This post is written primarily for people who are considering buying a Marauder and come here for insight about the car, but those of you who already own the car might be interested in my comments.
I've had my 2004 Silver Birch Marauder about 6 weeks now and have some observations about the car.
I'll start by saying that I never expected to enjoy a 4 door sedan as much as I do this one. I've driven every sedan desirable to people like us, foreign or domestic, and can afford anything from a Crown Vic to a Jag XJR. The Marauder is just simply the most interesting 4 door sedan available today short of the Maserati Quattroporte, and there's about $65,000 difference between them. Everything else between them is irrelevant in terms of emotion and exclusivity. I know this is a bold statement, but you have to understand I live in Los Angeles. BMW 7 series and Mercedes AMGs are beside me on the freeways each and every trip to anywhere. Hell, I see test cars and prototypes of coming models more often than I see another Marauder. Audis disappear blandly into the crowd. Infinitis, Acuras, Lexi -- please don't even try to make the case there is anything interesting to own there. The most interesting Infiniti sedan is the one most like the Marauder and least-liked by auto writers -- the M45. The Cadillac CTS-v will be an exception to the bland uniformity of performance sedans prevailing in the $30k - $95K price range. Against this backdrop of luxury sedans bought for poseur purposes, the Marauder offers crisp and serious performance, what-was-that? exclusivity, old-school automotive emotion and classic sedan proportions. Sure we always want more power from the factory, but the only thing I'd really love from the factory is a little more sway bar and a 6 speed manual instead of a slushbox. And I wish it has the Mustang steering wheel because then I could install the FRP FR500 wheel to get a nice thick perf-leather grip. Would I have paid more for an SVT-style supercharger setup? In a hearbeat. But what we have is outstanding in every way.
The Marauder is one of those cars that when you drive it, you have to wonder if auto reviewers -- even those solidly in the domain like staff at Car & Driver or Road & Track -- know anything at all about automobiles. We have a 4100 pound ultra-safe large sedan with hp and torque numbers over 300, that runs in the 14s right out of the box and is an under 7 second car in any competent driver's hands. It won't be too hard to put it in the 6s or even high 5s. Its suspension is so well sorted out that even the old-school solid rear axle can make you forget anyone ever bothered to engineer independent rear suspensions for rear-drive cars. Steering is communicative in its own vocabulary once you understand its feel. With hydroformed frame rails this chassis is stiff. It has rack & pinion steering and a sophisticated front-end and a modern aluminum multi-valve 4 cam motor.
I am not a stranger to meaty-motored cars. I have chosen to put American iron in my garage for the past decade. Everyone here has to understand that most people are "brand ****ies" when it comes to buying cars. They don't have the personal confidence to consider or own a car that is undeclarative of what they've accomplished or want to accomplish in life. Most people are sheep about this sort of thing and simply want to be perceived as belonging to a group they aspire to join. Lexus did an outstanding job of synthesizing a brand from a standing start. BMW has aligned itself with intellectual arrogance for close to 30 years with its "Ultimate Driving Machine" positioning. Porsche has evolved a flawed and highly idiosyncratic design into a proposition that persuades some people who should know better that it is "the best car on the planet, bar none" as I read again recently. Now some of these cars are bought by an enthusiast core popultion that knows what they are buying, but most Porsche/BMW/AMG/Audi/Lexus owners don't fall in that category. So of course, don't expect to buy a Marauder and have people infer from your choice that you are wealthy, glib, smart, highly educated, or in any other way discriminating just like they perceive themselves to be. But if you have any sense of inner-directedness and imagination about expressing yourself through the major purchases in your life, then the Marauder will do just fine in the 4 door sedan category.
I have had the Ford aluminum 4V DOHC V8 engine architecture 3 times now -- as the Intech motor in a '97 Lincoln LSC, as the SVT Cobra motor in my '96 I still own, and now in the Marauder. Different configurations of the same 4.6L architecture but easily identifiable as being different grades of the same design. Frankly, I love these motors. No, they don't have the same instant-on creamy torque of my Corvette LT4 but they are quite strong in their own right, and midrange to high rpm performance is free-breathing, smooth and seamless. They sing too, pouring polished music out of the tailpipes. Oh yeah, you can make this motor sound rumbly and intimidating with some aftermarket attention, but I think the the factory has it right on the SVT cars, the Mach 1 and the Marauder. They aren't supposed to sound like pushrod V8s. They have their own distinct note, as different from a Ford 302 or 351 as a Ferrari is from a Ford GT. (continued)...