New 2003-2004 Mercury Marauder

The new Mercury Marauder takes its name from the big Mercury muscle cars of the 1960s, but its true spiritual ancestors are two black Mercury sedans that starred with Jack Lord in the long-running television series Hawaii Five-O. Lord portrayed the granite-jawed Steve McGarrett, head of Hawaii's elite Five-O police unit, his demeanor cop-show tough, his hair a perfect North Shore wave, his car no standard police-issue Ford Custom 500 or LTD but a big black Mercury in which he stormed around Oahu.

"Steve McGarrett's car is as much a character in the series as any of the people." So claims Karen Rhodes in Booking Hawaii Five-O, the best and as far as we know, the only scholarly tome on the cop show. "The big, black Mercury sets a tone of power and intimidation," she continues. "Steve is . . . tough and threatening on his own, but the black Mercury adds a further dimension of strength, even a sinister darkness, to McGarrett." That's some pretty impressive work for a '68 Park Lane and, later, a '74 Marquis, either of which, off-screen, might have been driven by your grandfather.

Twenty-two years after McGarrett screeched his big black sedan to a stop for the last time, Mercury has served up a machine perfectly suited to the marque's most telegenic enthusiast. The Marauder is a badass cop car with some major attitude.

The reborn Marauder first appeared not in Honolulu but in Las Vegas, as a concept car at the 1998 SEMA show. Considering what populates the miles of aisles at SEMA--wildly winged Honda Civics with hyperkinetic paint jobs, slammed SUVs on huge chrome wheels, bikini-clad babes stroking shock absorbers--Mercury's Grand Marquis in Darth Vader livery garnered a surprising amount of attention.

Now that it's here, the real thing looks virtually identical to that concept, with black paint, a blacked-out grille, most of the chrome trim removed, foglamps, and straight-spoked chrome wheels (eighteen-inchers all around, compared with the show car's seventeens up front and eighteens at the rear). The big wheels wear BFGoodrich g-Force T/A tires, size 235/WR50-18 in front and 245/WR55-18 in back.

Inside, in place of the Grand Marquis's bench front seat, we find buckets, a center console, and a floor shift for the four-speed automatic. The driver's seat is comfortable enough for an all-night stakeout, but when you're on the move, the driving position suffers for lack of a dead pedal.

In an obvious nod to hot rodders, the console houses Auto Meter oil pressure and voltmeter gauges; their white faces are echoed in the dash gauges (which include a tach). Aluminum-look accents replace the Grand Marquis's wood, and the upholstery is a sober gray leather. One back-to-the-'60s touch is the Mercury-head logo (from the Roman messenger of the gods) embossed in the seatbacks; it's also in the wheel centers.

Come this fall, the interior will be fancied up some more, with a two-tone gray color scheme, heated seats, and a sunroof. Traction control and a second exterior color, dark blue, also will be added.

The production Marauder differs from the concept car under the hood. The Vegas show car featured a supercharged, SOHC, 4.6-liter V-8 with an iron block, two valves per cylinder, and an advertised output of 335 horsepower and 355 pound-feet of torque. The production car does without the blower and instead employs a DOHC, 32-valve version of the 4.6 with an aluminum block and heads. Roush Performance helped out along the way, notably in the development of a new intake manifold and the dual exhaust system. The net result is 302 horsepower (at 5750 rpm) and 318 pound-feet of torque (at 4300 rpm). That falls short of the concept Marauder's supercharged engine but handily betters the Grand Marquis's top V-8, which can muster only 235 horsepower and 275 pound-feet of torque.

New 2004 Mazda RX-8 Four Seasons Test

Our year with the Mazda RX-8 was like spending time with young children: deeply rewarding most of the time but occasionally very frustrating and annoying.

Let's get the bad part out of the way first. The RX-8 is the first U.S.-market car to usea Wankel rotary engine since the Mazda RX-7 departed our shores after 1995. The rotary has a number of advantages over a reciprocating engine-notably its compactness, its simplicity, and the lack of moving parts that allows it to rev higher. But as with most things in life, you don't get something for nothing, and there are also a number of problems with rotary engines. First, they aren't very thermally efficient, which means they're thirsty for petrochemical products. We found the RX-8 guzzled premium gasoline at a rate of 19 mpg during its 34,305 miles with us.

Rotary engines also like to consume oil, because they use this particular hydrocarbon to lubricate rotor seals on a total-loss basis. The manual warns owners that they will need to check the oil level every couple of fill-ups, but it's odd to have to do that in this day and age-it reminded us of owning an old British sports car. It's not as if Mazda makes the task easy, either, as senior editor Joe Lorio observed: "For a car that needs such close monitoring of its oil level, its dipstick sure is buried. And should you actually need to add a quart of oil, you must first remove the engine cover. Now, that's convenient."

We probably wouldn't have cared too much about the RX-8's sheik-friendly ways, except that there was another problem. The car didn't like cold mornings. We're not fans of them, either, but we don't lie down and give up when the thermometer drops. We had to call Mazda's roadside assistance no fewer than three times when the rotary failed to start in winter. Jump-starting it worked once, but twice it was hauled away to our local dealer on a flatbed. Online editor Mike Dushane, savvy about the RX-8's aversion to the cold, parked it facing downhill so he could push-start it, which came in handy once.

It transpires that the Renesis 13B rotary is prone to flooding if you fire it up and then shut it down before it gets up to operating temperature. The RX-8's manual specifically states that you should warm up the engine in really cold weather-0 degree Fahrenheit or lower-and use minimal throttle for starting. Once the engine is flooded, Mazda advises flooring the gas (which shuts off the fuel pump) or using no throttle at all.That sounds fine in theory, but in practice, our car just didn't respond to those wiles. One really cold afternoon, the car stalled when the traction control cut in while we were reversing out of a snowy driveway. We tried everything to restart the car, but it wouldn't fire up. To exacerbate the annoyance, getting to the battery terminals was a giant pain in the fingers, thanks to the aforementioned cover that must be removed for access to anything on the engine.

The starting problem wasn't unique to our car, as both Mazda and Internet chat rooms acknowledge. Mazda says that, weirdly, only some cars have been affected by cold-starting woes, which the company has partially redressed by changing the spark plugs and retrofitting batteries with more cranking power.

Our RX-8 also spent plenty of time at the dealership because of numerous check-engine-light issues, including a stuck thermostat, a wiring problem with the stability control switch, and a catalytic converter that died because its shield had failed. We also had to replace warped front brake rotors at 12,156 miles, which the warranty covered.

It was a shame the car let us down so often, because it is otherwise a terrific package and felt as solid at the end of 34,000 hard miles as it did when it was delivered.

The RX-8's unique selling proposition-that it's a four-door sports car-is certainly one of its most appealing features. The short suicide doors provide far better access to the rear seats than sliding the front seats forward in a conventional two-plus-two coupe. The rear seats are excellent for small kids and acceptable for adults on short trips. "During a weekend of wandering around Michigan," noted Web intern Stuart Fowle, "there were no complaints from my back-seat passengers about the space."