Comments about this vehicle

Author	Message
93montero ◊ 2012-07-03 20:42	1979lincolntowncoupe wrote notice the "abandoned autos" label in the windshield of his car
philr ◊ 2006-04-13 07:29	Cool Ride!
beatngu ◊ 2006-04-17 13:51	I love that car
Bubba ◊ 2006-06-28 15:15	where did they find such a car.. and how did they get it to smoke that much?
G-MANN ◊ 2006-10-27 22:15	Yes, this was a lovely old land yacht, even though it was very clapped out, but I think clapped out cars in movies have a lot of character, like the legendary Bluesmobile. Uncle Buck loved taking his snotty neice to school in it and using the backfiring exhaust to scare the shit of the stuck-up upper-middle-class hip high-schoolers, who were stock characters in John Hughes movies. This was a nice little film and John Candy was wonderful in it. After seeing it on TV again one evening I looked on the IMDB message boards to find out what car it was (I was quite young when I first saw the film and had just presumbed it was a big old Caddy) and that's where I first discovered this site when someone mentioned it in one of the posts. I love it when you stumble upon great internet sites. To answer bubba's question I imagine they just put a smoke machine underneath the car, it produced an incredible amount of smoke, it was like a road-going stream locomotive, if you drove a car like that in real life you'd end up getting stopped by the police. -- Last edit: 2008-04-13 17:00:07
G-MANN ◊ 2006-10-27 22:30	By the way the person who wrote the post that mentioned this site had the IMDB username mcode518. Is that anyone here?
qwerty_86 ◊ 2006-10-28 05:45	Well in movies they have clones of the main car so that if it's out of commission they can use a backup (usually distinguished by continuity errors in damage or trim) . On TV shows, however, they are strapped for time so they'll get another vehicle that looks similar, but not always exactly, the same.
anonyme2006 ◊ 2006-11-13 11:13	Look like a 1975 or 1976 Mercury Grand Marquis.
philr ◊ 2006-12-25 09:59	I like those cheap aftermarket wire wheelcovers that rusted. They look so bad that they fit well on this car! There were plenty of those back in the eighties. I haven't seen a car with a set of hubcaps like these recently! The long CB antennas, the broken door pull straps and the set of chains hanging at the rear to "remove static" are things we rarely see now! To produce real smoke like this is quite easy, just pour some oil in the carburator while the engine is running! My father's best friend used to have a 1975 Mercury Grand Marquis and it had more side trim. This one looks like a Marquis Brougham (1975 to 1978), not a Grand Marquis. http://www.mercuryarchive.com/1973to1978/
modell ◊ 2007-02-21 01:58	G-MANN wrote By the way the person who wrote the post that mentioned this site had the IMDB username mcode518. Is that anyone here? That's me
G-MANN ◊ 2007-08-30 21:15	Thanks modell!! without you I might never have found this site!
muchdrama ◊ 2008-01-16 02:40	Geeze, do I ever love that car. The days of being able to tool about in a behemoth without mortgaging your house are over. Sniff!
stpaulcarguy ◊ 2008-03-04 05:42	"The beast is good for another 100,000 miles"
MaindrianPace ◊ 2008-11-02 21:22	This is actually a used 1975 Mercury Marquis Brougham which is about 14 years old in 1989 during the filming of Uncle Buck. The car leaks oil, gas, and plus burns oil and gas in the pistons. The car now looks beat up like Hutches 1973 Ford Galaxie on the 1975 through 1979 television series called Starsky and Hutch. Now in today's world in 2008 which would make the car would be 34 years old.
G-MANN ◊ 2009-04-17 00:03	Of course in real life most cars go to the scrapyard (through simply not being worth the cost or effort to keep them roadworthy) well before they get to the kind of state this car is in!
ysivyboi1 ◊ 2010-01-10 02:34	Someone somewhere must know where that car is, or at least its shell lies
1979lincolntowncoupe ◊ 2010-01-26 18:26	notice the "abandoned autos" label in the windshield of his car
Jamesj13 ◊ 2010-07-12 02:29	One way to make enough smoke is by injecting oil into the exhaust, which is less harmful to the engine and doesn't cause it to cut out and shut off early like injecting it into the cylinders may. Also, note the oil and gas are burned in the cylinders, not pistons. Pistons are in the cylinders. -- Last edit: 2010-07-12 02:34:11
portacker ◊ 2012-04-29 12:45	Love the rear suspension trick, car wouldn't bounce that much even if the shocks were removed. Maybe it has one leaf in its rear spring, or maybe a airbag? AnyOne know?
Q-Ball ◊ 2012-07-03 22:12	He also has a dash-mounted compass, just like I have in MY car.
philr ◊ 2012-07-03 22:17	On your 1974 Impala? -- Last edit: 2012-07-04 01:45:22 (G-MANN)
somename ◊ 2012-07-04 02:32	Actually a 77/78 model due to the lack of a fender badge behind the front wheel. Thought it might have fallen off, but there's no remnants of the existence of such in the 8th thumb. -- Last edit: 2012-07-04 02:34:58
Q-Ball ◊ 2012-07-10 22:27	PhilR wrote On your 1974 Impala? Yes, as a matter of fact, I ALWAYS install an analog compass in whatever car I own/have owned. It is a really helpful tool at times.
no1Uno ◊ 2015-02-09 07:45	MaindrianPace wrote This is actually a used 1975 Mercury Marquis Brougham which is about 14 years old in 1989 during the filming of Uncle Buck. One thing to remember is that today's cars don't look all that different from cars in the '90s, where as a car from the '70s looks very different then a car from the '80s (generally speaking) so in 1989 a 14 year old car would look very outdated where was today a 14 year old (generally) wouldn't. I like the aftermarket 8-track player, and the CB radio thats shoved into the glove compartment best -- Last edit: 2015-02-09 07:47:47
classiccarlover ◊ 2016-02-14 23:09	I love this old land-yacht. It's hilarious and incredible how much smoke it produces. -- Last edit: 2016-02-14 23:09:22
Baube ◊ 2016-02-15 01:19	always wondering which model it was.....now wondering why i took so long to check....
Shervinator ◊ 2021-05-07 13:02	I have always wondered if this car survived after production. Does anyone know?
dphoenix ◊ 2021-07-07 01:03	I've got a '77 Continental sedan -- same year, engine, transmission, and general frame/platform as The Beast, so a lot of this comment is based on my experience with that car, though with some conjecture thrown in. Extremely doubtful it survived. In the late 80s these things were almost less than worthless, and aside from the carefully applied patina of dirt and grime, it really looks (and sounds, given the very audible cracked exhaust manifold) for all the world that the car was legitimately clapped out when purchased for filming, and wouldn't have been considered worth saving or even selling as a car. And I can't imagine Hughes or the production team ever expected it to gain any sort of cult following as a bit character in the film. These old behemoths were truly the last of the gas-guzzling full size cars (GM and Chrysler had both shrunk their full size line by 1977 -- Ford didn't follow suit until '79, but their end was inevitable), and by 1990 most people simply would not tolerate 10mpg mileage out of a car. Not to mention the complex analog and vacuum systems these luxo-barges had that would slowly start to fail, which could be difficult to trace and repair, and the very rudimentary, but finicky, emissions stuff they tacked on to these old engines before they came out with power plants designed around federal requirements. They weren't old enough to be considered classic and had a lot of built-in compromises for emissions and safety, and cheap plastics and poor build quality didn't help either. As established, this is definitely a '77 Marquis Brougham, which came with the big block 460. In '77, this engine was equipped with the utterly horrible Motorcraft 4350 carburetor, and that easily could've contributed to the dieseling noted in the film (something I'm surprised nobody's mentioned yet) -- where he shuts off the key, but the engine continues running, albeit roughly and with a lot of knocking, eventually backfiring to signal the engine was finally stopped. The backfire out the tailpipe may have been dramatic flair (I think one article stated they used fireworks and gunfire to make the sound heard in the film), but the dieseling could've easily been legit. Being a worn out 460 I'm sure it legitimately burned oil (probably not enough to produce such a magnificent plume, but enough to be noticeable), this could've built up a lot of carbon in the combustion chamber (along with years of running on a poorly tuned crappy carburetor), also contributing to the dieseling problem, providing a hotspot for fuel to ignite without a spark. Now, I've seen a big oil plume out of many vehicles, but the vast majority were momentary, following either some sort of massive failure or some specific event to cause it. But I've only ever seen two vehicles on the road consistently produce as much smoke as this thing did: one was a first gen Mitsubishi Montero/Raider (or Pajero/Shogun for outside the US), and the second was a first gen Plymouth Voyager from the late 80s. Can't say I've seen a 460 so beat down it burned that much oil. So it's not unprecedented, but I figure the production team did something to accentuate the smoke output. Always thought it was probably a really oil-heavy ratio of two stroke gas in the tank... but I don't know if the carb would still be able to function with such thick fuel. Anyway, it was a great car, not in spite of, but because of all its terribleness. Kinda heartwarming there's so many people out there who were impacted by it as much as I was the first time I saw the film as a kid.
Ddey65 ◊ 2021-10-11 23:57	Okay, so in the off-chance that any of us ever encounters a red 1977 Mercury Marquis Brougham, and the owner(s) claim it was in "Uncle Buck," we should take their claims with a grain of salt to the very least. -- Last edit: 2021-10-17 06:20:41
Shervinator ◊ 2024-06-07 00:50	dphoenix wrote I've got a '77 Continental sedan -- same year, engine, transmission, and general frame/platform as The Beast, so a lot of this comment is based on my experience with that car, though with some conjecture thrown in. Extremely doubtful it survived. In the late 80s these things were almost less than worthless, and aside from the carefully applied patina of dirt and grime, it really looks (and sounds, given the very audible cracked exhaust manifold) for all the world that the car was legitimately clapped out when purchased for filming, and wouldn't have been considered worth saving or even selling as a car. And I can't imagine Hughes or the production team ever expected it to gain any sort of cult following as a bit character in the film. These old behemoths were truly the last of the gas-guzzling full size cars (GM and Chrysler had both shrunk their full size line by 1977 -- Ford didn't follow suit until '79, but their end was inevitable), and by 1990 most people simply would not tolerate 10mpg mileage out of a car. Not to mention the complex analog and vacuum systems these luxo-barges had that would slowly start to fail, which could be difficult to trace and repair, and the very rudimentary, but finicky, emissions stuff they tacked on to these old engines before they came out with power plants designed around federal requirements. They weren't old enough to be considered classic and had a lot of built-in compromises for emissions and safety, and cheap plastics and poor build quality didn't help either. As established, this is definitely a '77 Marquis Brougham, which came with the big block 460. In '77, this engine was equipped with the utterly horrible Motorcraft 4350 carburetor, and that easily could've contributed to the dieseling noted in the film (something I'm surprised nobody's mentioned yet) -- where he shuts off the key, but the engine continues running, albeit roughly and with a lot of knocking, eventually backfiring to signal the engine was finally stopped. The backfire out the tailpipe may have been dramatic flair (I think one article stated they used fireworks and gunfire to make the sound heard in the film), but the dieseling could've easily been legit. Being a worn out 460 I'm sure it legitimately burned oil (probably not enough to produce such a magnificent plume, but enough to be noticeable), this could've built up a lot of carbon in the combustion chamber (along with years of running on a poorly tuned crappy carburetor), also contributing to the dieseling problem, providing a hotspot for fuel to ignite without a spark. Now, I've seen a big oil plume out of many vehicles, but the vast majority were momentary, following either some sort of massive failure or some specific event to cause it. But I've only ever seen two vehicles on the road consistently produce as much smoke as this thing did: one was a first gen Mitsubishi Montero/Raider (or Pajero/Shogun for outside the US), and the second was a first gen Plymouth Voyager from the late 80s. Can't say I've seen a 460 so beat down it burned that much oil. So it's not unprecedented, but I figure the production team did something to accentuate the smoke output. Always thought it was probably a really oil-heavy ratio of two stroke gas in the tank... but I don't know if the carb would still be able to function with such thick fuel. Anyway, it was a great car, not in spite of, but because of all its terribleness. Kinda heartwarming there's so many people out there who were impacted by it as much as I was the first time I saw the film as a kid. You're absolutely right. Take a look at 1:15 in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBi1FDB5XiE The smoke is billowing out of the trunk as well as the tailpipe. Unless the car had rusted to the point where a giant hole had developed in the trunk (not unheard of in the midwest), this couldn't have been only from the car. Production must have tinkered with it and given it added theatrics. Later in the same clip I linked to (when he pulls up to the elementary school), you can see that the smoke isn't coming out of the trunk anymore. Something is definitely fishy; the smoke couldn't have been entirely real. Edit: Also, in the scene where Buck and Tia let Bug out of the trunk, there is a light amount of smoke slowly rising from the car while the engine is off. Definitely a smoke machine of some sort. -- Last edit: 2024-06-07 02:11:14
Shervinator ◊ 2024-06-07 01:43	I dug through the old paint brochures for 1975–78 Mercury, and I'm pretty sure this was indeed a 1977 model. The color that seems the closest to what we saw onscreen is Bright Saddle Metallic (5K), which was only available for the 1977 model year. That being said, I'm not 100% sure. Uncle Buck's car was severely weathered and filthy, so it's not very easy to tell exactly what color it was. Studios also often paint cars just for a movie, so this could have been a non-factory color. Here are the brochures for each year: 1975 1976 1977 1978 Higher-resolution versions here: https://imgur.com/a/v819W7P Note that only colors with a ■ under them were offered for Marquis. This site allows you to look through the colors for each year and even has example photos of some colors: Link to "paintref.com" Thoughts?

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1977 Mercury Marquis Brougham

1977 Mercury Marquis Brougham in Uncle Buck, Movie, 1989

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