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Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

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  • #16
    Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

    Originally posted by RealSteelFreak
    It wasn't about 900#, and your MM running whatever, it didn't do it stock. It was a barge, still is as long as Ford produces a Crown Vic. How is it a milestone? OK so its got a frame, whoopee.
    A Marauder isn't any more of a "barge" than the average intermediate musclecar of the 1960s. In fact, a Marauder will out-handle virtually any intermediate or large musclecar from the 1960s.

    More likely than not, there will never be another new musclecar mass produced in North America that uses traditional body-on-frame construction. Thus the Marauder was the last muscular version of the early form of the automobile (a rear wheel drive gasoline car with a separate body).

    Obviously as we've moved into the era of unitized and monocoque construction it has become much more difficult to make radical changes to OEM cars, and usually even to work on them. Automobiles are now much more integrated in their design and almost shrinkwrapped into tamperproof packaging.

    In contrast, the Marauder is the final throwback to a simpler time when the elements of a car were more distinct and less interrelated. The design is more intuitive because the structures are more apparent. Even the factory add-on, off-the-shelf Autometer gauges in the dash resonate with a simpler time when everything wasn't custom-designed on a CAD, prototyped on a three-dimensional "printer" and built with computer-aided machines.

    Moreover, in a sense, the Marauder represents to a degree what many automotive engineers were dreaming of in the late 1950s and 1960s. Those working on Bendix Electrojectors or air springs undoubtedly dreamed of a day when the technologies would be reliable and economical for mass production. Many racers and fans looked wistfully at the DOHC four-valve Offys that ruled Indy car racing and dreamed of futuristic DOHC powerplants in street cars. Huge disk brakes and low profile radial tires were in their infancy. Many designers undoubtedly dreamed of a day when aerodynamic function and pure lines dominated the form.

    Thus, like a Boeing B-52, a Marauder is an interesting blend of the past and the future that will never be repeated by any automobile manufacturer.

    If all that doesn't seem like a milestone to you, then so be it. But I expect a reasonable number of collectors to understand the Marauder was the end of a long line that dates back to the origins of the mass produced passenger car and to the musclecars of the 1950s and 1960s.

    Once again ,that select few(the mine is special crowd) will go to a MM ,the masses of Ford fans will go Mustang (cars Ford made,not Saleens or Roush), 1)Cobra 2)Mach1 3)Bullitt 4)GT and on down the line
    And if I took the easy way out and listed a bunch of Mustangs, how interesting would that have been?

    I do fairly well in reading comprehension, I know Dodge isn't a Ford product, it was in reference to the fact of fullsize type cars doing well in the marketplace
    But a Marauder isn't really trying to be the same thing as one of the RWD Chryslers. There are a lot of ironies in comparing the two models. But to oversimplfy, the Marauder is a throw-back car with an advanced engine while the RWD Chryslers are retro-inspired modern cars with throw-back engines (at least in Gen III Hemi form). Each view will have their champions and their detractors. And their collectors.

    And while you do acknowledge the Impala SS as a 4 door musclecar and being accepted by the buying public, as you can see the MM wasn't accepted and therefore a failure of sorts, except to that special little group of MM friends.
    Most certainly the Impala SS was first and more timely. And most certainly Mercury stopped short of what it would take to make the model a business success. That's probably more of a function of how much the auto world had changed between 1994 and 2003 and the market hegemony of Chevrolet as compared to Mercury. Frankly, the bar of success was much lower for Chevrolet than it was for Mercury, and the pool of potential customers "tuned in" and interested in such a niche was larger for Chevrolet.

    I just think a Mach1 has enough balls, and is a car to stand on its own as a daily driver that gets the job done to be on the list by itself.
    And actually, I almost didn't put the Mach I on the list because I find it to be mildly derivative of the earlier beam-axle Cobras. But I thought the comparison between two visions of "retro" was interesting, expecially since the cars shared virtually the same powerplant.

    MM a retro rocket ?,namesake only ,rocket no, it would have to have some serious tuning.

    It is a High Performance list, not a stuff your family of 5 in it list, if that was the case a 5 door Focus wagon should have made it also.
    Then I think you'd have to exclude a fair number of the more mainstream 1960s muscle cars from high performance.

    While high performance is inherently a subjective term (e.g. a Mercer Runabout or a '32 Ford were "high performance" cars of their day, but would easily be bested by a cheap Korean subcompact now), what makes Marauder a musclecar is a combination of tangible and intangible characteristics. While it would whip a lot of stock, lesser-eguipped GTOs, Grand Sports, and Fairlane GTs from the 1960s, so would a lot of pedestrian FWD sedans. That's what 45 years of technical progress has brung. But what makes a Marauder a musclecar is both objective performance but also the soul of the design. In other words, the D.N.A. of a musclecar is evident in Marauder.

    And the fact that there's "serious tuning" potential places it in the centerline of musclecar heritage. Virtually every 1960s musclecar needed "serious tuning" to live up to its potential.

    Originally posted by trukluvr
    The Edsel was a epic failure. Look now after all these years and there are plenty of folks going nuts for the damn things. The MM will, in all probability, take the same path. It may have failed when new, but will gail popularity with age. Personally, the MM is one of very few cars I would like to own from ANY era.
    Well said. And it illustrates well why an engima like Marauder will be collected someday.

    Comment


    • #17
      Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

      Well it was your list, but you keep changing the subject , kind of like you have cornered yourself sometimes, like saying you simply didnt list a bunch of Mustangs and how boring that would be ? I simply listed those as a reference as to what people would be collecting from Ford, but you have what ? Like 9 Mustangs on your list?
      I am not Pro Dodge or Ford, but you really seem to be in love with the Marauder. Yeah it is such a throwback , sitting in one kind of made me feel like I was in my friends 63 1/2 Galaxie .

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have

        I still like that you picked a Lightning. That makes you ok in my book. ;)
        I R Bob
        You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning!
        2007 LH, 2008 LH, 2009 LH, 2010 LH, 2011 LH, 2012 DNF/BLOW'D UP, 2013 LH, 2014 LH

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

          Quotes from Automobile magazines review of Marauder:

          We recorded a quarter-mile time of 15.6 seconds at 94 mph

          It's not a smoldering muscle car, but it is good fun for anyone with an appreciation of V-8-powered, rear-wheel-drive American iron


          the four-speed automatic is beefed up, and the rear axle is lowered to 3.55:1 from the Grand Marquis's 3.27:1 for faster takeoffs. Still, the big Merc doesn't exactly lunge away from a stop, and anyone expecting a muscle-car-style tire smoke display will be disappointed.

          Quotes from Edmunds:
          Though there was considerable initial interest in the car, performance enthusiasts never quite fell in love. In particular, although the Marauder's performance was respectable -- it could hit 60 mph in the 7-second range -- it didn't have the tire-spinning grunt off the line that marked a true muscle car. After two years of slow sales, Mercury shelved the Marauder name once again.

          A lack of off-the-line snap was the car's major fault. Though we never were able to perform instrumented testing, other published reports at the time pegged the car's 0-60-mph time in the mid 7-second range. Put simply, there was just too much weight and not enough low-end torque.

          From Car and Driver:
          The idea was to buttress the hideously beleaguered Mercury brand. Very compassionate of them, although hot-rodding a Grand Marquis is a little like making bourbon out of Geritol.

          The Marauder's body appears to have plunged into a vat of tar. Even the headlight reflectors are partly blacked out, as if in readiness for nighttime air raids. The taillights are lifted from a Crown Vic cop car, again revealing Ford's angst over any mental associations with the Marquis. In fact, everything is black except the 3.5-inch bazooka exhaust tips and the forged Alcoa five-spoke wheels, which are polished to a luster that surpasses chrome and approaches Hall of Mirrors.

          Inside, the Marquis's Elk Lodge wood trim has mercifully been replaced by a handsome gray "dot matrix" motif, and someone has had the decency to install a half-dozen legible silver-faced gauges, including a 7000-rpm tach, an oil-pressure gauge, and a voltmeter?the latter duo situated low in the center stack. The front buckets are unique to the Marauder. Perhaps they shouldn't be. Their cushions are low and squishy, encouraging your feet to splay in an unnatural toes-out formation. What's more, the standard "Nudo" leather is slippery, such that your keister makes regular migrations toward the pedals. Fortunately, those pedals are adjustable, which is all that saves the seats from the sort of excoriation usually reserved for waiters who tell you their first name is Nudo.

          At the track, the Marauder acquitted itself satisfactorily, but it is, after all, a 2.14-ton bolus, and it does not produce voluminous thrust at the pushrod-low revs of an Impala SS. With only 1500 miles on the clock, our test car scrabbled to 60 mph in 7.5 seconds (versus 6.5 for the Impala SS, 6.0 for our supercharged Lounge Lizard). It huffed through the quarter-mile in 15.5 seconds at 91 mph (versus 15.0 and 92 for the Impala, 14.6 and 97 for the Lizard). And its top speed?limited to avoid driveshaft vibration?was a wimpy 117 mph (versus 142 for the Impala and 150 for the Lizard)

          For a car that carries the moniker Marauder (that's "one who raids, plunders, and pillages"), I expected a little more danger. A little more treachery. And a lot more motor. Despite my best ham-fisted attempts, I couldn't even get myself into serious trouble. In a car like this, if I can't scare myself silly, then it doesn't have enough power. The paucity of low-end grunt is particularly disappointing. There are ready and enthusiastic buyers for such a car. And I wanted to be among them. I wanted to want a traditional rear-drive, V-8 American thumper?especially an all-black one?but this doesn't do it for me. Maybe the upcoming GTO will.


          So here it is, a bad-boy Merc conceived to transport me to the days of my youth, i.e., the era of the big-inch V-8. Even better, the thrilling-days-of-yesteryear concept is augmented by contemporary steering, real brakes, and the ability to change course without scraping its door handles on the pavement. So why doesn't this thing make me want to get out there and maraud? Could it be because I could obtain a BMW 330i, a far better device for motorized marauding, for about the same money? I fit the Marauder demographic, and the driver-license people keep telling me I fit the marauding psychography, but update as they may, this old song ain't tuneful no more.







          Comment


          • #20
            Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have

            Yeah but what about the Lightning Jerry? ;) ;D
            I R Bob
            You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning!
            2007 LH, 2008 LH, 2009 LH, 2010 LH, 2011 LH, 2012 DNF/BLOW'D UP, 2013 LH, 2014 LH

            Comment


            • #21
              Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

              Well Bob,
              I think it was a well deserved pic for it, I like Lightnings, have a couple friends that have them. Just an issue the Mach 1 didnt garner a spot by itself, but shared with a Marauder.

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have

                Hey I'll take one of each. ;D I'm just messing anyway. Everybody's list would be different anyway.
                I R Bob
                You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning!
                2007 LH, 2008 LH, 2009 LH, 2010 LH, 2011 LH, 2012 DNF/BLOW'D UP, 2013 LH, 2014 LH

                Comment


                • #23
                  Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

                  What kind of condition is the 65 and 54 in? Either way I would like to see pics if possible?
                  I have a 66 Galaxie not far from home I am seriously looking at.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

                    Originally posted by RealSteelFreak
                    Quotes from Automobile magazines review of Marauder:

                    We recorded a quarter-mile time of 15.6 seconds at 94 mph
                    Ok, I know nothing about the marauder other than what has been said here, but doesn't that seem like a big ET to mph descrepency? My Centurion peglegging with traction issues pulled a 15.58sec ET at a solid 2.5 tons, and mph only around 85-86mph (barely hitting 3rd crossing the line). I would think the marauder would have better traction control and with weighing less ET better with that mph. Any thoughts or am I completely mistaken?
                    Escaped on a technicality.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have

                      Originally posted by RealSteelFreak
                      What kind of condition is the 65 and 54 in? Either way I would like to see pics if possible?
                      I have a 66 Galaxie not far from home I am seriously looking at.
                      Ok, here comes the thread hijack. Here's the RanchWagon before I took it apart.


                      And here's the Gal we bought last summer for a driver. I'm gonna fix this one up and sell it this year.


                      I R Bob
                      You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning!
                      2007 LH, 2008 LH, 2009 LH, 2010 LH, 2011 LH, 2012 DNF/BLOW'D UP, 2013 LH, 2014 LH

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

                        High 14's to 15's was standard fare for the Marauder in stock form, it had 302 or 305 hp depending on who reported and weighed well over 4000# , the car Speedzter had in video is running a supercharger and nitrous (some have one ,some both)as with most Marauders running faster than 14's.
                        The 4cam mod engine is basically the same as the Mach1's, a very strong engine that tested on chassis dyno over 270 rwhp, comes on very strong on the top end of the rpm range. Mach 1 engines was suppose to be making more close to 320hp.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

                          Nice cars Bob

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

                            Originally posted by RealSteelFreak
                            Quotes from Automobile magazines review of Marauder:

                            We recorded a quarter-mile time of 15.6 seconds at 94 mph

                            It's not a smoldering muscle car, but it is good fun for anyone with an appreciation of V-8-powered, rear-wheel-drive American iron


                            the four-speed automatic is beefed up, and the rear axle is lowered to 3.55:1 from the Grand Marquis's 3.27:1 for faster takeoffs. Still, the big Merc doesn't exactly lunge away from a stop, and anyone expecting a muscle-car-style tire smoke display will be disappointed.

                            Quotes from Edmunds:
                            Though there was considerable initial interest in the car, performance enthusiasts never quite fell in love. In particular, although the Marauder's performance was respectable -- it could hit 60 mph in the 7-second range -- it didn't have the tire-spinning grunt off the line that marked a true muscle car. After two years of slow sales, Mercury shelved the Marauder name once again.

                            A lack of off-the-line snap was the car's major fault. Though we never were able to perform instrumented testing, other published reports at the time pegged the car's 0-60-mph time in the mid 7-second range. Put simply, there was just too much weight and not enough low-end torque.

                            From Car and Driver:
                            The idea was to buttress the hideously beleaguered Mercury brand. Very compassionate of them, although hot-rodding a Grand Marquis is a little like making bourbon out of Geritol.

                            The Marauder's body appears to have plunged into a vat of tar. Even the headlight reflectors are partly blacked out, as if in readiness for nighttime air raids. The taillights are lifted from a Crown Vic cop car, again revealing Ford's angst over any mental associations with the Marquis. In fact, everything is black except the 3.5-inch bazooka exhaust tips and the forged Alcoa five-spoke wheels, which are polished to a luster that surpasses chrome and approaches Hall of Mirrors.

                            Inside, the Marquis's Elk Lodge wood trim has mercifully been replaced by a handsome gray "dot matrix" motif, and someone has had the decency to install a half-dozen legible silver-faced gauges, including a 7000-rpm tach, an oil-pressure gauge, and a voltmeter?the latter duo situated low in the center stack. The front buckets are unique to the Marauder. Perhaps they shouldn't be. Their cushions are low and squishy, encouraging your feet to splay in an unnatural toes-out formation. What's more, the standard "Nudo" leather is slippery, such that your keister makes regular migrations toward the pedals. Fortunately, those pedals are adjustable, which is all that saves the seats from the sort of excoriation usually reserved for waiters who tell you their first name is Nudo.

                            At the track, the Marauder acquitted itself satisfactorily, but it is, after all, a 2.14-ton bolus, and it does not produce voluminous thrust at the pushrod-low revs of an Impala SS. With only 1500 miles on the clock, our test car scrabbled to 60 mph in 7.5 seconds (versus 6.5 for the Impala SS, 6.0 for our supercharged Lounge Lizard). It huffed through the quarter-mile in 15.5 seconds at 91 mph (versus 15.0 and 92 for the Impala, 14.6 and 97 for the Lizard). And its top speed?limited to avoid driveshaft vibration?was a wimpy 117 mph (versus 142 for the Impala and 150 for the Lizard)

                            For a car that carries the moniker Marauder (that's "one who raids, plunders, and pillages"), I expected a little more danger. A little more treachery. And a lot more motor. Despite my best ham-fisted attempts, I couldn't even get myself into serious trouble. In a car like this, if I can't scare myself silly, then it doesn't have enough power. The paucity of low-end grunt is particularly disappointing. There are ready and enthusiastic buyers for such a car. And I wanted to be among them. I wanted to want a traditional rear-drive, V-8 American thumper?especially an all-black one?but this doesn't do it for me. Maybe the upcoming GTO will.


                            So here it is, a bad-boy Merc conceived to transport me to the days of my youth, i.e., the era of the big-inch V-8. Even better, the thrilling-days-of-yesteryear concept is augmented by contemporary steering, real brakes, and the ability to change course without scraping its door handles on the pavement. So why doesn't this thing make me want to get out there and maraud? Could it be because I could obtain a BMW 330i, a far better device for motorized marauding, for about the same money? I fit the Marauder demographic, and the driver-license people keep telling me I fit the marauding psychography, but update as they may, this old song ain't tuneful no more.

                            Look up the reviews of the 94 Impala SS. I'm betting they were similar as were the quarter mile times.
                            BS'er formally known as Rebeldryver

                            Resident Instigator

                            sigpic

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: Ranking the Top 11 High Performance Fords From the Last Decade That You Have to Own

                              Impala SS was slightly better, didnt go into all the details of that ,I belive it would start a whole new topic .

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