Comfortable, Quiet, Silent - 1971 Mercury Marquis Brougham Twilight Drive

77.18 --> 77.66

So here we are in a night time or twilight drive , the 71 marquee Brome , all the cars I have , I think this one would be the hardest one honestly , for me to give up .

Is it the best style or the one that people are going to gravitate toward the most at car shows ?

Actually , this car does get quite a few looks at car shows , but maybe not .

But in terms of just an overall driving experience sitting in these twin comfort lounge seats and this car only has 18,000 miles on it .

It just is sublime , so quiet .

You know , we're going 50 some miles an hour , just absolutely smooth .

You can see the turn signal there and it's just the most enjoyable ride .

I mean , this is a terrible road that I'm turning onto here with tons of expansion joints and you feel nothing , you hear nothing .

It just doesn't get better than this .

Nothing in the modern day really soaks up these roads like this .

Not even Mercedes or BMW s the tire side walls are so thin now that they can't , this car just has 15 inch rims .

So the side wall .

The tire is enormous but just a wonderful driving machine .

This car does have the 429 2 barrel .

The a premium fuel , high compression has 320 gross horsepower .

The four barrel was 360 gross horsepower and you know it be easy to put a four barrel on .

But I'm telling you this two barrel is very enjoyable .

It actually feels happier than the four barrel for .

You're just driving around town .

And yeah , it does lack a little top end power , but it's no slouch .

This car also does have the cross country ride package , which was the firm ride package .

It was originally from Alberta and I bought it from an owner in Saskatchewan out on the Prairies in Canada , had it shipped to Toronto where I then trailed it across the border and imported it to the US .

So the gentleman's address that I bought it from , there was no address .

Actually , it was a series of meridian coordinates that that was his address .

He was out on the prairies in Saskatchewan .

So obviously it wasn't used very much .

It was owned by a farmer and he drove his truck most of the time and this was just kind of a Sunday car if you will .

And everything on this car is just about perfect .

The interior is perfect .

I mean , steering wheel is perfect and beautiful as a rim blow , you pinch it and it honks with this cross country package .

It actually handles decently well .

And this is an enormous vehicle before we did this platform in 69 made it bigger .

Mercury's gained an inch in wheel base to 124 .

The Fords gained two inches to 121 inch wheel base .

The Lincoln's gained an inch to 127 .

And I think , you know , 71 is just a great year for these cars .

It's a relatively rare year for them .

But these premium 429 S and 460 s were blueprinted balanced .

And you know , the regular fuel 429 S and 460 s that came after them are smooth , but they aren't this smooth this car , if it's tuned correctly , it almost feels like the engine .

I mean , people always say it's so smooth .

The engine doesn't even seem like it's running .

It's absolutely true .

In this car you cannot , you really cannot discern the engines running .

You got to listen really hard before you key the starter again because you risk keying it when it's already running .

And this car fortunately still has the factory single exhaust .

You can't buy exhaust this quiet anymore and it has no holes in it and it's just absolutely silent .

You hear nothing mean all you hear from the engine is kind of a gentle worrying sound .

You don't hear any rumble , nothing , no rumble .

At all inside this car .

I will be sad one day when I have to replace that exhaust .

What do you expect ?

The car is 51 years old now .

Wonderfully cold air conditioning .

It's a cold fall day here , so I don't , don't need it , but something about twilight drives in these cars is just so relaxing .

The green lighting of the instrument , the quietness , the smell in the air .

This brings back great memories .

The smell of the interior , even kind of the 50 year old new car smell that this car still has .

Amazingly is my favorite time to drive .

These just everything is perfect .

The only thing that I could complain about in this car really is , you know , the steering is still slow .

It's a Ford steering gear which they were slow .

I prefer the GM and Chrysler steering gears .

It's not bad though .

It's not horrible .

It's just I think 20 to 1 ratio as opposed to GM , which was an average of around , it was a variable ratio gear , I think 15 to 17 to one or 14 to 17 to one .

Chrysler was 15 to 16 to one .

So this requires more spinning of the wheel .

But aside from that , maybe you detect in some of these forward rear ends , very slight winding at different speeds .

I really have not detected wines in any GM rear differential that I've had .

So , I mean , I'm nitpicking here really did .

But other than that nothing to really complain about .

And this road is terrible and it's barely upsetting the cabin in any case .

I hope you enjoyed this brief video of a twilight drive in the 71 marquee Brome .

I have to say if you get a chance , if you've been watching the channel , you know that Mercury are my favorite .

And I've got a 72 Continental .

This car drives better than the 72 continental .

The Continental has lower miles than this .

That's that the Continental drives poorly .

I just think it's got too much weight , too much wheel base .

You go over some bad roads and you feel a little bit more bumps , still very well isolated .

But this car is just right and the interior trim is so expensive .

The Continental even has hard plastic on the door trim in some places that there's not a piece of hard plastic on this entire door panel in .

This car is very rich and luxurious .

71 2 only .

They would go to the Ford Common dashboard in 73 the door panels weren't quite as nice then any case .

Thanks for watching .

Hope you enjoyed until next time .

Take care .