Ford Discontinues Mercury Division

[MaxKlinger]

Ford Motor Company has decided to close the doors on the Mercury brand. Another sad day for traditional American brands. Mercury will join Plymouth, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac.




Read more here:

http://www.insideline.com/ford/mercury- ... brand.html

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2010/06/ ... ury-brand/

http://www.autotropolis.com/auto-news/f ... ncoln.html

[hazelnut]

Sad to mercury being closed down, always thought that murcury would put something out that would outperform the mustang and camaro to gain back market share like it did back in the late sixtys, but i guess thats now going to happin now, wonder how this is going to effect the price of the older mercury collector cars ?

[fordman]

well the name thing is just a name really. but the merc name does carry certain different ways of buildign cars and trucks even though they are basically the same. my guess is they are closing the factories that made merc. so there for they are syaing that they are closing the merc line. really what they coul ddo is to keep using the name and just build for badges as mercurys. but they probably wont do that.

[Ranchero50]

Mercury has always been the mid level luxury between Ford and Lincoln. I don't think there's enough market share for a third brand any more. The '80's capri was the last decent looking merc out there. The '60's were awesome cars though. Very well styled.

Jamie

[socalcraigster]

With the exception of the newer Marauder, I can't think of many Mercury cars since the sixties worth owning. Evne though they are closing the entire line, why can't they produce Cougars again?

[mk]

They took the Mercury name off all the dealers here about 2000 when they updated the dealer signs from the rectangle shape to the chrome oval.


mike

[papabug71]

fordman is right, its just a name. Ford has been modular on all its panther platform cars for years now. A crown vic is a grand marquis is a Marauder is a towncar etc etc.


The panther platform Marauder's are one of the best looking sport luxury cars on the road today. But in all reality, its just a spruced up crown vic/ towncar.

[MaxKlinger]

In the last 25 years, I think Mercury cars had somewhat nicer styling than their Ford counterparts. Actually, in the last five or so, the Mercs have been in my opinion much better looking cars; where Ford seems to slap horizontal chrome bars on the front of everything, Merc has had nice brushed-aluminum-looking vertical grilles.

Ford hasn't done anything to market the Mercury brand in a while. Around maybe 2006-7 I saw some commercials depicting people in their mid to late 20s (usually really cute single women) driving Mercs. I guess they were marketing them as upscale cars for younger professionals. However, this marketing didn't last too long. The problem is that they only have four products: Grand Marquis, which is and always will be Grandpop's car, Mountaineer, which is an overpriced heavy lumbering beast that has replaced the minivan and is about as cool, Mariner, the small SUV, and Milan, the mid-size sedan. The Milan is really the best product in the pack, a really refined sedan that, in my opinion, blows the Camry and Altima out of the water in comfort, quality, efficiency, and price (my mom has an '07 Milan, with a 5-speed stick). The Mariner isn't bad. But you need to build a division on more than just one or two great cars and a pair of unappealing cars.

Also, I didn't realize that they dropped the Sable AGAIN this year after they tried to do something with the Montego/Five Hundred and replaced them with the new (6th Gen) Taurus.

The other thing I liked about the Mercs is that they've always been a better value. The last three times my parents bought a family car ('86, '96, '07) they looked at (among other things) both the Ford and Mercury versions of the Taurus/Sable and Fusion/Milan. Every time, the Mercury came out to be less expensive! The Fords were over-hyped and often the dealers wouldn't budge on price; the Mercury guys were willing to negotiate. So for the last 25 years, we've had more Mercs than Fords.

[OldRedFord]

They should have offered a Couger, and the Murader still.

[rjewkes]

I love my '89 merc Cougar, and am looking at aquiring an '97 with the 5.0 leather everything cup holders and factory sun/moon roof. Sadly the death of Mercury started when they started to simply rebadge The f-Series for people who wanted a merc truck. Times were great For Brands like Merc, and Fargo and so on, when The big three Had different brand name in places like Canada. I don't remember if this was something that was required by law or just something thwey did.