questions about my car

[montyd]

Im fairly new to the marauder scene. i just bought one from a friend of mine that has had it 5 years and did all the mods to it. we got to looking at it when i was picking the car up and noticed that it has a steel hood on it. we may be wrong but we thought they were supposed to be aluminum? also we notice that on the underside of the turnk lid where the hinge bolts on there was very clearly something bolted to the deck lid on both sides when the underside was painted( were thinking it was a tether strap). im kinda wondering if maybe my car was supposed to be a cop car when it started life and they turned it into a marauder while it was on the assembly line. any ideas? it was build in 8/02 and is number 3815 so its not like it was the first one made. just kinda curious
thanks in advance guys
dan

[RacerX]

Sheet metal steel hoods are standard. Would need a pic of the trunk. I bet it's all factory. They only made some MMs into undercover cars after they were fully off the assembly line and in the hands of deals, etc.

[88LTDCV351]

Florida Highway Patrol was the only to use Marauders in any signifcant number as far as I've heard.

[RacerX]

Mine was an UC patrol car. I pulled a mile of wire and relays out, still havethe wig-wag brackets behind the front grille and they had to skim coat my roof and re-paint from the antenna holes.

[montyd]

oh ok i was thinking there were supposed to have aluminum hoods. thanks for clearing that up. ill try and get some pics of the trunk up tomorrow. im pretty sure it never made it to being a cop car but who knows

[Mr. Man]

oh ok i was thinking there were supposed to have aluminum hoods. thanks for clearing that up. ill try and get some pics of the trunk up tomorrow. im pretty sure it never made it to being a cop car but who knows
It may have been an idea when the car was in concept but Mercury wasn't really given the budget to do all that the designers wanted to do. Aside from a few MM specific parts the MM is a parts bin car. :)

[fastblackmerc]

Aluminum hood... never heard that one before.

Did he say it's got a cop chip in it also?

[montyd]

no, the deck lid looks like it started out life being ment for a cop car. i was looking at an 02 crown vic today that was a cop car and it had the same markings on the inside of the deck lid as mine does. i think i got an aluminum hood for free thats perfect. and my hood has the blisters on it so it needs painted either way, might just put the old girl on a little diet and go aluminum

[Mercury93]

The only aluminum hoods came on the Aero-body cars from 1992-1997. They won't fit a later car because the contours are different.

[montyd]

well maybe not then lol. still learning here. does anyone make an aftermarket hood that looks good?