So i figured i might as well start a project/progress/build thread here, since i haven't really been very active here.
The car is a 2003 Mercury Grand Marquis LS Ultimate, i bought it on October 17th 2012 with ~75,000 miles for $6500. It was completely stock and mint, definitely the little old lady car. It didn't take very long before i started to mod it, the first mods i did were Plasti-dipping the grill and rear reflector
It stayed like that for a while. I also installed a new stereo, Pioneer head unit, Infinity reference amp, Infinity Kappa speakers, Polk 12" sub and Pioneer mono block, for how cheap this system is(about $600) it sounds amazing.
Then when i was in Chicago for business i met up with a member of CVN, and traded my stock rims w/ snow tires for some 17" Mustang split 5 spokes. i was very impressed by the difference they made in the handling and steering response. At about this time i also bought a K&N cold air kit, 75MM throttle body and ported plenum. Putting those on made a noticeable improvement in throttle response, and the sound of the K&N is AWESOME!!
As you can tell up till this point i had just been taking these pics in my driveway, no real creativity/artsyness to them. Well one day i decided to try out actually taking a semi photo shoot of her. I don't think these turned out too bad for a first time, even my brother(who IS a professional photographer) thinks they're decent. Also at this time i did the Marauder treatment to the headlights.
So at this point i was starting to get a little board with it and contemplated selling it, but EVERY car that i was interested in was sold by the time i could go and look at it. So i took that as a sign and decided to just keep her, and put a little more time/money into her. so i got rid of the Plasti-dip in favor of color matching the grill and reflector, got a set a FREE! 16" steelies repainted and put on snow tires, bought some Marauder corner lights, tinted the tail lights and tinted the back doors 5% and the front doors 35%(tried doing the rear glass but every time i did it turned out like crap). Again i tried to do a "photo shoot", i think this one came out a little better than the first, i feel that the lighting was better
Doing all of that in the span of a weekend really re-ignited my love for her, i was begging to feel a real attachment to this car, i couldn't sell her now! Also at this time marked 1 year of owning her, which is the single longest i have owned a car(I've been through 17 cars in under 5 years….. don't judge me!) Then in March this happened,
I was working(delivering pizza), driving down a street, and this guy backed out of his driveway right into me. Cops came, issued him a ticket for failing to yield. Of course i filled a claim, the shops i took it to all quoted around $3500. She spent about 10 days in the shop, and surprisingly they didn't have a problem putting Marauder parts(headlight, turn signal) on instead of Grand Marquis ones. They even painted the grill to match, i didn't even ask them to do that. I should have asked if they could do a Marauder bumper too, lol.
So now that brings us right to today. Of course i still have her, and i have done a few more things to her since then. Bought a Marauder trunk panel(still need to paint it), A set of Marauder rims with 255/45-18 Sumitomo summer tires, and had the tint professionally redone, this time i did 5% on back doors and back glass, and 20% up front, Mach 1 chin spoiler, And a set of Ebay LED tail lights. I also tried to remove the pin stripe but that didn't go so well.
This last set aren't as good because i think my camera is messed up, the left side of all the pics is blurry but right side is fine.
Well i think I've made this long enough, lol. Please let me know what you think, and thanks for sitting through all of that
The car is a 2003 Mercury Grand Marquis LS Ultimate, i bought it on October 17th 2012 with ~75,000 miles for $6500. It was completely stock and mint, definitely the little old lady car. It didn't take very long before i started to mod it, the first mods i did were Plasti-dipping the grill and rear reflector
It stayed like that for a while. I also installed a new stereo, Pioneer head unit, Infinity reference amp, Infinity Kappa speakers, Polk 12" sub and Pioneer mono block, for how cheap this system is(about $600) it sounds amazing.
Then when i was in Chicago for business i met up with a member of CVN, and traded my stock rims w/ snow tires for some 17" Mustang split 5 spokes. i was very impressed by the difference they made in the handling and steering response. At about this time i also bought a K&N cold air kit, 75MM throttle body and ported plenum. Putting those on made a noticeable improvement in throttle response, and the sound of the K&N is AWESOME!!
As you can tell up till this point i had just been taking these pics in my driveway, no real creativity/artsyness to them. Well one day i decided to try out actually taking a semi photo shoot of her. I don't think these turned out too bad for a first time, even my brother(who IS a professional photographer) thinks they're decent. Also at this time i did the Marauder treatment to the headlights.
So at this point i was starting to get a little board with it and contemplated selling it, but EVERY car that i was interested in was sold by the time i could go and look at it. So i took that as a sign and decided to just keep her, and put a little more time/money into her. so i got rid of the Plasti-dip in favor of color matching the grill and reflector, got a set a FREE! 16" steelies repainted and put on snow tires, bought some Marauder corner lights, tinted the tail lights and tinted the back doors 5% and the front doors 35%(tried doing the rear glass but every time i did it turned out like crap). Again i tried to do a "photo shoot", i think this one came out a little better than the first, i feel that the lighting was better
Doing all of that in the span of a weekend really re-ignited my love for her, i was begging to feel a real attachment to this car, i couldn't sell her now! Also at this time marked 1 year of owning her, which is the single longest i have owned a car(I've been through 17 cars in under 5 years….. don't judge me!) Then in March this happened,
I was working(delivering pizza), driving down a street, and this guy backed out of his driveway right into me. Cops came, issued him a ticket for failing to yield. Of course i filled a claim, the shops i took it to all quoted around $3500. She spent about 10 days in the shop, and surprisingly they didn't have a problem putting Marauder parts(headlight, turn signal) on instead of Grand Marquis ones. They even painted the grill to match, i didn't even ask them to do that. I should have asked if they could do a Marauder bumper too, lol.
So now that brings us right to today. Of course i still have her, and i have done a few more things to her since then. Bought a Marauder trunk panel(still need to paint it), A set of Marauder rims with 255/45-18 Sumitomo summer tires, and had the tint professionally redone, this time i did 5% on back doors and back glass, and 20% up front, Mach 1 chin spoiler, And a set of Ebay LED tail lights. I also tried to remove the pin stripe but that didn't go so well.
This last set aren't as good because i think my camera is messed up, the left side of all the pics is blurry but right side is fine.
Well i think I've made this long enough, lol. Please let me know what you think, and thanks for sitting through all of that
Comment