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 2003 Mercedes-Benz G500

Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier, Qubec-- The Ice Hotel first manifested its strange power well before my stay there, when my wife awoke from her night's sleep, waking me, too, and said, "I dreamed I was at the Ice Hotel." I asked what she'd done there. "I went to the bar for a drink." My Mormon wife never boozes, but the concept of vodka served in vessels of ice kind of grabs you.

So I began to wonder what I would dream when at last I slept in the Ice Hotel. My premonition, weirdly logical, was of being encased in amber. This did not deter me. In fact, I could hardly wait to go to Qubec because of the Ice Hotel's allure and because I would be driving the towering and indomitable Mercedes-Benz G500, the famous Gelndewagen, available at last in our market. Every element of the plan suggested adventure tinged with self-indulgence and mystery.

Even in advance of her dream, my warmblooded wife had declined the invitation to accompany me, but research assistant Reilly Brennan volunteered to come along. We would rendezvous with the photo team in Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier, a place much smaller than its name, lying northwest of Qubec, the provincial capital. And so, one day before sunrise, we climbed up and up into the G500 and blazed eastward across Ontario, led by the three-pointed morning star on the grille. (By my count, the constellation of three-pointed stars on board totaled nine fixed members.) When we climbed out for gas, which happened quite often, the people of Canada managed to hide their disappointment at learning we were not hip-hop stars, drug lords, or professional linebackers. Since the moment the G500 had gone on sale six weeks before, about a quarter of the 2000 units Mercedes hoped to sell this year had already moved. "It's the rapper's vehicle du jour," my editor told me. If so, then rappers have discovered the need for an ultra-luxury brute-ute equipped with three locking differentials and willing and able to climb a 58-percent grade.

At the second fueling, at a Napanee, Ontario, truck stop, I mistakenly grabbed the diesel nozzle. The G500 makes its 292 horsepower--and its soulful baritone tremolo--with premium unleaded, thank you, and I caught the error straightaway; nevertheless, this incident would come back to haunt me. Meanwhile, as I pumped 72.7 liters (19.2 gallons) into the tank for $45 Canadian, the guy at the next island sang out the G500's praises. "It's beautiful," he said in Hockey Voice, the oddly inflected and rather heavily cadenced English of Ontario. "Kinda looks like a Hummer." Someone else would say this later. To respond that the G-class antedates the Hummer was a waste of my precious breath, which needed to be saved for future shivering. A Hummer? No, no, the G500 looks like a NATO ambulance.

When we crossed through Montral, a French news station gave the day's stock prices, and the traffic reporter told of a truck that had discharged its load just ahead. We arrived at the Ice Hotel three hours later, well after dark. We saw construction equipment, a pole supporting floodlights, and a confusing array of tent-shaped barracks made of snow. I fancied that I had arrived at Prudhoe Bay or maybe the South Pole research station. The strange spiritual power, so strongly registered at home, barely nudged the needle now.

This initial sense of anticlimax was dispelled as soon as we entered the hotel, passing through a portal in a wall of beautiful ice blocks and finding ourselves in a salon with floor and walls of snow and splendid ice carvings everywhere we turned. One massive sculpture of flowing abstract shapes included the detailed representation of an Inuit hunter with a seal across his kayak's bow. Hanging from the cathedral ceiling was a classic-looking chandelier, also of ice, glowing pink, then blue, then white because of integrated fiber-optic lines. Whenever we expressed our wonder, the drifting vapor clouds carried farther from our lips than our voices did.

Just ahead was another rectangular opening; I am five feet, eight inches tall and could barely get through. This room was the theater, with snow formed into four broad steps and deerskins spread for lolling viewers. I was more curious about the wedding chapel, entered from the passageway between the welcome salon and the bar. (A chapel and bar together!) Built in the traditional cross shape, it had pews of pure ice. There was an altar and a pulpit--always of ice; all the Ice Hotel's furniture was fashioned from blocks of ice--but instead of a crucifix in this province with every other place named for les saints, I found on the wall an eight-pointed New Age star. Or was it a snowflake?

New 2003 Mercedes-Benz CLK500

If every moment you spend in a car needs to be a screamer, buy a BMW. But if you are inclined to appreciate the many other subtleties of fine motoring, you'll find the new Mercedes-Benz CLK500 to be a real sweetheart.

We are pleased to say the pillarless hardtop CLK looks better in person than we were led to believe; it's not as fluffy as pictures had indicated. The hood dips dramatically between twin bulges that open into a robust collection of headlamps (Bi-xenon are a must-have option), and the ubiquitous three-pointed star has dropped from hoodtop to mid-grille.

The interior sports a higher level of cush than your basic Spartan Bimmer, with puckered-leather door inserts, vents and gauges ringed in chrome, and flared chrome that sweeps across the glovebox and the burl walnut door trim panels.

Instrumentation is black and white; the speedo, tachometer, and clock are all round and boldly numbered, and auxiliary instruments are vertically hashed. The air bag housing in the center of the steering wheel is smaller than usual, and four big oval thumbpads offer remote control of the radio and telephone.

The CLK seats fit snugly, and we can say that, as luxurious as you would describe its ride, the CLK is far from a mere luxo-barge. Our morning commute includes a nicely cambered set of turns that the CLK flew through neatly, with not a bobble or sidestep. We have emerged faster in Porsches and Bimmers from that section of road, but we didn't miss the extra exit speed once we saw the county sheriff parked in the weeds aimed directly at our driver's license. He pulled behind us, ruining the fun for another five miles, but eventually gave up and let us have our head for the rest of the drive.

This sounds a little stupid, but we also had a fun time this weekend showing off the CLK's bag of little tricks. It's been a long time since a car's features have so cracked us up that we've wanted to tug on people's sleeves and say, 'You have got to check this out!"

So it is with M-B's Keyless Go, which works like this: You walk up to the locked CLK with the key still parked in your pocket and you pull open the securely locked door— a wonderful bonus when your arms are full of groceries. You jump in (key still in pocket), put your foot on the brake, and press the button on top of the shifter, and the 302-hp, 5.0-liter V-8 (a 212-hp, 3.2-liter V-6 is standard) roars to life. Shift back in Park, press the button on top again, and the CLK shuts down. Hop out, press the tiny square on the outside of the door handle, and the CLK is locked up tight once again. Great party trick, along with demos of the dash-controlled rear-window sunshade and the seatbelt presenter—a robot arm that pops out to hand you your shoulder harness when you get in either front seat.

Our test car's options also included Distronic cruise control which automatically keeps you at a safe distance from the car in front despite your speed setting. We had it set at 80 mph, marked on the speedo by a small glowing hash mark, and it slowed almost imperceptibly to 65—like a squeeze of the brakes—as we neared a bulge in the traffic. A couple more hash marks popped up on the speedo to show the adjustment. Once the traffic cleared, the CLK took itself back to 80 mph.