If there’s nothing we love more, it’s an often overlooked early ’60s muscle car. Sure, we love Chevelle, GTOs Road Runners and Torinos as much as anyone, but there’s something about Steve Dauria’s ’64 Mercury Marauder that caught our attention.
Perhaps it’s the overall NASCAR style theme of the car, or maybe backside we just don’t see too many of them, anymore. Either way, it’s a very cool piece of machinery, and the car’s owner has an interesting story attracted to it.
If you were to ask Steve what it was that got him into cars in the first place, he would tell you it was an old pedal car he received at a very early age that captured his attention and imagination. Citing it as his “first car,” all his parents had to do to keep him occupied in those early days was to put him and the pedal car in the same proximity and he wouldn’t run off.
He goes on to say that his very first job, a gig at a gas station, was his favorite gig; pumping gas, wrenching on his and his friends cars and forming bonds that would last for years. After a stint in the Army, he would buy and flip cars on a regular basis, pausing his way through college and learning quite a bit about a vast assortment of makes and models. He claims he had owned roughly 70 cars and an assortment of motorcycles throughout that time period.
The years wore on, and he eventually landed on this ’64 Marauder. After a very interesting back story on how he acquired it, learning about how the car had been previously stolen, and so on, he would go on to make it one amazing dream machine!
We don’t want o reiterate the entire story in text, because you can get it all from Steve himself in the attached video. Enjoy!
Rick Seitz is the owner and founder of AutoCentric Media, the parent company to Timeless Muscle Magazine, and has a true love and passion for all vehicles. When he isn’t tuning, testing, or competing with the magazine’s current crop of project vehicles, he’s busy tinkering and planning the next round modifications for his own cars.
