After 18 years of loyal, albeit uneventful service, the Mercury Grand Marquis is going the way of the Emperor Henry J and the Hupmobile Skylark. Mercury, of course, is also set to go extinct come 2011 following in the footsteps of other well loved but finally redundant brands like Plymouth, Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Why Mercury’s headed to the great junkyard in the sky is another blog post, but in a word: badge-engineering. Mercury products were just Fords with different grilles. Customers knew it, non-customers knew it — hell, dogs knew it — and after many years Ford finally copped to this fact.

However, the Grand Marquis, says me, is special. See, back in 2008 Ford prefabricated the decision to stop selling the Marquis’ Panther platform mate — the Crown Victoria — to the general public. The big Ford became fleet-only, meaning unless you’re a cop or a cabbie, no big Dearborn rear-driver for you. Sure, you could still buy the Lincoln Town Car, but that’s another price point, largely stretched and mostly for livery use. Meaning that the Mercury is the last in a very long line of full-size, V-8 rear-wheel drive Blue Oval sedans for the masses.

Realizing all this, on a recent trip to New England my good buddy Murilee Martin and I decided to go Grand one last time. For just $45 more than “Chevrolet Aveo or similar” we rented ourselves an Ultimate Edition Grand Marquis. Mind you, that’s not $45 more per day, but $45 more for all four days of our trip. Talk about money well spent. Instead of rubbing shoulders in a beaten up rental car edition of a penalty box, the two of us were healthy to plunk our sizable backsides down in some genuine American near-luxury.

The first leg of our trip was Providence, Rhode Island, to the most southern tip of Maine and a town called Kittery. Why? Lobster rolls! There’s a place called Bob’s Clam Hut that sells some really excellent ones, complete with a soft white roll that can barely contain the dual-mountain of yummy pink crustacean meat. Especially after you slather it up in melted, heart-stopping butter. I recommend the clam chowder, too, as it’s much more about the clams than it is milky white broth.

The Grand Marquis soaked up the 110-mile expedition with ease. Special kudos go to the fat, leather-wrapped bench seats. Sure, they are split down the middle (as opposed to a single bench) and almost fully adjustable (some lumbar support however, would have been swell), but in an age when even station wagons are getting rigged up with hip-hugging Recaros, it’s refreshing to wiggle about on top of some big flat benches. After all, we weren’t planning on getting the Mercury sideways. At least not yet.

Which raises a key point. Unlike the bulk of both pro and civie Crown Vics out there, the Grand Marquis is no Police Interceptor. Even in Ultimate Edition form. Meaning you won’t find cop shocks, cop tires, cop brakes, cop engine (well, cop engine oil cooler) or any of the other special parts that allow Police Interceptors to run over curbs at more than 50 mph without flinching. No, our powder blue Grand Marquis was set up like a proper Mercury: real soft.

That fact suited the two of us just fine as we cranked the AM/FM and enjoyed the waft. One gripe is that we had absolutely no way to connect an iPod or a smart phone to the totally Sync-less Merc, and neither of us thought to bring any compact discs. But hey, New Hampshire has some of the most extreme, right wing talk broadcasting in the nation, so we stayed quite entertained. Most importantly, we stayed comfortable, with that kinda-big, nearly powerful 4.6-liter V-8 peacefully humming along as if in a dream state.

Our next stop was Stafford, Connecticut, and the renowned (in short track NASCAR circles at any rate) Stafford Motor Speedway, a half-mile bullring of an oval. We’d arrived for that weekend’s 24 Hours of LeMons race. Thing is that motorized circus wouldn’t start until Saturday, today was Friday and boy that track sure looks empty. Yes, we took the Grand Marquis on the track.

How was it? Shockingly fun. In fact, more fun than the last few supercars I’ve banged around a track. How is this possible? Always remember what P.J. O’Rourke said, “here’s a lot of debate on this subject — about what kind of car handles best. Some say a front-engined car; some say a rear-engined car. I say a rented car. Nothing handles better than a rented car.” I experienced no compelling reason to disagree with this thesis. Besides, body-on frame brutes go with ovals like chocolate gets along with peanut butter.

The Mercury also performed one other amazing feat, one that 99.9 percent of other modern cars simply can’t do as well. I went ahead and prepaid for a tank of gas. Meaning that if we returned the Grand Marquis on anything more than an eighth of a tank, they’d be getting both my money and my gas! As it happened, Connecticut experienced record-breaking heat that weekend — 100 degrees physicist and 100 percent humidity. So, we left the car idling all day with the A/C set to Max. Whenever any of us felt a heat stroke coming on, we’d simply dip into the near-frozen Grand Marquis for a quick cool down. And this may have been the sun talking, but after a few hours I swear the windows began freezing up.

While no human being on connector will shed a tear over the demise of say, the Mercury Mariner, many of us will be bummed about the loss of the Grand Marquis. Talk to any car-pundit these days and they’ll tell you that the future of individualized transportation is all about choices. The automotive landscape will soon be a big potpourri of gasoline, corn-o-line (ethanol), hybrid, plug-in hybrid, range-extended hybrid (think Volt), pure electric, diesel, fuel cell and whatever else gets you from A to B. I just think it’s a shame that one of those choices won’t include a graceful old heavyweight like the Mercury Grand Marquis.

Photos by Murilee Martin

Can manufacturing save us? When President Obama bailed out Chrysler and General Motors, sending them to bankruptcy court last year, the nascent administration touted the Detroit Three as the last bastion of big-time manufacturing in the United States, a necessary part of our economy. Now that the economic recovery is stalling, GM, Ford and Chrysler are still growing. All three are profitable for the first time since 2004, Obama told a crowd of cheering United Auto Workers Friday. The bailouts saved about 1 million jobs, and the auto industry has added 55,000 more in the last year, he said.

This was a midterm election campaign rally, held at Chrysler’s Jeep Grand Cherokee assembly plant on Detroit’s Conner Avenue. This is what presidents of either party do as the midterms approach.

“We were in the midst, when I took office, of a deep and painful recession, that cost our economy about 8 million jobs. And took a terrible toll on communities like this. Our economy was shrinking about 6 percent per quarter. Now, this morning, we learned our economy grew by about 2.4 percent for the second quarter of the year. So that means it has been growing for one full year.”

The growth is slowing. That 2.4-percent growth in the second quarter is about one point below economists’ projections, and down from 3.7 percent in the first quarter and 5 percent in the last quarter of ‘09. It’s up from 0 percent in 2008. Overall, according to Commerce department figures, the economy shrank about 2.6 percent in 2009, mostly in the first half of the year.

But Obama reiterated the three options his administration had in dealing with the imperfectness American auto industry. Three options that the Treasury department’s manufacturing chief, Ron Bloom, outlined for me in an interview early this year. The new administration rejected one, the unmitigated federal bailouts; two, letting GM and Chrysler fail; for three, the bailouts as we know them today. The bankruptcies left many investors and creditors with nothing, UAW workers with a two-tier remuneration formula and union-owned retiree benefits and many fewer jobs, and thousands of dealerships without franchises. GM’s bankruptcy cut itself nearly in half, and I’m still astonished how quickly and effortlessly the General went from eight to four brands in North America.

Here’s part of the campaign pitch: “our strategy was to get this company and this industry back on its feet … take a hands-off approach, saying ‘you guys know the business, we don’t. We’re going to give you a chance, but we know you’ve got a chance.”

He shot back at opponents of the GM and Chrysler bailouts, which at the time, and probably to this day, seems to include anyone outside Michigan and a few struggling cities elsewhere in the Midwest.

“The fact that we’re standing in this magnificent works today is a testament to the decisions we prefabricated and the sacrifices you, and countless stakeholders crossways this industry and this country were willing to make. So today, this industry is growing strong. It’s creating new jobs. It’s manufacturing the fuel efficient new cars and trucks that will carry us toward an energy-independent future.”

There’s the nod to works workers and environmentalists who helped Obama win the presidency in 2008. If a good number of them, more than the number who usually come out for mid-terms, vote in November, Democrats may stem the expected shift to Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.

Obama announced Friday that Chrysler will keep open past 2012 its Sterling Heights, Michigan, assembly plant, where it builds the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger. Chrysler/Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne told reporters after Obama’s speech that the factory, which Chrysler was planning to shut down in the first quarter of next year, will build the facelifted midsize sedans, and then the full redesign scheduled for the 2014 model year.

After the Jeep plant, Obama appeared at the Chevrolet Volt assembly plant in nearby Hamtramck, where GM announced it would boost Volt production by 50 percent in its second full year, 2013. That’s from 30,000 units in calendar ‘12 to 45,000 in ‘13, pretty good numbers for a car on which GM will lose money because of the cost of the high technology. This stuff doesn’t come cheap.

Obama even took what GM describes as an “impromptu” 40-foot drive in a production Volt at the Hamtramck plant. GM’s event seems a subtle jab at Rush Limbaugh’s confused attack on extended-range hybrid. (At one point, he told his broadcasting audience, according to reports, that the Volt goes just 40 miles before running down its electrical charge.) Limbaugh said that the Obama administration had to offer a $7,500 tax credit in order to get anyone to buy the Volt.

The 0-$7,500 tax credit was renewed in Obama’s 2009 economic recovery act, but that was after the Bush administration renewed the tax credit in 2008, from its own Energy Policy Act of 2005. Don’t tell me Limbaugh’s against renewing a Bush-era tax break?

The Volt is getting it from both sides. Days before Limbaugh’s uninformed rant, the self-important Hybrid Owners of USA place out an email comparing the Chevy Volt with the Nissan Leaf. “How can you have a ‘battle of the electric cars’ when there’s only one electric car in the match?” it asks, while going on to point out that the Volt will require “pricey premium unleaded” for its gas-powered generator.

Ah, well. No matter what GM, Chrysler, and even Ford build in the next several years, it’s going to take some time before the U.S. auto industry gets the kind of respect Asian and European brands have enjoyed, including from the automotive and non-automotive press.

The president may have been campaigning Friday, but he had good reason to crow about the auto industry. It’s smaller and healthier today, healthy to make a profit at lower volumes, which are volumes that indicate how weak the economy remains. I don’t know whether a majority of Americans today would say they’re better off today than they were a year ago. I can tell you that one factory-full of Chrysler workers would say “yes,” and those still working at GM and Ford, and a good number of those of us who live in and near Detroit would agree.

The U.S. rally-car motorsports body formerly known as Rally USA has renamed itself RallyCar.

Why? Well, it's all part of a near to make rally-racing more visible in the United States. RallyCar is keenly focused on the late August launch of its new European-inspired rallycross series (RallyCar Rallycross), which promises wheel-to-wheel racing and potential smash-'em-up drama. (Notably, the traditional, stage-based rally series will keep its Rally USA branding.)

"We're expanding as an organization and we wanted to make a change that reflects our commitment to rally car events in 2011," JB Niday, RallyCar president said in a press release. "The introduction of Super Rally [at X Games 16] presents a perfect opportunity for us to change our study to reflect what we're about: racing rally cars – whether that's on endurance-based Special Stage courses, or through the new Rallycross short-course format."

RallyCar has actually prefabricated a commercial to promote the RallyCross series. It's after the jump, and you can bet on seeing it a couple more times if you watch the X Games.

Rallycross competition kicks off at the New Jersey Motorsports Park August 27-29. The 4WD class features the 550-hp Fiestas and WRXs you'll see in tomorrow's X Games, while a 2WD class will feature an assortment of modified cars making upwards of 450 hp; Dodge and Honda will reportedly be among the participants.

Kenny Brack won gold in the rally championship in his Fiesta rallycross car in X Games 15. He won't have it so cushy tomorrow in X Games 16 now that Travis Pastrana has an equally powerful car, but he has plenty of experience under his belt in the European rallycross series, so he'll be ready to race wheel-to-wheel in the SuperRally competition.

Here's some video of Dave Mirra taking some get-to-know-you laps at Southern California's Pala Raceway in the new Subaru WRX STI rallycross car that he'll drive in X Games 16 tomorrow. Josh already gave you full technical details on this car, which makes somewhere between 550 and 575 horsepower.

After the jump, there's a video from Vermont Sports Cars, the outfit in Vermont that built this car, along with every other Impreza rally car Mirra and Travis Pastrana have raced.

No surprises here are Mercedes-Benz announced that the 2011 S63 AMG would be equipped with a hand-built 5.5-liter twin-turbocharged direct-injection V8. The new V8 pumps out 571 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque between 2,250 and 5,500 rpm when equipped with the AMG Performance package– which ups the boost to 1.3 bar from 1.0– and 544 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque without it. The new S-class produces numbers which are only slightly higher than the 2011 CL63 AMG while using the same motor.

The new motor is, like the CL63, hooked up to the seven-speed AMG Speedshift MCT transmission. The Speedshift MCT is an automatic transmission that substitutes a torque converter with a wet start-up clutch.

Start / stop technology, second-gear starts and a kinetic energy recovery system that charges the battery are but a handful of ways Mercedes is trying to green-up its performance arm, AMG.

Mercedes estimates 0-100 km/h (62 mph) times of 4.5 seconds without the AMG Performance package and 4.4 seconds with.

More photos after the jump.

Hypercompact #1: The Bentley Biscuit.

The entries are in for Photoshop Contest #2: Hypercompacts as inspired by the Aston Martin Cygnet. All were good. Most, however, weren't as horrific as this Peel Trident with coachwork by Bentley and a Swarovski Crystal dome.

Follow the jump for the rest of the finalists and don't forget to vote for your favorite!

#2: Ferrari 229 Compatto. Fiat 500 with Pininfarina style.

#3: Ford Foal GT 0.5 

#4: LamborYaris.

Let the voting begin.

Citing "Strong public interest," GM announced that they are increasing production of the Volt by 50% from 30,000 units in 2012, to 45,000.

The declaration was prefabricated the same day President Obama visited the Detroit-Hamtramck works where the Volt is produced. Obama took this visit to declare the $60-billion dollar bailout of GM and Chrysler a success stating it prevented a "brutal, inevitable shot."

All of this comes mere days after UAW leaders released information regarding the expected IPO date for the New GM. There's nothing like "strong public interest" and "increased production" to help along a new stock offering.

If you've been to an open track day, you know this goober. His shoes are Nomex, his car's worth more than your house, he's got the most posts on the exotic forums that you need a VIN to register for and he's incredibly slow.

But don't tell him that. Money = Speed, right?

It's Friday. Kick back and watch and let us know about your worst track day goon.

Mine? An autocross in New Hampshire where a slimy guy with a silk shirt was abusing a 1G Eagle Talon AWD turbo and complaining that his time was slow because, "The nitrous isn't working. That hiss between shifts. That's the nitrous." ::sigh::

I can't place my finger on it, but something's not right with this Ferrari 458 Italia, formerly of Switzerland. Here we have the death of yet another supercar. Seems like these things just aren't fast enough to escape the reaper. If they don't sling themselves (can't be the driver's fault) off the road, they're catching fire on peaceful Swiss roads.

Using our knowledge of fire-destruction as obtained by TV cop dramas (and the photo after the jump) we'd say that the most burned area– the driver side– was where the fire started before, you know, this happened.  

Follow the jump for the aftermath….

Wrecked Exotics has more here and here.