The Mercury Grand Marquis is a 2/4-door hardtop from Mercury, built from 1975, as the oil crises and the first emissions rules rewired the industry.
The story
The Mercury Grand Marquis is an automobile that was produced by Mercury from the 1975 until 2011 model years. Introduced as the flagship sub-model of the Mercury Marquis in 1975, the Grand Marquis became a stand-alone model line in 1983, serving as the largest Mercury sedan. The model line served as the sedan counterpart of the Mercury Colony Park station wagon up to 1991. The fourth generation was the basis of the 2003 and 2004 Mercury Marauder. From 1979 until 2011, the Grand Marquis shared the rear-wheel drive (RWD) Panther platform with the Ford LTD Crown Victoria (Ford Crown Victoria after 1992), and from 1980, the Lincoln Town Car. For over three decades, the Ford and Mercury sedans were functionally identical, with two of the three generations of the model line sharing the same roofline.
The Grand Marquis was available as a four-door sedan for nearly its entire run; from 1988 to its final year in 2011, it was the only body style that was offered. A four-door hardtop was available from 1975 to 1978 and a two-door hardtop coupe from 1975 to 1987. The Grand Marquis was the second-best-selling Mercury line (after the Cougar) with 2.7 million units produced; at 36 years of continuous production, the Grand Marquis was the longest-running Mercury nameplate (the Cougar, 34 years). Ford manufactured the Grand Marquis, alongside the Mercury Marquis, Mercury Marauder, Ford (LTD) Crown Victoria, and (beginning in 2007) the Lincoln Town Car, at two facilities: the St. Louis Assembly Plant in Hazelwood, Missouri (1979–1985) and the St. Thomas Assembly Plant in Southwold, Ontario,
Under the skin
The record carries the shape — a 2/4-door hardtop — and the layout: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The engine, output and weight have not yet reached the open record, and MotorJury does not guess at them.
Its place in the line
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Mercury Marquis; assembly was at Hazelwood, Missouri. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Volkswagen Polo, the BMW 3 Series, the Hyundai Pony — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Mercury catalogue sit the Mercury Bobcat and the Mercury Capri.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Mercury Grand Marquis has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.