Marauder wheel treatment trivia

[kirk]

Sub 20 outside with snow on the ground. Time for a Marauder information dump. Sorry gang :)

Ever wondered about Marauder wheel treatments throughout the years?

You can see them all (almost) here https://sites.google.com/a/wmich.edu/supermarauder/home/marauder-history

Sorry about the link, but I haven't replaced photobucket yet. Yes, I'm missing the 1969 wire cover, and the trim ring and center cap for the 1969/70 wheel, but you can easily find examples in a search.

As for the trivia

The 1963 Marauder and Marauder S-55 used 14" wheels standard.
There was a 15" wheel option which got you the spinner covers pictured.
Other than the 15" covers, there was no optional cover for the Marauder.
While lots of folks know that the Marauder S-55 came with the tri-colored wheel cover, most don't know there were actually two different versions of that cover, one with a "bright" center and one with an "opaque" center. Don't know what determined which one you got.

More to come...

[Turbov6Bryan]

On that link, for the various 64 marauder hubcaps, what would you call the smaller hubcap on the far right?

[kirk]

In 1964 Mercury returned to the three model lineup from the 1950s. Again, all cars used 14" wheels standard. The hubcap on the right was standard on the Monterey Marauder, with all of the others being optional. The Montclair and Park Lane Marauders used the next cover over from the hubcap. This was the same stamping used on the 1962 conv concept and 1963 4dr concept but without the spinner. It came with a spinner as an option. There was also a wire spinner, and the 15" spinner. The 15" spinner was the same as 1963 but with a red center in place of the silver/red center.

In 1965 all Marauders got 15" wheels. The cover scheme was pretty much the same as 1964. The Monterey Marauder got the hubcap and the Montclair Marauder and Park Lane Marauder got the cover pictured next to the cap. The other three covers shown were all options.

You may have noticed that all of the earlier covers used "Mercury" script or a god's head Mercury emblem.
All of the 1969-70 covers and wheels used a Mercury four-space shield in the center. It looked similar to the three-space shield Ford used.

In 1969 there were three different covers available for the Marauder (shown on the left of the picture), but literature indicates they weren't available with fender skirts. If you got a Marauder and wanted fender skirts you got the "Marauder" wheel cover (next to the wheel). If you got a Marauder X-100 it came standard with the "Styled Aluminum Wheel". This had an aluminum center with a steel rim, fitted with beauty rings and a center cap. It was optional on the Marauder and could be used with fender skirts. All of the literature shows them with a black center, but I've seen some with the natural aluminum center also.

1970 Marauders used the 69 fender skirt cover standard. The X-100 used a new for 1970 cover, and the aluminum wheel was now optional on both.

I think everybody here is already familiar with the 2003-4 wheel.

[kirk]

Some other observations.

There were 20 total wheels/covers/caps for 20 different Marauder models.
17 wheel covers
2 wheels
1 hubcap

Only 4 of these were used for more than one year (2 years). They were the 2 wheels, the hubcap, and the 69-70 cover.

The years with the most wheel options sold the most cars (generally speaking).