This Couple Is Selling A Mint Condition 2. Mercury Marauder With 6. Miles. Doug and Roberta have never driven their 2. Mercury Marauder on public roads. They flat bedded it from the dealership in July of 2. Now the car is for sale, meaning someone out there can buy what looks like a brand spankin new, V8, body on frame, rear wheel drive old school American sedan. The couple first laid eyes on Mercurys muscle sedan at the 2. Detroit Auto Show, and immediately fell in love. They contacted their local dealer, and asked to be put on the list after about six months, that dealer called Doug and Roberta back, telling them Mercury Marauders were finally rolling off the assembly line, and that their car would be ready for pickup within a week. After remembering which vehicle the dealer was talking about they had forgotten, the two asked Crest Lincoln Mercury of Sterling Heights, Michigan not to remove any of the protective plastics, or to prep the car at all. Doug and Roberta wanted the vehicle just as it came from the factory. To them, it was an investment. So on July 3, 2. 00. Doug picked up the car from the dealership, drove it onto a flatbed, and took it home to Imlay City, Michigan to store in a garage. Doug and Roberta have never driven their 2003 Mercury Marauder on public roads. They flatbedded it from the dealership in July of 2002, and stored it in a heated. Kilauea Mount Etna Mount Yasur Mount Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira Piton de la Fournaise Erta Ale. Issuu is a digital publishing platform that makes it simple to publish magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. Easily share your publications and get. In recent weeks, a story about experimental Facebook machine learning research has been circulating with increasingly panicky, Skynetesque headlines. D1 Spec Turbo Timer Install Civic' title='D1 Spec Turbo Timer Install Civic' />The detached garage is heated, and the floor under the car is covered with a tarp. The Mercury has sat in the very same spoteven facing the same directionsince that summer day back in 2. The only reason why the car currently has 6. Doug claims, are from him simply driving the car on blocks. Doug says the reason why he drove the car with its rear wheels spinning in the air is that he wanted to ensure that the transmission and rear differential received proper lubrication most likely to prevent corrosion and to avoid cracked seals. He says, with the car up on jacks, he used to periodically move the shifter through all of its gears, and also let the engine lubricate itself as he drove without actually moving. Because some of you readers are nerds, Ive done some back of envelope calculations on what itd take for Doug to put 5. If we assume the warmup sessions were five minutes long, and that cars average speed during those was about 1. Doug to have put 5. Roberta says Doug warmed his car up once a month, so this seems to check out. After having seen this car for sale on Craigslist thanks to a tip from a reader, I drove up to Imlay City to see if the 6. Mile Marauder was actually real. After all, the seller had told me over the phone that she couldnt take a picture of the odometer because of the glare, so I was a bit skeptical. But my skepticism immediately disappeared when I arrived at their quaint suburban home, because this thing is simply magnificent. None of my photos will do it justice, but the Marauder is literally in mint condition. Everything from the paint, to the original tires, to the original brake pads, to the seats, to the underbody it all looks factory fresh. And if you dont believe me, have a gander at the interior its seats, shifter, and hood release are still covered in the factory plastic wrap Even the center dashboard trim, passengers side carpeting, and shifter position indicator panel have plastic on them The center console protective cover is also still in place, as is the dealers business card Theres also a protective sticker on the radio display And theres a to be removed by dealer sticker for the HVAC display Other indicators that this car is factory originalaside from the fact that its in perfect conditionare the paint marks, which were likely put there by inspectors at the factory, or by the suppliers who built the parts. For example, heres a B on the drivers side wheel liner I have no clue what it means The front cradle has a green paint mark, and theres a blue mark on what looks like the steering rack housing cap I also spotted what appears to be a signature on the rear differential, perhaps a marking confirming that it has been filled with gear oil You can also see a few blue paint marks on the passengers side tie rod end, and on the wheel hub The engine also shows a D1 marking on the drivers side cylinder head But enough about the markings, just look at how immaculate this engine looks More importantly, listen to how that dual overhead cam, 3. V8 Mustang Cobra engine sounds Doug and Roberta have been storing the car with rags under the wiper arms and a cloth over the dash. You can see that here, along with an OK sticker, which Doug says the car came from the dealer with As far as paperwork, Doug and Roberta have it all. Heres the window sticker sandwiched between two panes of plexiglass. Every nerd loves a good tech war Windows vs Mac, Apple vs Android, Intel vs AMD. They give us something to armchair argue about over beers with friendsor to rant. Download the free trial version below to get started. Doubleclick the downloaded file to install the software. And heres the delivery checklist that Doug had to sign when picking up the car from the dealer in 2. Speaking of that day they picked up the car from the dealer, the couple has an entire wall full of photos documenting when they first took ownership of this majestic machine On top of the documentation, Doug and Roberta still have the factory key fobs still in plastic And Doug also has the excellent leather Mercury Marauder jacket that came with the car Doug, who just had a heart attack at age 7. And while he says hes hoping for somebody to buy it and put it away, he admits that he really cant control what a buyer does with this time capsule once its gone. Doug and and Roberta are asking 4. Marauder heres the link to the sale posting, saying this car could be seen as an investment to a potential buyer, because not only did Ford only made about 1. Marauder really is the best version of the last true American old school full size sedan. While weve written an article called Why The Mercury Marauder Is A Future Classic echoing essentially that same sentiment, the question here is, is it far enough into the future for this car to command that price tagI guess well find out soon enough either way, its hard not to appreciate such a well preserved machine. Update The original headline has been changed, as Roberta just told me over the phone that the car was indeed registered upon purchase. Though she reiterates that theres never been a plate on the car, nor has the vehicle ever driven on public roads. AMDs Vega Graphics Cards Could Kick Off a War. Every nerd loves a good tech war Windows vs Mac, Apple vs Android, Intel vs AMD. They give us something to armchair argue about over beers with friendsor to rant over in the comments of illustrious tech blogs. After spending the weekend playing with AMDs new Vega 6. Vega 5. 6 graphics cards, I think I can safely say an old tech war is back oneven if AMDs latest salvo feels paltry. Nvidia might be leading the discrete graphics card industry, but AMDs two newest cards are cheap and fast enough to finally compete. And that can only mean good things for PC users. Price4. 00 Vega 5. Vega 6. 4What is it Discrete GPUs that are competing against graphics titan Nvidia. Crack De Activacion Corel X4 Windows there. No Like. Dont expect any flash. AMD, which purchased Nvidias previous competitor, ATI Graphics, has been losing the GPU war for a while. Nvidia is currently producing the majority of discrete graphics cards found in computers today. According to Jon Peddie Research, by the end of 2. Nvidia had more than 7. AMD trailed far behind with just 2. So AMD decided to focus on building cheap cards to go in cheap machineslike the 5. I reviewed back in April. The AMD Vega 6. 4 and Vega 5. Nvidia 1. 08. 0 with cheaper options that start to approximate its performance. When the Vega microarchitecture the cards are based on was announced back at CES, people didnt immediately leap out of their seats. AMD didnt have a cool hook like when Nvidia announced it had spent billions to develop its latest card. All AMD had was a promise of speed when the cards arrived this summer. Eight months later, the Vega 6. The AMD Vega 6. 4 retails for 5. AMD Vega 5. 6 retails for 4. Both also have 8. GB of RAM built in. The big difference between the two is the number of compute unitsthink of those like the cores in a CPU the more the better. The Vega 6. 4 has 6. Vega 5. 6 has 5. 6. When I compared the Vegas to the 1. I found was far less exciting that what Id hoped for. While the AMD Vega 6. Instead it was sort of like going to the car lot and having to choose between a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla. Theyre both very nice, cost the same, and do the same damn thing. What was really astounding was the performance of the 4. AMD Vega 5. 6. Despite being considerably cheaper than both the Vega 6. Nvidia 1. 08. 0, it played Overwatch and Civilization VI only marginally slower. The 1. 08. 0 managed 1. Overwatch on Ultra at 4. K, the the Vega 6. Vega 5. 6 pulled of 9. K with the graphics cranked to Ultra. Thats not just a little respectable, thats really damn good. In Civilization VI the difference was even smaller, with the Vega 5. Vega 6. 4. In one case the Vega 5. Nvidia 1. 08. 0, and was on par with the more expensive Vega 6. When I rendered a frame in Blender, graphics software that allows you to create large 3. D images that heavily tax a discrete GPU, the Nvidia 1. The Vega 6. 4 rendered the same frame in 9 minutes and 2. The Vega 5. 6 Just 9 minutes and 2. With that kind of neck and neck performance theres no reason to really buy either a Nvidia 1. Vega 6. 4 over the Vega 5. But speed isnt the only factor to consider when buying a discrete graphics card. See, the cards that go in your desktop PC are very power hungry. If your power supply cant provide enough juice, the GPU is worthless, and that is one place Nvidia performs far better than AMD every time. The Nvidia 1. 08. The Vega 5. 6 requires 2. Vega 6. 4 requires a whopping 2. All the extra juice means you have to use not one, but two 8 pin power connectors from your power supply. The Nvidia 1. 08. With the new Vega cards AMD is trying to get around the power constraints of it GPUs by offering some software solutions. The first, and most notable, is the Radeon Chill feature, and its actually sort of clever. It operates under the assumption that people dont really need the fastest video card, they just need one fast enough for their monitor. Both AMD and Nvidia have a technology that allows cards to sync with monitors to deliver top level graphics without straining the GPU Nvidia calls its tech G Sync, while AMD calls it Free. Sync. But you have to have a special monitor that works with the syncing technology and no monitor works with both the AMD and Nvidia sync tech. Radeon Chill works with any monitor. You simply tell it how many frames you actually want to see per second. Got a monitor that refreshes 6. Set the max to 6. Radeon Chill makes magic happen. In addition, the software doesnt try and churn out 6. Instead it recognizes moments with static visuals and dramatically cuts down on how much power is being usedand you can tweak the number as well. Want it to never go below 3. Just set the slider in the AMD software. AMD added other software features that give users a better ability to throttle their cards without diminishing visuals. Theres a power saver mode which allows you to force the cards to sip as little as 1. Frame Rate Target Control mode that lets you cap the frames per second and an Enhanced Sync mode that figures out the optimal frame to display on screen, even if it means skipping a few other frames. All these features make the AMD Vega cards feel incredibly practical versus the excess and overclocking shenanigans of Nvidia. Its as if AMD is trying to say if you want nose bleed speed go with Nvidia, but if you want control and a nice experience join us. Thats a reasonable sale to an old woman such as myself. I play my games on 4. K TVs that have no syncing technology though Microsoft suggests that could change next year and can only show between 6. I dont need dual video cards or crazy numbers, I need good enough. And the AMD Vega 6. AMD Vega 5. 6 are good enough. If youre looking for a reasonably priced card the AMD Vega 5. But these cards arent enough to lure Nvidia loyalists or the power hungry away. As the latest salvo in the war between Nvidia and AMD goes, the new Vega cards are pretty weak. READMEThese cards are neck and neck with the 5. Nvidia 1. 08. 0 in the speed department. But they natively draw a lot more power. A bevy of software features try to resolve the power issue, but it means youre effectively throttling your shiny new GPU. SPEC DUMPAMD Vega 6. GB of RAM 6. 4 compute units 1. MHz base GPU clock 4. GBs memory bandwidth 2. TFLOPS 3 x Display. Port 1 x HDMIAMD Vega 5. GB of RAM 5. 6 compute units 1. MHz base GPU clock 4. GBs memory bandwidth 2. TFLOPS 3 x Display.