Driving the Most Comfortable Car Ever Made...The 1973 Mercury Marquis Brougham 460-4V V8

Well , some people gave me a hard time for not taking what I deem to be the most comfortable car ever .

At least one of the most comfortable cars ever for a drive .

So we're going to do that in this video after this little quick walk around to refresh everyone's memory .

This is my 1973 mercury marquee Brome hard top coupe , one of about 25,000 made and finished in Ginger Glamour metallic .

And because it was an extra cost glamour metallic paint , it has those painted wheel covers and yes , there are a number of cars that one could deem comfortable .

A number of people mention CS and yes , they are most certainly comfortable , particularly with their hydro pneumatic suspension .

But this is an affordable classic that normal people can afford to maintain and still get parts for those creds .

You got to find a special mechanic and they're pretty costly , although they are very cool .

I also think the twin comfort lounge seats in this personally are more comfortable than the seats in the cran , albeit the suspensions are great and they in fact , they were so great that Bent Lee and rolls Royce even used them for a number of years .

In any case , let's take this Mercury out for a drive .

Well , here we are in the marquee , bro , going for a little spin .

This car is so comfortable , just makes it a total pleasure to drive absolutely straight on the wheel .

The amazing thing about these , especially compared to the GM cars , even the coops of the era is there's about a foot of distance between here and the roof .

That's it .

It's a pretty gun slit cabin which was typical for the Fords in the air .

If you got the hard top , unless you've got the pillared sedans , they have pretty low roof lines and pretty high belt lines .

It feels much more cramped in and intimate than a GM car of the period or especially the Chrysler fuselages .

I think Chrysler had a mandate that you had to be able to wear a hat driving the car .

I mean , all the roof lines generally were pretty high , maybe aside from a few muscle cars , but the full size cars definitely had quite elevated roof lines that were still very elegant .

This car is a very low roof line and a high belt line , as I mentioned , acceleration .

Yes , this is a 73 .

It's D tuned , it does have the CAM timing gear that's retarded by six degrees .

You have to replace the CAM gear .

You can switch it out with a earlier 70 s set from 71 pick up a little few horsepower , but this one's not lacking in power at all .

I mean , I don't drive this car the 73 S or fours .

You know , to me seem still pretty peppy once you get to 75 6 in particular , those seem a little bit more boggy .

This is a very pleasant driving car .

Plenty of acceleration .

Power goes 80 miles an hour all day long down the freeway , barely touching the pedal .

It's only in the low 200 horsepower but tons of torque and you really drive torque .

So when you step on the accelerator off the line , you really don't have to push much to get it going at a reasonable speed .

Just an overall , very , very , very pleasant driving car .

I think the interior looks still rich .

I mean , are the materials the same as the material is the same as the earlier 70 S cars or the six .

Er , no , but they're still really good .

I mean , this door panel is a nice door panel , these twin comfort lounge seats .

Oh my gosh , you can't get anything like this in a car anymore .

Every car has very hard seats .

Oftentimes many cars have the exact same seat frame , just a little bit different design because it costs so much now to validate seat testing that automakers will use the same seat and everything .

I drove a GMC Denali Yukon rented one and the seat is basically the same as what's in the equinox .

And to me it's very uncomfortable .

You don't get these seats anymore .

With the really long thigh bolsters .

Everybody's trying to skimp and the thigh bolsters in particular , especially if you're a taller person like I am .

They're just not long enough .

You don't get any thigh support and it's really annoying this car .

If you were five ft under five ft five , under five ft six , I don't even know if you could sit in the seat , your legs would have to be stretched out .

The thigh bolster is so long , it's probably too long .

But if you're taller , it's great .

And you know , these don't have a telescoping wheel , but I'm about 61 .

I have the seat quite a ways back and it's really comfortable .

So overall , just great experience , easy to read instruments , same instrument cluster as the board .

A little bit different top pad , a little bit different dash f but very similar .

As I mentioned in the main video .

These cars are super comfortable really .

The only issues that I find with them are the plastic gears and the window motors , the window motors are fine but the torque pins wear out and then you push the button , you hear the motor spinning and nothing happening .

Not a horrible repair .

You got to take the door panel off .

Sometimes you have to drill a few holes to get the motor out but can be done .

Tony Lawler of Tony's Car Care in Van De Illinois .

Tony also has a channel where he shows you how to do it .

I'll put a link to Tony's channel .

It's called Tony's Car Care in the description .

Be sure to check it out and subscribe .

That's one major issue .

The other are the carburetors on these motor craft .

4300 s are just really not good .

But you know , if all else fails , you can just put a different carburetor on Edel Brock or a Holly no issue .

I still run the original ones and most of them , although I will say that if the car came with a Holly or Edel Brock when I bought it , even though they gave me the original , I haven't changed them back .

So that kind of tells you how I feel about them .

These motors you kind of tip in on the throttle and doesn't have a lot of response until you get about a third of the way in .

And then at that point , the power piston starts kicking in and richen the mixture and a lot more throttle response .

But I richen the jets in these by about 2 to 4000 and it really , really helps the part throttle tip in .

They just were jetted very lean from the factory .

And the accelerator pump design is not a great design on these either .

Often they're dead , they don't work .

Sometimes you can get lucky by squirting little W D 40 at the top of the accelerator pump and cycling it a few times while the car is off and bringing it back to life that'll work temporarily .

But you really have to replace the pump cup by taking the top of the carburetor off .

But nonetheless , I mean , usually these cars have really robust air conditioning systems .

This one still works great .

It's just a beautiful day .

So I got the windows down .

The heating systems are great .

They don't make a track systems like this anymore .

Really hot heat gets warm fast .

I mean , this isn't an overly efficient engine so it rejects quite a bit of heat .

Although , you know , people will say this thing passes anything but a gas station , it's really not that bad .

I get , I would say around the around town mileage is not good , probably 8 to 10 MPG .

But on the freeway 14 15 , if I keep it to 70 75 miles an hour , if I keep it to 65 I can get 15 16 considering that this car has a three speed automatic , no lock up , torque converter points .

Ignition carr is totally un aerodynamic .

I mean , that's pretty remarkable .

To be honest .

I really don't think it's that bad .

So in any case , if you find one of these mercury marquee , especially the brome trims for sale , they're hard to find now .

But if you find one highly recommend snatching it up , you're not going to be disappointed .

Thankfully , I bought my fair share of them .

So it's time to spread the word and evangelize and let people know how great these cars are .

Everybody likes the G T Os and Chargers Mustangs and I do too .

But my God , this car is just great .

You get all the creature comforts , power steering , power windows , air conditioning a a track in this case , power seats crazy about mercury .

Thanks for watching and here we are on the freeway with the windows up .

Wonderfully quiet , super comfy , pleasant place to be .

What a great freeway cruiser .

Thanks again for watching .

I've got the air conditioning on .

Nice and cool in here .

This car has been retrofitted and these two piston New York compressor systems seem to respond pretty well to the retrofit .

It's pleasantly cool in here .

The only thing about this car that I wish were a bit different .

You do have this vent blowing at you .

I like air conditioning blowing on my face .

As strange as that sounds this vent you can direct right at you .

It's a little hard to get that one over there .

There's no vent here , but I kind of got an angle just about right so that it also blows on me .

Let's start to mention that .

Thanks for watching this ride along of the 1973 marquee .

Thanks for watching this ride along in the 1973 Mercury marquee , bro .

If you enjoyed it , be sure to like , comment and subscribe as that helps the youtube algorithm serve it up to more viewers like you .

And until next time , check out the video thumbnails at bottom left and right and check out Tony's car care the youtube channel .

If you want to learn more about how to replace the window torque pins in your Ford window motors .

Thanks again for watching .