In 2005, for buyers who thought the Buick LeSabre might be getting just a little too modern, Mercury still had the answer. The Grand Marquis, born in 1975 as an upgraded Marquis, was for people who wanted no part of all that newfangled stuff Detroit was introducing to chase the Europeans: sport suspensions, complicated technology, even bucket seats. While the rest of the industry was busy reinventing the automobile, Mercury was perfectly content to keep building one that would have been right at home in 1985. Here, in Rockville Centre, New York, we have a remarkably clean 2005 Grand Marquis GS listed on Craigslist for $15,000. A warm thank you to Zen for the tip.
The Grand Marquis was never about making a statement (that was Lincoln’s job), and for decades you could march into a Mercury dealer and buy your own version of understated elegance. Nobody bought one to impress the neighbors or turn heads at stoplights. You bought it because, in your view, cars had been just fine for the past twenty or thirty years, and all that new technology was bound to break eventually anyway. Rear-wheel drive, body-on-frame construction, V8 power, automatic transmission (of course), and a soft, wide bench seat with room for six. Quiet. Comfortable. A trunk big enough to swallow a foursome’s golf bags. It checked just about every box on the practical-car shopping list, save perhaps fuel economy, although even there, its 16/23 mpg wasn’t the worst you could do in 2005. GM had introduced the Hummer H2 just two years earlier, after all.
This example has just 19,000 miles on the clock and is (unsurprisingly) claimed to have been gently driven and well cared for. The pictures certainly support that. Finished in light brown over tan leather, the paint looks sharp, the body straight, and the interior practically undisturbed. The seller even claims it still has that new car smell (21 years later?). Under the hood is Ford’s 4.6-liter V8, introduced to the Grand Marquis in 1992 to replace the old 5.0-liter, producing 224 horsepower through a four-speed automatic. Underneath that respectable exterior lurks essentially the same durable machinery as the Ford Crown Victoria, which spent its days chasing speeders or hauling passengers to O’Hare and LaGuardia. If you were driving in the early 2000s, you know these cars were everywhere.
Surprisingly, the Grand Marquis routinely outsold the Crown Victoria in the late 1990s and early 2000s, even with all those fleet sales Ford enjoyed. All told, some 2.7 million Grand Marquis sedans were sold during its long run, a pretty solid return on an investment that began during the Carter administration. And while $15,000 might seem like a lot for an over twenty-year-old Mercury, try finding another one with just 19,000 miles that looks this good. Here’s hoping one of you makes the trip to Rockville Centre to check it out. There’s something to be said for a car with readily available parts, relatively simple mechanicals, and no particular interest in impressing anybody.
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