Hiding a Secret: I Accidentally Bought a Budget Performance Car I Didn't Know Existed!

This video is brought to you by our friends at Gorilla Car Care, a premium detailing product at an affordable price and your classic car or truck's best friend to maintain its showroom shine. Go to gorillacarcare.com today. Well, Brendan went out and

bought

another luxury barge. except this cheap luxury barge turned out to be something really cool, it stumbled upon a little

know

n

performance

icon, yeah, and when you think of

performance

icons, when you think of the Panther platform, of course your mind will go to the Mercury Marauder . because that's the one that everyone

know

s as the fastest version of the Panther platform, but I

didn

't know that there was actually a version before the marauder that was the performance oriented version, which is this guy, yeah, so at first See this It looks like any other grandma's rear-drive Mercury Grand Marquis, but hey, Brandon

accidentally

stumbled upon a limited edition version of this car with some major performance upgrades that can be purchased for just a couple thousand. dollars and, Brendan, how did you find out?

We're dealing with something that wasn't just your typical Grand Marquis because you had exactly one of these same cars that you

bought

a few weeks ago and it was quite different here, yeah, so the one I gave to my brother had a column shifter that I assumed all Mercury Grand Marquis had a column shifter and when I got into this one I noticed it had a floor shifter and I thought it was strange because I had never seen a Grand Marquis with the shifter. changes on the floor except the marauder so I thought maybe Someone took this from a Marauder and put it here but I also looked at the gauges which are a traditional instrument cluster and if you have a regular Grand Marquis LS it says here on The dashboard is a Grand Marquis LS.

It should be a digital instrument cluster, but it's not, and that made me think it must be something from the factory that's a little different from your standard LS, yeah, and what did you do? You connected to the Internet and started posting on Facebook. groups yeah I actually went and joined the Mercury Grand Marquis Facebook group and posted it there and said what is this I need to know because it has to be something special because I've never seen it before and I think we were Searching and we found out that in 2002 They only made about four thousand five thousand of these, so think about the Grand Marquis of this generation, they made more than 900,000 of them, so when you talk about 5,000 of them it is a figure that is quite rare, now, what?

Why don't you open the hood? We'll start with what makes the lse different from a standard Grand Marquee because there are genuine performance improvements, so what was the standard output of these cars on O2, so the standard output of these was 220 horsepower now, if you went up to the lse or some people might even think of the Crown Bic LX sport which had this same option package, bumped it up to 239 horsepower, yeah, great, now I found a great website, the Mercury. Grand Marquee lse.com someone actually went out and created a website for this car and here are the differences with this 4.6 single overhead cam engine, so they went to a new knock sensor that allows the engine computer Set the optimal spark advance for operation. conditions and has a larger six-quart oil pan to extend engine life and also has a new variable speed engine cooling fan compared to the standard car, but we are looking at an increase of between 15 and 20 horsepower of strength. the standard car, yeah, and I mean that's a pretty significant hit and not only that, but they gave it three, sorry, 327 in the rear versus 273 in the rear, so the power feels even more quicker than just the 19 they added, yeah, so he actually went ahead and changed the differential, but Brendan, you went out and got a window sticker that has all the information on it, so why don't you explain some of the other differences that SLE brought to the table?

They put wider tires on it and saw Goodyear tires. Well, let's stop there because you're still using Goodyear tires. I hope they are not the originals. Oh, I hope not, but these are 225 60 R16 and these wheels are also unique, right, yes, they are unique. Nine-spoke aluminum wheel that only came on the Grand Marquis lse and not only that, but as you saw in the interior, you went from a six-seat interior to a five-seat interior because since you went to that shifter mounted in the center they liked the seats. I guess they called them bucket sports seats.

I don't know how sporty they are really rare. I guess they're a little bit sportier than the bench seat that the normal ones came with, those are the bucket sports seats, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then actually, too. It increased torque to 287 pound-feet of torque and even the rear air suspension that all Grand Marquis LS have had is unique to the LSE by having different springs and a different handling package, as well as a larger diameter rear stabilizer bar now. the rear sway bar will really help this vehicle in right turns stay more level, these cars were absolute boats but with some spring adjustments with the air suspension adjustment and stabilizer adjustment you can actually make them handle pretty well, so This is kind of related to the police interceptor, yes, exactly, so a lot of people think that the police interceptors are like the high-performance version of this generation of the Grand Marquis, but a lot of people

didn

't realize it came in the I'm.

Sorry, high performance version, the Panther platform, a lot of people didn't realize that it also came on the Grand Marquis in the lse package, so you can have a more luxurious police car, so let's talk about some of the production numbers, so 01 built. 2244.02 4988 and then 03 3000 then there was a little break and they brought them back a little bit later too, but let's do this Brandon, why don't you come in and turn it on now? Curtis has some exhaust work done but it actually sounds pretty good, yeah I think the previous owner just removed the mufflers, let's fire it up, that sounds pretty good for this old bird, now let's get Brendan up we'll give it a try so when I think about performance, one of the last thing I think about is your standard Grand Marquis, except for the Marauder you mentioned, but Marauders are very expensive now, but this is a great way to test drive a Marauder with that legendary reliability of the Panther platform for just a couple thousand dollars, yeah, I mean, I bought this.

Here's what my jacket was selling for because I don't know this might be a little inside baseball, but we asked you all if I should sell my jacket or sell my Explorer and you guys unanimously said sell. the Blazer, so I actually got this as a trade offer, someone said, hey, do you want to trade it in for my Grand Marquis and I said, sure, why not, I like these old Panther platform cars, so I did it and then I realized what a great vehicle it is. I actually traded it in so I basically had about two thousand dollars on that Blazer so I guess if you think about it that way I basically have this for two thousand dollars yeah I mean nobody knows what this is and they don't even I knew what the LC was. but why don't you give him the written beans here on Main Street?

It actually has a good push, yeah, not that bad, yeah, not bad at all, you know, considering the size and weight of this vehicle, it actually glides down the road pretty well, yeah, I was actually quite surprised how fast it was. Initially I was just thinking, man, someone must have made a lot of adjustments to this, other than those exhaust mods, but I mean, clearly, it's simply because this is the faster version and you really notice it now after having driven the Grand so much Original Marquis like this consecutively. I mean, it's a pretty significant difference in how well it drives on the road now, based on the press release quote, the Grand Marquis lse presents a compelling balance. of performance and comfort, said Jennifer Monagle, Mercury group brand manager. "The resulting car offers exceptional handling and stability.

Sporty styling details - okay, that's a stretch, yes - and amenities. It has a dual exhaust system, 235 horsepower and a specially tuned firmware suspension, and "it is definitely called suspension." difference, yeah, it definitely rides a little more planted and I guess I mean, come on, this isn't a Miata, it's not like a super performance driving car, but it's a decent improvement over all the other platform vehicles Panther when it comes to handling, I mean. I think this was addressed if you think about when they created this handling package, the police vehicles were probably addressed more right when they were in high pursuit, so they have something that's a little more stable in corners and things like that, and I can write Looking at it I could see where this makes it a slightly more stable car to drive at high speed.

Well guys, let us know what you think of this quick video. We have to explore some of the interesting things about this car. I've never heard of that and we'll see in the next one. Brendan, take care, laughs.