[Shotimes] (OT) Marauder

[Donald Mallinson]

I agree with much of what you say, but you imply that the 
Impala from the mid 90's was not successful.  Nothing could 
be farther from the truth.  That car sold above sticker for 
its entire run, and was only killed when GM needed the plant 
to build more prolific and profitable trucks/suv's.

To this day, the 94-96 Impala SS holds its resale value as 
good if not better than many much more exotic sports cars. 
IT was also pretty fast, and very easy to modify. 
Conventions of these cars are huge, and clubs are still 
going strong around the country.  This car was nothing short 
of a four bagger home run for Chevy and GM.

Ford needed to bring out a competing and competitive car in 
1995 or 1996, NOT in 2002.  They are about 6 years late and 
the product wasn't strong enough.  The 260 hp Impala will 
keep up with the 302 hp Marauder because the 350 cube V8 in 
them had much more torque.  From 80 on up, I would put my 
money on the Marauder, and in the 1/4 mile it will be close, 
but around town, the Impala is a LOT more fun to drive, and 
mods?  No contest.  Cheap, proven and plentiful for the 
Chevy.  Few, and unproven for the mod motor Merc.

Finally, the FoMoCo response to the SS SHOULD have been a 
FORD.  Almost nobody bought or knew of or cared about the 
Marauder back in the 60's.  It was a joke.  The Ford Galaxie 
XL500 was respected and sold in large numbers and had a 
performance image.  There are still huge numbers of Galaxie 
fans  (boomers mostly, the exact same crowd that bought the 
SS) that would buy a proper XL500 today.

The HP is right, the torque/gearing is wrong.  Also the look 
of the Marauder is weak compared to the impact the SS made 
when it came out.  Ford did a tame imitation of the SS 
rather than use their own Ford history to make a true 
updated version.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I was prepared to like the Marauder, but it let me down.  I 
have a review of it on SHOclub.com if some of you have not 
seen it yet:  http://www.shoclub.com/maraudervicsport.htm

Don Mallinson

sho2go wrote:

> Ford is in dire straights, as someone said their credit (bond) rating at an
> all time low.  They are in no fiscal position to come up with any new
> designs, which cost billions to implement.  Rather they are digging around
> in the parts bin looking for a way to combine whats in there.  Its a pity,
> and totally due to inept management that started back 10 years ago, when the
> company was rolling in cash, due to the success of their lineup.  They had
> 5? 6? of the top selling cars on the planet, and apparently thought the good
> times would keep on forever.  But it is a cyclic business; GM was in bad
> shape at the same time Ford was doing well.  But GM has so many subsidiary
> companies that it just keeps rolling along.  Does anyone else see the
> Marauder as another version of the Impala from the mid-90s?  Too big,
> unlikely to be any more successful, IMHO.
> Mike