{"id":4126,"date":"2011-08-05T01:03:50","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T05:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/?p=4126"},"modified":"2011-08-05T11:17:10","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T15:17:10","slug":"last-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2011\/08\/last-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Call"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2011<\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday was exactly seven months since the last Mercury<\/a> was made. The thought was brought home to me recently, after my Infiniti I30<\/a> was dangerously<\/a> damaged<\/a> by a deer<\/a>. While the insurance deliberations were evolving, I had the use of a rental car. The only vehicle available at my local agent was a spanking new Mercury Grand Marquis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It struck me immediately how little the model has changed since the current generation was introduced in 1992<\/a>: broad front seat, a split bench<\/a> rather than buckets, equally spacious leather couch<\/a> in the rear, and broad of beam at the back<\/a>. The trunk<\/a> verges on huge, but is awkwardly shaped, the giant doughnut<\/a> spare intruding seriously on space. There are nice touches, like a locking remote trunk opener<\/a>, cupholders<\/a> for two in the back and legible instruments<\/a> on the dashboard, but the whole approach is pretty old school, including the patently fake burled walnut<\/a> on the doors.<\/p>\n

The engine is the 4.6-liter version of Ford’s modular sohc V8<\/a>, with the obligatory plastic vanity cover<\/a> emblazoned with a legacy version of the Ford V8 logo<\/a>. With that in mind, one wonders why the modern, ambiguous “waterfall” emblem<\/a>, rather than a Big M<\/a> or winged-hat god<\/a> from yore. The car is equipped with stability control<\/a>, but I didn’t notice any difference whether it was on or off, not that I performed any extreme maneuvers.<\/p>\n

The owner’s manual<\/a> comes in a nifty little portfolio<\/a>, but on opening one is reminded that this car is nothing more than a badge-engineered Ford Crown Vic<\/a>, the last civilian model of which was made in 2007<\/a> (sales since then have been limited to cabs<\/a> and cops<\/a>). This car<\/a> was built in Canada (“2” in the VIN<\/a>) in December 2010<\/a>, so it’s the Ultimate Edition<\/a> in more ways than one. It’s a brand new, 20-year-old car. Some people are already collecting Grand Marquis – Chris David has an ’87 model<\/a>, from the previous generation, and it rates Early American registration<\/a>, as Connecticut calls its antique car plates. Next year the ’92s will qualify, too. In fact, I think they should all be eligible for antique plates, for, like the long-running Locomobile 48<\/a>, built from 1913 to 1929, the Grand Marquis was old before it was sold.<\/p>\n

Later this month the Lincoln Town Car<\/a> will also meet its maker. We’ll talk about that another time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was exactly seven months since the last Mercury was made. The thought was brought home to me recently, after my Infiniti I30 was dangerously damaged by a deer. While the insurance deliberations were evolving, I had the use of a rental car. The only vehicle available at my local agent was a spanking new….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4,3],"tags":[182,63,181,184,55,59,183],"class_list":["post-4126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-cars","category-family-cars","category-kits-cars","tag-crown-victoria","tag-ford","tag-grand-marquis","tag-infiniti","tag-lincoln","tag-mercury","tag-town-car"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4126"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4148,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4126\/revisions\/4148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}