With its low mileage and impeccably clear presentation, as we speak’s Good Value or No Dice Grand Marquis appears to be the right old-school cruiser. Until, that’s, if its value is cruisin’ for a bruisin.’
In America, the Ford Fairlane is a mid-sized household automobile from the Nineteen Fifties and ’60s. It’s additionally the title character of the 1990 comedy flick The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, starring Andrew Cube Clay and written by Danial Waters, the man accountable for the vastly extra fulfilling Heathers two years earlier. Few of us bear in mind Cube, his Ford Fairlane film, and even the automobiles from which the film took its identify. That made for a tricky time for the 1966 Ford Fairlane 500 wagon we had on the docket yesterday. It was a bit tough across the edges and, maybe most egregiously, lacked a third-row seat, making its $17,950 price ticket too laborious to swallow. It was so laborious, in reality, that you just all shunned it with an 89 % No Cube loss.
Again within the Sixties, Ford, amongst different producers, differentiated its upper-scale fashions—in its case, Mercurys and Lincolns—by giving them longer wheelbases, considerably completely different styling, and up-market inside trim choices not discovered on the lowly Fords.
That technique, together with annual styling updates debuting each fall, proved too costly in an ever more and more aggressive market, so by the point as we speak’s 2002 Mercury Grand Marquis hit the showroom, there was little aside from the grille, badging, and tail lamp design to distinguish it from its decrease echelon Ford Crown Victoria platform mate.
Fortuitously, this specific Grand Marquis has been tarted up with the marque and model-exclusive Montigua possibility package deal, that means it is going to stand out from the group.
The Montigua possibility was a dealer-ordered package deal created by E&G Classics, an organization out of Columbia, Maryland, finest recognized for its aftermarket automotive grilles and Continental kits. E&G went out of enterprise in 2020.
On The Grand Marquis, the Montigua possibility provides a half-landau padded vinyl roof that curiously wraps across the rear door home windows. There’s additionally some distinctive badging. This automobile has chrome wheel arch lip covers as nicely, however I can’t discover out if that’s a part of the Montigua package deal or simply an unconnected addition.
The Grand Marquis underneath that distinctive vinyl roof is in spectacular situation each aesthetically and functionally. In accordance with the image within the advert of the digital instrument cluster, the automobile has 70,555 miles underneath its belt, and the vendor claims to have taken the automobile on a number of street journeys, throughout which era it carried out flawlessly.
Regardless of the dearth of miles, the automobile has had a great little bit of upkeep, together with a brand new gas pump and filter, new shocks and struts, and 5 new Michelin tires.
Based mostly on the photographs, you couldn’t ask for something tidier. Even the undercarriage appears clear sufficient to eat off of, though doing so would require flipping the automobile the other way up. The inside is simply as good and options leather-based seating surfaces, energy this and that, and a cigar lighter that also has its virginity intact.
For mechanicals, the automobile gives a 220 horsepower 4.6-liter Modular V8 engine and four-speed automated transmission. Antilock brakes and traction management are alongside for the experience, so whereas not a contemporary driving expertise, it ought to nonetheless be a fairly protected one. The title is as clear because the automobile, and the vendor asks $9,995 for that title.
What’s your tackle this amazingly clear Mercury and that $9,995 value? Does that appear like a deal to go full boomer on the street? Or is that value too aspirational for even a Grand Marquis?
You resolve!
Phoenix, Arizona, Craigslist, or go right here if the advert disappears.
H/T to Don R. for the hookup!
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