My Grandpa was a rather practical man. He believed in function over form. High style and impressing others never appealed to him, but it paid off handsomely in the end. And for Grandma too.
Grandpa worked for Ford Motor Company, spending most of the first thirty-three years in a Supervisory Position. After he retired in 1986, Ford called and asked him if he would return, so he did, and stayed eleven more years, this time working for Ford of Europe as a Transmission expert. All those years he would drive the most rusty and dented up old barges you could imagine, mainly because he found them easier and more enjoyable to work on. With the exception of the 1976 Lincoln Mark IV he bought my Grandma (he generally preferred 1970’s vintage Thunderbird/Cougars.
Despite Grandpa’s preference for Ford’s “midsize” offerings, he always spoke fondly of the Full Size cars, especially the Mercury Grand Marquis. He always said that when he retired he would probably buy one for my Grandma, and in the Fall of 1997, he made good on that promise.
Grandpa knew that by waiting till the end of the model year he would be able to get a really good deal, as Mr. Sesi would be willing to offer a discount on top of A-Plan. When Grandma and Grandpa went to visit Mr. Sesi’s showroom, there in the corner of said showroom sat the perfect car, the last 1997 Grand Marquis LS they had, in Medium Wedgewood Blue with Wedgewood Blue Leather interior. A deal was struck, and the Grand Marquis was brought home-and put in the garage, only to be brought out for special occasions, and long trips.
The 1995-97 Panthers are considered the “Fat Panthers”, due to Ford using above average materials and the overall excellent build quality. 1997 began to show some of the cost cutting to come, with little things such as the deletion of the Mercury emblem on the C-pillar and removal of the cover on the top of the engine.
My Grandparents loved this car so much that two years later they bought a second 1997 Grand Marquis, this time a GS model in Toreador Red. They bought this car to use as a daily driver so that the blue car would stay nice.
Fast forward to today, well, this past weekend to be exact. The car has a little over 24,000 miles on the clock, and still feels like a new car. Grandma asked me to take the car to town and fill the tank for her, as well as run a few errands for her. The car soaks up road imperfections in a way that no modern car seems to be able to. Sure it floats and bobs, but that’s part of it’s appeal. It’s a blast from the past, and a trip down Memory Lane, in more ways than one…
My oh my, Richard – don’t ever let that one get out of the family! I thought that my son’s 89 MGM was a low mile car with 54K on the clock, but yours has his beat by a mile (or several thousand of them). A genuine Grandma GrandMa.
I will agree with you on the Fat years, but would probably take that back even further. My 93 Crown Vic LX has lots of nice stuff like sway bars (that make it handle nicely in addition to riding smoothly and quietly) and some really nice velour seats. I believe that the MGM was equipped even more nicely. It was a shame to watch almost everything in Ford’s lineup get made over into something cheap and nasty in the second half of the 90s.
You can blame all of that cost-cutting on that rat bastard Jacques “The Knife” Nasser. That piece of shit just about ruined Ford.
The real de-contenting did not take place until the early 2000’s but then yeah the base cars lost their rear sway bar among other things. After then you only got the sway bar if you ordered HPP or stand alone air suspension.
Could you add sway bars to a sway-barless Panther? Are those parts available from Ford or in the aftermarket?
This sounds more like an Eric Van Buren question, but my guess would be yes, and those parts would likely be available from both sources (or even your friendly Pick-A-Part)
The front sway bar is on all the cars but there are two versions base and HPP/P71/Tow/Marauder. The P71/HPP/Marauder rear sway bar is $44 from a good ford dealer like Tasca but you’ll also need the end links and mounting brackets but all the holes are there. There are also the sway bars that were designed for the Marauder available from Addco and they do have a stiffer one for the front of 92-02 cars as well. 92-12 rear sway bars interchange.
I’ve read that Ford has discontinued the 21mm HPP/Marauder bar.
The real hassle IMO is trying to find bars for a box Panther.
They may have, but considering the number of relatively young P71s out there that use it too I doubt it. Tasca Ford likely stocked up if they indeed were discontinued.
Addco still makes bars for the Boxes and they show up on Ebay.
I though the P71 was 17mm while the HPP was 21mm?
The 17mm bar was on the early base cars or the later cars with stand alone air suspension.
I’ve mentioned to Grandma on more than one occasion that I rather like the car, if you know what I mean…
Ultimately, it’s up to her and the siblings as to what will happen to it when she no longer drives. Truth be told, I doubt anyone in the family would really want it, so you never know. I tried putting it in my garage the other day to vacuum it out and it didn’t quite fit!
For a daily driver I much prefer a smaller car. I could have acquired my mothers near-perfect Mercury Sable, but I decided that it was just too much car for me, and decided instead to keep my little Alero. Now just because I prefer a smaller car does not mean that I don’t love these big, luxurious boats! I do indeed love them, for what they are.
Besides, if I didn’t love them, I would have never started The Brougham Society!
I think you need to find a bigger garage and live the dream, man. That’s an awesome car and a very nice color combo.
My father bought a new one of these a few years ago…whatever the last year they made’em. I drove it twice and absolutely loved it.
Love it!
I have driven hundreds of these cars and there is so much to enjoy in them. My uncle, who was an electrician at Ford in Chicago, retired in 2000 with a white MGM. It is a very stately machine.
The Grand Marquis, and contemporary Lincolns and US Fords, were officially imported
into the Netherlands by Hessing De Bilt.
Regrettably you only see them in dark colors, as a car in funeral processions.
And regrettably Hessing De Bilt went bankrupt in january 2012.
How’s the Marauder ? Already a hot classic ?
A pity these cars and the last RWD big Fords never came to the UK to give the Chrysler 300 & Vauxhall Monaro a run for their money.I liked the Marauder as soon as I read about it but sadly not everyone felt the same way and it was given the chop a few years later.
There are a few Marauders running around in Europe as a there are couple of owners from there that post on the Marauder forum.
That’s a car I’d like to see more of Thanks Eric
They used to call that gen of Grand Marquis/Crown Vic(1992-1997) “Aeros” and the last gen(98-2011) were called “whales”
It is a sharp Grand Marquis that you have there
I’ve never heard a Panther referred to as a Whale I’ve heard it used, along with Bubble, for the last gen B-Body. The fact is the 92-11 Grand Ma uses the same basic body shell. The late Bs earned the Whale name since they gained a significant amount of weight with the new body and GM didn’t touch the chassis to compensate for it.
A lovely car Richard! I especially like the blue/blue color combination. I believe you could get the navy leather on Town Cars through the 2002 model year, but am not sure if the same was true for the Crown Victoria or Grand Marquis.
I was curious about the asking prices here. This one is the youngest I could find, a 2004 Grand Marquis with 136,000 miles on the clock. Just 7,450 euro ! Can’t buy a decent used VW Golf for that kind of money. The real problem is the road tax, given the weight of the car.
http://www.autotrack.nl/tweedehands/mercury/grand_marquis/10374468
They are not as heavy as most people think, they only tip the scales at about 4100lbs. Or less than a 2004 745i BMW and about the same as a S430 Mercedes in US spec anyway.
Eric, it’s more a problem for all big fully loaded sedans. I checked the plate, the Grand Marquis from the link has a registered weight of 1,850 kg. That means 1,144 euro road tax a year. So after 6.5 years of ownership the road tax equals the purchase price of this car…and still counting after that.
And yet, if I only drove a few thousand miles a year I wouldn’t hesitate buying and driving something like this as my first (and only) car.
Thanks for this whole panther series. When my Grandfather died in 2000, he had a 1997 Grand Marq LS. My Grandmother gave it to my Dad because she was content with her 1996 Tracer (with spoiler as she would always point out). I was 22 at the time and was working my first job commuting about 40 miles a day…this 97 became an extra car in the family, and was a nice change from my 1988 Acura Legend Coupe. I felt like a big shot the days I took the Grand Marq to work.
post script: my brother ended up totaling the car slipping on some black ice…why do people drive these cars in New England anyhow? when my dad got to the accident he saw that my brother ok, and then said “well there goes pup”. Made my brother feel great. They never told gram about the accident, she still thinks my dad sold the car for short money.
post script 2: gram is 93 and still driving a 2003 Focus.
I rented a couple of these over the years, and agree that they were big outside for what interior room they had, especially in the back.
One thing I noticed – in my normal driving on back roads, usually 10 or 15 over the most-often too-low speed limits around here I’d find myself coming up on someone who would immediately be going exactly the speed limit. It was kinda fun at first – it happened even with the brand new maroon Grand Marquis we rented once – but eventually got to be kind of a pain.
On the interstates though they couldn’t be beat as smooth, quiet transportation.
GrandMas were my gateway drug to love of/addiction to big Detroit (or in the case of my Buick, Linden, NJ) iron. My grandfather had an ’86 and an ’88 in sky blue and white respectively, representing a self-inflicted downsize–he had become a septuagenarian and was finding the older models too big–from the 70s Lincolns and even from the late 70s Cadillac he drove when I was very very young. I was hooked at an early age because I spent from earliest memory to about the age of 15 riding around in the back of Chevettes, Hyundai Excels, and hatchback Civics purchased by my academia parents.
Grand Marquis weren’t flashy but they were great cars.
I have a twin to this car! Mine has a little over 91,000 original miles on the odometer, but it is in virtually the same condition as this one, almost perfect. I have to disagree with you on the interior color though. Mine is exactly the same as this one and the original window sticker calls it light graphite, not medium Wedgewood blue, which is the exterior color. I LOVE mine! I have heard of these cars having issues with the ball joints because they are non-greaseable parts, but I have found greaseable ball joints for it that aren’t that expensive, so the question is, do I replace them before they fail or wait until they do. Some of the stories I have heard of failures of the ball joints are catastrophic! Wouldn’t want to be driving down the highway and have the suspension collapse onto the wheel! In any case, I really love my car & yours as well. Cool story!
Here is my interior.
“that’s part of it’s appeal” should be its, not it’s
Good article. I really like this year of the Grand Marquis.