Junkyard Find: 1972 Mercury Marquis Brougham

[cawimmer430]

It pains me to see this beautiful work of art abandoned on this junkyard.  

I remember seeing one of these in Munich last year. I even made a thread about it here. It was golden brown. Lovely car. Who misses the '70s here? 


Junkyard Find: 1972 Mercury Marquis Brougham
By Murilee Martin on May 23, 2012

Brougham. To (increasingly elderly) car shoppers nearly to the dawn of the 21st century, that word meant class. Luxury. Success. A brougham was a type of horse-drawn carriage? or it was an option package applied to a car made by GM, Chrysler, or Ford; even Nissan jumped aboard the Brougham bandwagon. Mercury might have been the most broughamic marques of them all, which makes today?s Junkyard Find the zenith of broughamhood!

You really can?t experience the joys of broughamism without a big chrome-plated heraldic crest on the C pillar, and the ?72 Marquis delivers in a big way.



There?s the silhouette head of the Roman god Mercury in the shield; the Mercury Division had been moving away from images of the Messenger of the Gods for a decade or two, so it?s interesting to see one in vestigial form here. The really disturbing part of this emblem, however, is the crown-wearing lions? or are those hyenas?? with tormented monkey skulls for faces. LSD in Dearborn?s water supply?

Up front, we?ve got a 208-horsepower 429 engine (due to Communist infiltration of American institutions in the early 1970s, Detroit was forced to list horsepower ratings using net horsepower figures instead of ludicrously inflated ?except when they were ludicrously deflated to fool insurance companies? gross figures; also under notorious nanny-state liberal Richard M. Nixon?s watch, compression ratios dropped in ?72), down from the 320 horses the same engine made in ?71. The intake manifold on this engine weighs more than your Commie vehicle of choice, by the way.

Right. So there?s no point in calling it a Brougham if you don?t have the kind of interior that, say, Superfly would feel comfortable with.

The interior of this car is still in pretty good shape, but scrap-metal prices mean that most less-than-perfect 5,000-pound Detroit barges are worth more in steel than they are as cars.

These maddening separate shoulder belts appeared in a lot of cars during the late 1960s and early 1970s, before the manufacturers figured out a way to make three-point belts that retracted as one unit with the lap belt. Blame Nixon!


Link: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/05/junkyard-find-1972-mercury-marquis-brougham/

[mzziaz]

Sexy!

[2o6]

One of the better looking cars of the era.

[cawimmer430]

One of the better looking cars of the era.

We finally agree on something.

I actually think this design would translate well into retro. To bad that Mercury is dead. I honestly think Lincoln could make use of their great design heritage and release something along these lines with this design translated into something a bit more modern.

[Hachee]

I like this for what it is now, but I don't think there's anything here that can translate into something retro which would work today.  Lincoln's got exactly ONE car that (we've already seen) can work so well today - the '61-69 Continental.

I would love to see someone use some covered headlights though!

[sportyaccordy]

Theres no way to translate this design. The biggest element of the design is the sheer girth. They tried to apply the details to a reasonably sized car and it looked ridiculous. Hell, it looks ridiculous now. Makes their regular lens look like a wide angle. These are def small penis cars. 

[Gotta-Qik-C7]

I thought only GM used the word Brougham..............

[cawimmer430]

Theres no way to translate this design. The biggest element of the design is the sheer girth. They tried to apply the details to a reasonably sized car and it looked ridiculous. Hell, it looks ridiculous now. Makes their regular lens look like a wide angle. These are def small penis cars. 

On the contrary, I feel that these designs could easily be translated into something modern/retro. It's a very simple design and simple designs are the ones that best translate into retro IMO.

[cawimmer430]

I thought only GM used the word Brougham..............

Chrysler used it to. 

[GoCougs]

Mopar definitely had the big sedan market cornered in the early/mid '70s via the fuselage design theme and the best motors.

[Gotta-Qik-C7]

Did Ford put the same steering wheel in EVERY SINGLE CAR in the 70? LOL! My Grand dads Elite and my Moms Cougar and Monarch had the exact same wheel.

[cawimmer430]

Mopar definitely had the big sedan market cornered in the early/mid '70s via the fuselage design theme and the best motors.

We agree. 

[cawimmer430]

Did Ford put the same steering wheel in EVERY SINGLE CAR in the 70? LOL! My Grand dads Elite and my Moms Cougar and Monarch had the exact same wheel.

Cost-cutting, baby. Cost-cutting.  

Be glad they paid their designers good money, though, so we can look at beauties like this and go "Wow, the '70s were so fucking amazing (when it came to car design)!"   

[TurboDan]

I like this for what it is now, but I don't think there's anything here that can translate into something retro which would work today.

The retro gimmicks of the U.S. automakers were always pathetic attempts to stay relevant when they were being outpaced by the rest of the world. I'm glad that era is largely over. Good on Ford for supposedly going ultra-modern with the next Mustang (hopefully using the Aston Martin-inspired design of the Fusion throughout the lineup), and good on GM for making the ATS.

Those who look back fondly on the years of poor handling land yachts puzzle me.

[cawimmer430]

Those who look back fondly on the years of poor handling land yachts puzzle me.

It's about the comfort and their design. Nobody expects these cars to complete a lap on the N?rburgring in under 8 minutes. Personally I think many American cars from the '70s were stunningly beautiful. I like those clean and simple designs.


I'd seriously love to have something like this - with an economical diesel under the hood instead of the 9843093483948034cid V8 it came standard with. 

[Madman]

Did Ford put the same steering wheel in EVERY SINGLE CAR in the 70? LOL! My Grand dads Elite and my Moms Cougar and Monarch had the exact same wheel.

I think so.  My parents 1973 LTD wagon, 1974 LTD sedan, 1974 Thunderbird, 1977 LTD II wagon and my 1976 Pinto all had the same damn steering wheel!

[Rupert]

It's about the comfort and their design. Nobody expects these cars to complete a lap on the N?rburgring in under 8 minutes. Personally I think many American cars from the '70s were stunningly beautiful. I like those clean and simple designs.


I'd seriously love to have something like this - with an economical diesel under the hood instead of the 9843093483948034cid V8 it came standard with. 

That car needs all the power it can get just to get moving. Not to mention that the big engine is hugely important to the big American car thing.

[cawimmer430]

That car needs all the power it can get just to get moving. Not to mention that the big engine is hugely important to the big American car thing.

A modern torquey diesel should be more than adequate. I'm thinking a 3.0 6-cylinder turbodiesel would be perfect.

Big cars with smaller engines aren't necessarily slow. When I worked for an MB dealership over the summer I drove the entry-level Mercedes E200 Kompressor Wagon (S211) which had a 1.8-l supercharged 4-cylinder engine with 184-horsepower and 250 Nm (180 lb/ft) of torque mated to an optional 5-speed A/T (6-speed M/T is standard). I had to drive this car and an employee plus some brochure boxes (heavy stuff) in the trunk to a town an hour away. This involved no Autobahn driving but that engine was more than up to the task of speeding up, reaching good speeds and accelerating in any situation. Keep in mind that this was the wagon version (a bit heavier than the sedan) and with two people on board and a backseat and trunk filled with heavy brochure boxes. I had zero problems with the performance of the car even though I initially thought it would be slow and underpowered.

At that time my family still had the W211 E320 Sport (3.2-l V6, 224-hp, 315 Nm), which was a much more powerful car. So I had some basis for comparison.

I've driven a lot of W211 E-Classes. Pretty much all models. E200 CDI, E220 CDI, E270 CDI, E280 CDI, E320 CDI (I6 and V6), E200 Kompressor, E230, E240, E320, E500, E500 4Matic and the E55 AMG.