Uncool. I know what Ford was trying to do here. I love the idea. They wanted to give baby-boomers who finally wanted to get rid of the Impala SS they had been holding on to something to upgrade into, while at the same time trying once again to make Mercury something other than "the division that somehow doesn't lose money." But there is so much wasted potential here.
First off all, they all but named this a follow-up to the Impala SS. I even recall adds that depicted it as such, though on the sly. Problem being, the Impala SS was a faster car despite having less power and more weight (the Impala SS also was much more happy to allow hoonery). The looks are there (I even think the Marauder looks better than the Impala of old). The performance wasn't.
Which brings me to my bigger problem: Ford wanted to do tons of stuff with this car and never did what they promised. I'll let the demise of the Marauder convertible concept go, because there wasn't enough sales to support it in the first place (despite the zero overhead that this car likely had). But the original concept flip-flopped between a detuned Terminator Cobra engine and a Triton truck engine, both tuned to around 335 HP and both more than enough to make everyone forget the Impala SS ever existed (heck, even a supercharged version of the normal Crown Victoria engine would have sufficed, and probably would have been cheaper than the pricey hand-built 4-valve). And then it finally came out with an engine that was barely adequate when it was in the SVT Cobra two years prior, making it sadly like Camaro vs Mustang Circa 1999 all over again. Ford says neither engine would fit, but I say they probably didn't even try (I'm sure the 5.4 would have been amazingly annoying to do; but the Terminator engine should have fit without much more than a hood rise, if that).
This lack of effort disappoints me, because at best the Marauder as it arrived represents what the entire Panther line (Crown Vic, Grand Marquis and Town Car) should have been as a baseline when it was redesigned in 2003, and the Marauder should have been a step above that. As it stands, it is a warmed over version of a car that itself should have been Marauder-good from the start, and it quite frankly isn't enough. The disappointing numbers only drive the point home further. I want to love this car. But unlike the Crown Victoria Interceptor, I just can't.
Love the supercharger whine!
