Mercury Marauder Base Sedan 4-door on 2040-cars

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NHTSA will investigate some Ford Fusion, Lincoln MKZ models for power steering issue

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is opening an investigation into the 2010-2012 Ford Fusion, Fusion Hybrid and Lincoln MKZ, the 2012 MKZ Hybrid and 2011 Mercury Milan because the agency has hundreds of complaints of electric power steering failure in these models.
According to NHTSA's data, it has received 508 complaints of the power steering allegedly suddenly malfunctioning and resulting in increased effort to turn the wheel. In four incidents, these failures resulted in loss of control and crashes. According to the reports, in some cases a power steering warning message came on as the fault occurred, and other times the system restored itself by turning off and then restarting the vehicle. NHTSA said it has also received further field report data from Ford, but that information hasn't been publicly released yet.
For the moment, there isn't a recall for this failure on these models. NHTSA is just investigating them to "assess the scope, frequency and safety consequences of the alleged defect," and the agency says an estimated 938,000 vehicles could potentially be affected.

Junkyard Gem: 1955 Mercury Montclair Coupe

I find plenty of 1950s Detroit vehicles in the big self-service car graveyards I frequent, but most of them are fairly ordinary sedans that never stood much chance of getting fixed up and put back on the road. Such is not the case with today's Junkyard Gem, which is a top-trim-level, heavily optioned hardtop coupe from one of the most desirable model years of the tailfins-and-chrome postwar era. Nearly every Mercury model ever made was a Ford model with some cosmetic changes applied, and the '55s looked very similar to their mechanically identical Ford brethren. In 1955, the new Mercury came in three trim levels: the entry-level Custom, the medium-zoot Monterey, and the glitzy Montclair. Each was available as a hardtop coupe and four-door sedan, with wagon versions of the Custom and Monterey. The Montclair could be purchased as a convertible or with the wild "Sun Valley" glass roof. The Montclair got its own line of hallucinogenic two-tone interiors, in order to make the daily lives of Europeans feel even more gray and penurious (the UK only dropped food rationing in 1954, and the two Germanies were still clearing the rubble of their blown-up cities). This car's upholstery has been bleached by decades of sitting outside in the harsh High Plains climate, but it started out as vivid red and white "Chromatex" fabric. The list price on this car was $2,631, or about $29,200 in 2022 dollars. The Sun Valley and convertible Montclair each cost $2,712 ($30,100 today). Ford didn't offer a corresponding hardtop coupe in 1955, though the Fairlane Crown Victoria two-door did look extremely snazzy (and cost a mere $2,302— $25,545 now— with the same V8 engine as the Monterey). Meanwhile, Oldsmobile offered the handsome 88 Super Holiday Coupe for $2,714, though the Montclair had the more powerful engine. Oldsmobile had been selling new cars with overhead-valve V8s since the 1949 model year, while Ford didn't ditch the Model A-era flathead V8 for new U.S.-market cars until the 1954 model year (you could buy a new Simca Esplanada in Brazil with an Ardun-headed Ford V8-60 all the way until 1969). GM's Chevrolet Division got all the press in 1955 with the introduction of the brand-new small-block V8 engine, but Ford's 292-cubic-inch (4.8-liter) Y-Block V8 made more power than the 265-cube (4.3-liter) Chevy and the 324ci Olds Rocket 88.

Has the Mercury Marauder gotten better with age?

In the early 2000s Mercury desperately wanted to develop some edge for its brand – seemingly stuck between a quasi-premium, quasi-performance space in the Ford Universe. The Marauder is perhaps the most famous of the vehicles that resulted from those efforts, and is rapidly approaching Modern Classic status, today. Effectively a murdered out Grand Marquis with some updated trim pieces – what are company parts bins for, if not raiding? – the Marauder looked convincingly like a bad guy car. The 4.6-liter V8 under its hood that had been breathed on by engineers for a little more power, kicking out 302 horsepower and 318 pound-feet of torque from the factory. Not exactly Ferrari-baiting numbers, but it'd give your local cop's car a run for its money. Being a wild child of the last decade, of course our friends at MotorWeek had it on the program. What better way to test your mean-mugging muscle sedan than with John Davis' tanned and steady hands?