Creation v. Evolution of the MM

[N40GL]

While thinking about whether the Mercury Marauder was 'created,' or whether it 'evolved' from, say, the 1980 Fairmont (well, there is a <i>family</i> lineage), I came across this interesing <a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/textbookdisclaimers/">page</a href>.

And, yes, perhaps I have too much free time.

[duhtroll]

I thought someone posted way back that this car started out as a mistake. Something like they built a bunch of these aluminum 4.6s for the limousine fleet (Lincoln) and then lost a bunch of sales to Cadillac, at which point they dropped them into Grand Marqs and called them Marauders, with a few more changes of course.

Of course this is only hearsay, but that certainly sounds like the way things end up lots of times.

No matter how they came about, I'm happy.

-A

[RoyLPita]

I believe that the Grand Marquis with the Handling and Performance package and the later LSE evolved into the Marauder. The DOHC 4.6 motor set the MM apart from the GM and the CV.

Just my .02 and then some...

[David Morton]

I always liked to think that some guy who used to fly B26 Marauders for the Army Air Force wound up a VP at Mercury in 1960 and had a great idea, "Why don't we take our best selling model, put the biggest motor we make in it and call it 'The Marauder'!"
After that, the subsequent editions and improvements on the Marauder, are tributes to the great idea of taking a simple family car and putting some serious horsepower under the hood. Bread and circuses for the moderately affluent middle class. Thank you, mysterious, possibly fictitious Lincoln Mercury executive and WWII bomber pilot.

I know, I'm a hopeless romantic. :o

[TripleTransAm]

Mercury product planners of the early 60s were planning a brilliant new variation of the station wagon, a cross between a van and a car, a new segment they wanted to call "The Minivan" and had chosen the name Mercury Pillager for it. Its planned introduction date of 1961 would have revolutionized family transportation as we knew it. Top management was furious and disbanded the team, spreading them all over the company. The Pillager "minivan" concept was boxed up and never heard of again until a brief mention in the early 80s when a Chrysler employee was alleged to have broken into the Mercury archives.

Soon afterward, they met and plotted to design an all-new aerodynamically-shaped 4 door midsize sedan using the jellybean as a design base, and dreamed up the name Mercury Saber hoping for a 1962 introduction. It was to pave the way for modern efficient family sedans. This again was shot down by the design top brass.

Several months later, after some members of Mercury's upper management were found murdered in mysterious circumstances, the black-sheep planning group found itself once again working together and this time managed to ram through the concept for the Mercury Marauder high-performance large car, thinking it was perhaps not the best time to continue working on their full-size ultra-luxury Mercury Gran Massacre.

The Marauder appeared at a crucial moment in Mercury's history, as there were rumours the company would have embarked on a totally different product direction with their proposed Mercury Happy Joy Flower Smile car instead.