn from their mistakes are condemned to repeat them, I guess.
Sales of the more modern Marauder again proved lackluster and the model was dropped from Mercury’s lineup after once again just two years on the market.
All that doesn’t make the Marauder a bad car by any means. Today, good examples are sought after not just by aficionados of the brand, but by fans of solid performance big-package cars as well.
This one, with a clean title and just 86,000 miles on the ol’ ticker looks to be a pretty good example. The seller claims the car to be in “immaculate condition inside and out,” and touts that it is “completely stock.”
Power comes by way of the standard 4.6-liter DOHC Modular V8. In this model, that engine makes 302 horsepower and is partnered with a 4R70W four-speed automatic and a 3.55 limited slip rear end. Keeping all that under control is a chassis derived from the Ford Crown Vic’s Police Interceptor package. Eighteen-inch alloy wheels wearing fresh rubber underpin and are capped with the old-school Mercury “Roman God” logos.
Those logos are repeated in the embossing on the backrests of the car’s front bucket seats. The seating surfaces across the board are out of leather and that all looks to be in fine shape, with just minor crazing in the facing on the sides. Leather also wraps the two-spoke steering wheel which oddly enough carries the contemporary Mercury logo in its center.
This being a big luxury car at its heart, it has a slew of comfort and convenience features, plus it’s new enough to have airbags and seat belt snuggers for occupants’ peace of mind. According to the seller, the car has never been smoked in nor eaten in.
Mercury built a little over 11,000 Marauders over the course of the 2003—2004 model years. That fell below expectations leading Ford to realize that big sedans were dying on the vine, with performance models leading the march to extinction. Today, the Marauder has its fans and the seller of this clean-as-a-bean edition is hoping one of those will come along and pay the $19,500 for the honor of making this a two-owner car.
What’s your take on this hot Mercury and that $19,500 asking? Does that seem like a fair price for the car as it sits? Or, does that asking make this a Marauder that’s seeking to plunder?
You decide!
Los Angeles, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Bill Waley for the hookup!
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