“The Widow”1969 Mercury Marauder

The story

Bucket seats, console with horseshoe floor shift. Factory A/C and AM / 8 Track Tape.
The 1969/70 Marauders have been called "The last of the Full Size Muscle Cars" The Marauder X100 is 219 inches long and weighs 4,300 lbs. Yet it will do the 1/4 mile in less then 16 seconds.

Mercury only built 5,635 of these in 1969 and there are only 169 left.

This is a recent restoration that consisted primarily of clean and repaint in base coat clear coat. This is a 50k miles car that is clean and original to it's build sheet.

I wanted to keep the car original, but more then that I wanted to make it “my” car. I did this by making “period upgrades”. In other words I did to the car what I might have done to it if I had the car in the 60’s. I removed chrome trim from the front wheel wells and the fender skirts and removed the Marauder emblem from the front above the grill to give the car a very mild “custom look”. I kept all of the chrome trim and the emblem so I could go back to pure original if I wanted. I did the same in the interior adding 1960’s style gauges on the steering column and replacing the rim blow steering wheel with a 60’s style wheel, again retaining all of the original parts. The engine compartment was the same, adding chrome and saving the original.

I now have an original car with 1960’s period upgrades and had I owned the Marauder in 1969, it quite possibly could have looked just like it looks now. — Ed zukusky