A first generation Mercury Grand Marquis, seen in south central Beijing in 2015. The big American cruiser was in a fine shape, painted in a very dark shade of blue with a black vinyl top and fitted with the original wire wheels.
The first generation Mercury Grand Marquis was made from 1983 until 1991 with a facelift in 1988, our Beijing car is a post-facelift model. The facelifted Grand Marquis was powered by a properly large 5.8 liter Windsor V8 with an output of 182 hp and 386 Nm. The motor was mated to a 4-speed overdrive automatic, sending horses to the rear wheels.
The Mercury Grand Marquis was never sold in China, and neither was any Mercury, except the oddball illegally assembled Mercury Villagers in the 1990’s. Our Grand Marquis probably arrived in China via diplomatic channels or via the foreign-owned company black-license plate regulations. It was the first and only one I’d ever seen on Chinese roads.
The Grand Marquis name plate on the C-pillar.
The Mercury hails from a time when American sedans were still large and comfortable long distance cruisers, rather than cramped ‘sports’ sedans with way too much horsepower and wings. America never really got back to making this sort of cars. The only exception is probably the 2016 Lincoln Continental. Well, at least Lincoln is still around, the Mercury brand was killed off in 2011, and it seems nobody ever really missed it. A sad end for a once storied name.
The Grand Marquis was a large car, it was 5.4 meters long, almost 2 meters wide, with a wheelbase of 2.9 meters. Most of the length went to the endless bonnet, which stretched way over the front wheels. As with most American cars of the era, the Mercury was loaded with shiny chrome and bling.
The car was parked in front of a Chery office building. I later fond out it was the Chery headquarters for the Beijing Municipality at the time. They have since moved elsewhere but the building is still there.
The Mercury Grand Marquis didn’t have license plates but it clearly was still being used. Back in 2015 it wasn’t as unusual as today to see cars without license plates in Beijing.