According to recent reports in Automotive News, The Detroit News and the Los Angeles Times, it’s just a matter of time before Ford Motor Company discontinues the Mercury brand of vehicles it has produced since 1939.
Dealers are concerned; Mercury enthusiasts are mortified; and fans of good old Detroit iron are lamenting the latest in a line of casualties that includes Oldsmobile and Plymouth.
Please.
Ford killed Mercury a long time ago.
Back in the 1950s and ’60s, Mercury offered features—like the Breezeway window, the reverse-slanted power-operated backlight that gave passengers extra ventilation in the days before air conditioning became standard equipment—that you couldn’t get on a comparable Ford.
During the same era, Mercury offered models that were truly different from the Ford-branded products built on the same platform. The first Comet compact, for example, rode on a wheelbase five inches longer than the Ford Falcon on which it was based. The original Cougar had unique styling from and a three-inch-longer wheelbase than the Ford Mustang.
Midway through the ’60s, the styling of full- and mid-sized Mercurys was influenced by Elwood Engel’s iconic 1961-69 Lincoln Continental, and Mercurys were advertised as having been “built in the Lincoln tradition.” This lent the marque some cachet among those aspiring to be upwardly mobile that you couldn't get from a humdrum Ford.
Now? There’s nothing you can get on a Mercury Grand Marquis, Sable, Milan, Mountaineer or Mariner that you can’t get on a Ford Crown Victoria, Taurus, Fusion, Explorer or Escape. The Mercury versions of those vehicles are not longer or wider or more powerful than their Ford counterparts. Their grilles and taillamps and minor trim are unique, but you can’t say they look like Lincolns—largely because Lincoln itself no longer has an identifiable design.
Since 1957 there have been few stand-alone Mercury retailers; most have been Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln or Lincoln-Mercury dealers. Today there are no Mercury-only dealers at all. So officially killing Mercury doesn’t pose the same problems for Ford that discontinuing Oldsmobile, which had a couple thousand single-point dealers, posed for GM. Those Mercury dealers will still have Lincolns to sell, and Lincoln has already begun to creep into the upper-mid-priced market segment that Mercury once occupied, with vehicles like the MKZ sedan and MKX crossover.
It’s a shame, but let’s face it: there hasn’t been a uniquely appealing Mercury in years. What brought the brand to its sales peak of 580,000 units in 1978 is long gone.
The Mercury death notice was most recently expected in April, but Ford officials delayed a meeting about future product with Lincoln Mercury dealers until this coming September. But today, Ford announced that it would be laying off an additional ten to twelve percent of its white-collar workforce by the end of July.
So I expect an obituary any day now—“Mercury Discontinued (Duh!)”—which you can immediately clip and put in your file of non-news news, just behind “Dog Bites Man” and “Generalissimo Francisco Franco Still Dead.”
Dealers are concerned; Mercury enthusiasts are mortified; and fans of good old Detroit iron are lamenting the latest in a line of casualties that includes Oldsmobile and Plymouth.
Please.
Ford killed Mercury a long time ago.
Back in the 1950s and ’60s, Mercury offered features—like the Breezeway window, the reverse-slanted power-operated backlight that gave passengers extra ventilation in the days before air conditioning became standard equipment—that you couldn’t get on a comparable Ford.
During the same era, Mercury offered models that were truly different from the Ford-branded products built on the same platform. The first Comet compact, for example, rode on a wheelbase five inches longer than the Ford Falcon on which it was based. The original Cougar had unique styling from and a three-inch-longer wheelbase than the Ford Mustang.
Midway through the ’60s, the styling of full- and mid-sized Mercurys was influenced by Elwood Engel’s iconic 1961-69 Lincoln Continental, and Mercurys were advertised as having been “built in the Lincoln tradition.” This lent the marque some cachet among those aspiring to be upwardly mobile that you couldn't get from a humdrum Ford.
Now? There’s nothing you can get on a Mercury Grand Marquis, Sable, Milan, Mountaineer or Mariner that you can’t get on a Ford Crown Victoria, Taurus, Fusion, Explorer or Escape. The Mercury versions of those vehicles are not longer or wider or more powerful than their Ford counterparts. Their grilles and taillamps and minor trim are unique, but you can’t say they look like Lincolns—largely because Lincoln itself no longer has an identifiable design.
Since 1957 there have been few stand-alone Mercury retailers; most have been Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln or Lincoln-Mercury dealers. Today there are no Mercury-only dealers at all. So officially killing Mercury doesn’t pose the same problems for Ford that discontinuing Oldsmobile, which had a couple thousand single-point dealers, posed for GM. Those Mercury dealers will still have Lincolns to sell, and Lincoln has already begun to creep into the upper-mid-priced market segment that Mercury once occupied, with vehicles like the MKZ sedan and MKX crossover.
It’s a shame, but let’s face it: there hasn’t been a uniquely appealing Mercury in years. What brought the brand to its sales peak of 580,000 units in 1978 is long gone.
The Mercury death notice was most recently expected in April, but Ford officials delayed a meeting about future product with Lincoln Mercury dealers until this coming September. But today, Ford announced that it would be laying off an additional ten to twelve percent of its white-collar workforce by the end of July.
So I expect an obituary any day now—“Mercury Discontinued (Duh!)”—which you can immediately clip and put in your file of non-news news, just behind “Dog Bites Man” and “Generalissimo Francisco Franco Still Dead.”
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