Tired of the same old hot rods and muscle cars, some car enthusiasts have begun collecting modern American vehicles. These were made not that long ago, including famous rides like the PT Cruiser or Prowler, but also reclusive gems such as the Lincoln Mark VIII or the Mercury Marauder.
The Marauder name began in 1963 as a special trim of Mercury’s full-sized cars, like the Park Lane, Monterey and Montclair. In 1969, the Marauder became a bespoke personal luxury car, one of those oversized symbols of the era.
But the car we’re talking about is modern, produced in 2003 and 2004. The Marauder became this sports version of the Grand Marquis, featuring changes to the chassis, suspension and, above all, the engine. Of course, it also shared underpinnings with the Ford Crown Victoria and the Lincoln Town Car.
Development of the Marauder began with a concept shown at the 2002 Chicago Auto Show. For the production model, they used heavy-duty suspension and brakes from the Police Interceptor. But the crown jewel was a 4.6-liter DOHC V8 making 302 horsepower. Doesn’t sound like much, but having a Mustang Mach 1 engine in a sedan was undoubtedly very cool.
Wake up samurai policeman!
YouTube car designer TheSketchMonkey loved the history behind this Lincoln sports sedan and decided to give it a makeover. Just like in his Crown Victoria renderings, the goal is to bring it up to modern design standards without changing its identity. This has the inevitable result of creating a fake Cyberpunk 2077 appearance.
He starts by cleaning up all the lines. This makes a 20-year-old car look like it was manufactured today. Old cars are also way too high and have small wheels, so the Marauder gets the skirts and spoilers treatment, plus a set of 20s. The Mercury design was inspired by the B-body Chevrolet Impala SS. It had all its trim blacked out, and this is kept for the rendering.
But with the Sketch Monkey version, you get a sort of Audi RS5 appearance package. The honeycomb pattern is transferred to small intakes on the sides of the new LED headlights. And the bottom air intakes are made larger (than they need to be).
