Car Discussion Thread

Max · June 6, 2010

Ford's decision to discontinue the Mercury brand (which I'm surprised that nobody here has yet discussed) made me think that it would be a good time to start a whole thread on the topic of cars. And while there are many more sub-topics that I would like to discuss later, I am going to devote the first post on this thread just to my reaction on Mercury's demise.

Personally, I feel that the biggest surprise in this piece of news was not that Mercury is "being cancelled," but that it lasted as long as it did. It really is remarkable that Mercury outlasted Oldsmobile and Pontiac, given that the latter two brands were far more popular at their zeniths than Mercury ever was. (Of course, Mercury outlasted Plymouth as well, and it's certainly possible that Plymouth was also more popular at its zenith than Mercury was.) I'm guessing the main reason why Mercury wasn't discontinued sooner was because Lincoln-Mercury dealers wanted the brand kept alive so that less expensive cars could be displayed in their showrooms. (Lincoln itself is currently not a strong brand; I'll talk more about this later.)

(Interestingly, if one wants to compare this situation with what is happening in the world of soaps, the surprise over Mercury outlasting Pontiac and Oldsmobile is like OLTL outlasting ATWT and GL, given that the latter two soaps were more popular at their zeniths than OLTL was. Aside from the fact that OLTL is network owned, a big reason why OLTL wasn't cancelled sooner than the P&G soaps was because a cancellation will cause a gap in ABC's soap lineup that will only be resolved by moving the timeslot of either AMC or GH.)

Sadly, Mercury's peak actually came in the 1950's, when James Dean drove a flashy 1949 Mercury Eight in "Rebel Without A Cause." Beginning in the 1960's, little was done to differentiate Mercury from the Ford brand. However, there were still some bright spots such as the Cougar, which was introduced in 1967 as a twin of the Ford Mustang but developed a loyal following in its own right. Undoubtedly, the most excitement Mercury saw in recent decades was the buzz and popularity that resulted from the 1986 Sable, which--along with its Ford Taurus twin--revolutionized the entire auto industry.

According to auto industry experts, discontinuing Mercury was the easy part for Ford. The hard part is building up the Lincoln brand, since Lincoln sales pale in comparison to those of Cadillac, Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes Benz. Simply put, the public perception is that Lincoln is not on par with those other luxury brands. (To illustrate this point, current Ford CEO Alan Mulally actually drove a Lexus--and not a Lincoln--prior to becoming CEO of Ford.) Ford has done a great job reviving the Ford brand, so it will be interesting to see if they can help Lincoln in the coming years. In the meantime, because Lincoln is a weak brand, there won't be any stand-alone Lincoln dealers; all current Lincoln-Mercury dealers will either become Ford-Lincoln dealers or go out of business.

SFK · June 6, 2010

Actually, I did make a joke about Mercury's demise in a thread discussing OLTL's Ford brothers (i.e., wishing their last name was Mercury so they'd be discontinued ). In the mid '80s we had a Cougar while my uncle had a Thunderbird, both the same color, and another aunt and uncle bought a Cougar for her and a Thunderbird for him in '89. I always liked the concept of Mercs being jazzed up Fords. Of course therein lies a problem, churning out rebadged twins when one could easily slap a luxury package on a Ford model, or simply offer certain models as Ford or Mercury only. For instance, let Ford have the Taurus and drop the Sable, have Ford drop the Crown Vic and let Mercury have the Grand Marquis. Mercs have always had sleeker styling cues and in their heyday they weren't merely Ford clones but they went the way of Chrysler in the '80s and it wasn't too long ago that Chyrsler kinda learned it's lesson by dropping a fleet of clones badged Plymouth. I'll miss Mercury, they certainly weren't marketed as a young person's automobile but I still checked out their site every now and then hoping to catch a concept of new and improved Cougar that would rival an Infiniti G30. It was terribly gimmicky, but I actually liked the Marauder (souped up Grand Marquis) that lasted but a year a few years back. But I guess it makes sense to get rid of the entry-level luxury cars and focus on Lincoln where models like the MKS and MKZ make a Milan or Sable seem superfluous. Godspeed Mercury.

Max · June 13, 2010

SFK, thanks so much for sharing your memories of the Mercury brand. Truth be told, I had forgotten (prior to reading your post) that the Cougar was a twin of the Thunderbird for most of its run, even though (as I mentioned earlier) it began life as a Mustang twin. Like you, I am saddened by Mercury's demise, and I definately believe that Ford could have put a lot more effort into marketing the brand.

Switching the topic somewhat, I wanted to mention I much I perfer the cars of yesteryear over today (as least in terms of exterior design). I was getting really nostalgic for 80's cars after watching these commercials on YouTube:

1985 Ford Full-Line Commercial (Note that the caption below stating that this commercial is promoting Ford's 1984 line-up is incorrect.):

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