2004 Mercury Sable LS

The Mercury Sable debuted in the '86 model year as Mercury's more upscale sister car to Ford's Taurus, replacing the Marquis as the midsize sedan in the Mercury lineup. It was the biggest FWD sedan sold by Mercury to that point and was a reasonable success, being the second best-selling Merc after the full-size body-on-frame Grand Marquis.

After the radically styled third generation of the late Nineties, the fourth generation Sable that hit as a 2000 model was more conventional in appearance, with a regular grille replacing the previous model's weird little trout mouth.

The fascia got a mild refresh for 2004, but the Sable was still available in two trim levels: the standard GS or the swankier LS, like the Arizona Beige Metallic example in the photo.

The six-spoke 16" alloy rims that were an extra cost option on the GS came standard on the LS. Where the GS used the 3.0L Vulcan pushrod V-6, the LS had the 3.0L Duratec DOHC 24V motor that made 200 SAE net horsepower.

This one was photographed with a Pentax K7 and 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 WR zoom lens in September of 2025.

2004 Mercedes-Benz CLK500 Cabriolet

Over the course of the Nineties and Aughties, it felt like the number of Mercedes-Benz models of which a car nerd needed to keep track completely ballooned off the charts. Where once there had simply been the C-, E-, S-, and SL-classes and the occasional gray market Geländewagen, now there were SLKs, MLs, Rs, an AMG version of everything, and the CLK coupes and convertibles.

Introduced in the late Nineties, the C208 coupe and A208 cabrio CLK replaced the E-series coupe in the Benz catalog. Although it replaced an E-coupe, it was based on the C-class chassis and the C208 rode on a 105.9" wheelbase.

It was replaced with the C209 for 2002 with the A209 ragtop following in 2003. With an inch more wheelbase, they had actual accommodations for four adults in a relatively compact little hardtop coupe or convertible.

It came in two basic flavors. The more mild-mannered version was the CLK320, with the M112 SOHC 18V 3.2L V-6 that made 215 SAE net horsepower. The racier option was the CLK500, like this Pewter Silver Cabriolet. It had the M113 5.0L V-8, which was also a SOHC motor with three valves per cylinder and a 10.0:1 compression ratio, but which belted out 302 horsepower at 5,600rpm. In the heavier Cabriolet, Mercedes claimed a zero-to-sixty time of six seconds flat.

This one was photographed using a Canon EOS R and a 24-105mm f/4-7.1 IS zoom lens in July of 2025.

2004 Porsche 911 40th Anniversary

2003 marked the fortieth anniversary of Porsche's iconic 911, and to celebrate the event, the folks in Stuttgart put together a special limited run of 1,963 (get it?) "40 Jahre 911" commemorative models.

The anniversary cars were all silver and came with GT3 rocker panels, special 18" wheels, sports suspension package, and a bump for the 3.6L DOHC flat six, from 315 to 345 SAE net horsepower.

When Motor Trend tested one of the cars, they managed a 4.7 second zero-to-sixty sprint and a 13.1 quarter at 108 through the traps. Price as tested was $96,765, which comes to just short of $164,000 in today's money.

A quick check of the online 40 Jahre 911 fan club registry suggests that this is car number 0162.

It was photographed with a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV and an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens in November of 2023.

2004 Rolls-Royce Phantom

After a bunch of drama that's hard to sort out even if you were following it in the motoring press of the time (which I was), Volkswagen AG wound up with the old Rolls manufacturing plant in Crewe, but without the Rolls-Royce name, which wound up licensed to BMW.

The first BMW-designed Roller was the Phantom (aka the Phantom VII) super luxury sedan, released to the public in 2003 as an '04 model.

Largely constructed of aluminum... sorry, "aluminium" ...with pieces sourced from Scandinavia and Germany before final assembly at the Rolls-Royce facility in Goodwood, West Sussex, the Phantom rides on a 140.6" wheelbase and tips the scales at a bit over 5,600 pounds. Power is provided by a longitudinal BMW V-12 located under that bonnet roughly the length of the HMS Ark Royal. Displacing  6.75L and sporting an 11.0:1 compression ratio, the 48V DOHC twelve routes 453 SAE net horsepower to the rear wheels via a ZF six-speed slushbox. 

If your chauffeur has a leaden loafer, this land yacht is supposed to get to sixty in a tick or two under the six second mark and will waft down the motorway at speeds up to 130mph. But nobody buys a $300 grand parlour-on-wheels to go racing, anyway.

The upper two photos were taken in April of 2024 using a Nikon D700 and a 28-200mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom lens, while the lower one was snapped with a Fuji X-T2 and XF 16-80mm f/4 R WR OIS zoom lens in July of the same year. 

2004 Pontiac GTO

Few genuine car guys get as high up in the corporate hierarchy at the big automakers as Bob Lutz. After leaving Chrysler for GM, one of the projects he spurred along was importing the Holden VZ Monaro and re-badging it as a Pontiac.

With the F-body Firebird Trans Am having been discontinued after the '02 model year, the Excitement Division of General Motors was left with a lineup devoid of anything sportier than a Grand Am or Bonneville and, indeed, without any rear wheel drive cars at all.

The angst among Pontiac fans caused by the lack of the Firebird would hopefully be assuaged by labeling the Monaro as a reborn GTO, bringing back a legendary name in Detroit performance that had lain dormant for thirty years.

Under the hood would be the all-alloy 350 SAE net horsepower 5.7L LS1 V-8 swiped straight from the Corvette, backed with a 4-speed auto or a Tremec 6-speed manual. Car and Driver recorded a 5.3 second zero to sixty sprint and a fourteen flat quarter at 102 through the traps, noting that it was traction limited and would likely be quicker with beefier meats allowing harder launches.

Unfortunately, the reborn GTO had two strikes against it right out of the gate. First, the styling was criticized as tepid. The hood scoops were a late model-year dealer installed option, and while it had a true dual exhaust, both pipes exited on the same side due to the asymmetrical fuel tank location.

The styling complaints always struck me as odd, because the original GTO could not be told apart from a generic Tempest Le Mans coupe except by the badges and (fake) intake nostrils on the hood.

Probably more fatal was the fact that while the car was initially designed to go head-to-head against the Mustang GT, price-wise, a combination of cost overruns, the fluctuating exchange rate between the U.S. and AUS dollars, and good ol' dealer price-gouging for the RETURN OF THE GTO! meant that people wound up paying Corvette money for Mustang performance.

Sales of the the 2004, like the Barbados Blue one in the photo, were far weaker than hoped, leading to a scramble to revise the car for '05... But that's another post.

This one was photographed with a Nikon D3 and 24-85mm f/2.8-4D zoom lens in May of 2022.