13 Years Ago Ford Stopped Producing Vehicles From This Division

The 2000s and early 2010s were a tumultuous time for American car manufacturers. The big three, namely Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, all ran into financial issues as a flurry of recessions gripped the world, forcing some tough decisions. With car sales down, these automakers needed to reduce expenses to stay afloat. The most common path taken was killing off subsidiary brands.

GM closed down Oldsmobile in 2004 and Pontiac in 2010, while Chrysler mothballed its long-standing Plymouth brand in 2001. Ford also needed to slim down its portfolio, which led to it axing Mercury in 2010. HotCars has taken a look back at Mercury to learn why Ford selected it for the chopping block over a decade ago.

Mercury Was Envisioned As Ford’s Answer To Oldsmobile

How Mercury Models Differed From Fords

• More elegant styling
• More luxurious interiors with better soundproofing
• More powerful engines
• Smoother ride and enhanced braking systems

Keen to increase its footprint and customer base during the 1930s, Ford looked into designing a new vehicle that offered greater luxury and quality than the usual models it offered. Concerned it might not stand out well enough against the backdrop of its traditional vehicles, company CEO Edsel Ford and Ford Sales Manager Jack Davis elected to create a standalone brand. Its new model could thus be sold under this new marque, and hopefully increase its chance of success.

The new sub-brand was christened Mercury, and it was positioned between the working-class Ford brand and the luxury Lincoln marque in terms of price. As expected, while offering greater levels of luxury and class than a standard Ford, it wasn’t quite as plush as the Lincolns of the time. Comparisons can be drawn between Mercury and Oldsmobile, which was GM’s mid-range brand, positioned below Cadillac but above Chevrolet.

Other than enhancing the luxury aspects of its vehicles, Ford also looked to ensure Mercury was better in terms of sheer performance. This included providing more powerful engines, better brakes, and a more comfortable ride. The styling of these new cars, which were still mostly based on Ford products, would also be tweaked to look more upmarket.

The first vehicle to bear the Mercury name was the 1939 Mercury 8, which cost $916. The car, which came with a 95 hp V8 and is a popular restomod platform these days, was offered in a variety of body styles. Two and four-door coupe-style hardtops were available alongside a convertible, as well as an enlarged town sedan shape.

The 1960s Saw Iconic Mercury Models Enter The Limelight

Mercury’s MO of taking Ford products and making them classier continued after World War II and throughout the 1950s before the muscle car movement of the 1960s took them in a slightly different direction. The amazing success of Ford’s Mustang pony car, which launched in 1964, led the manufacturer to release a Mercury-badged version: the Cougar.

Interestingly, according to Hagerty, Ford may well have had plans to give the Mustang platform the Mercury treatment even during its design process. The original clay models of the design were dubbed Cougar and featured a cat on the grille. While Ford’s version ended up as the Mustang, the Cougar name was brought back for the Mercury variant, which was released in 1967.

As was customary for a Mercury, a more elegant and longer body – the wheelbase being three inches longer than that of the Mustang – was created using the Mustang platform. While not marketed as an outright-performance vehicle, the Cougar was available with a range of V8 powerplants.

The most potent, a 390 ci Marauder unit, was available in the XR-7 model, which is a relatively rare collector car today. Alongside the 315 hp engine, the XR-7 also had stiffer suspension to sharpen up the handling and a more luxurious interior that featured generous amounts of leather and wood trim.

Around the same time, a Marauder model was offered. Essentially a two-door version of the Mercury Marquis, which itself was based on the Ford LTD, the Marauder was positioned between the LTD and Lincoln’s Continental in the automaker’s brand hierarchy.

The Grand Marquis Becomes Was The Best-Selling Mercury Ever

In the 1970s, Mercury was looking to simplify the model range. To do so, all full-size sedans were marketed under the Marquis brand starting in 1975. The Grand Marquis nameplate, which had been a higher trim level of the car since 1969, was subsequently made standalone. The Grand Marquis had a more luxurious exterior appearance compared to the standard Marquis, featuring additions such as a vinyl roof, special Brougham wheel covers, and fender skirts.

On the inside, plush comfort lounge seats up front, power windows, and even a digital clock helped further differentiate the Grand Marquis from standard models. The vehicle clearly captured the public’s imagination, as it would end up becoming Mercury’s best-selling nameplate. According to Ford, the Grand Marquis helped the brand secure its best-ever sales year of 580,000 units sold in 1978.

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Poorly Executed Badge Engineering Led To Mercury’s Demise

Mercury Annual Sales 2002-2009

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Mercury continued to offer luxury-oriented Ford-based models for the next couple of decades, though they started to look closer and closer to the Fords they were based on. While Mercury models from the 1930s through 1960s featured bespoke bodies with different lines that set them apart from Fords, later Mercury models tended to only have minor changes, such as different front grilles.

Over time, the Grand Marquis models started to look almost identical to the Ford Crown Victoria sedans they shared a platform with. The main differences were the bigger grille and altered headlights, which were more elegant in nature than those on the Crown Vic. Feeling that public favor was dropping with the brand, Ford attempted to revive its 1960s performance success with the return of the Mercury Marauder in 2003.

Ford essentially took the Grand Marquis and turned it into what looked like a Ford Crown Victoria police cruiser, with only the slightly different grille and badging giving away the fact it was a Mercury. The new Marauder, which featured a 4.6-liter V8 that produced 302 hp, failed to hit the mark though, as Mercury sold just 11,052 examples in the two years before it was axed. According to Hagerty, the brand had been hoping to sell around 18,000 per year.

Plummeting Sales: The Nail In Mercury’s Coffin

It wasn’t only the Marauder that tanked though, as Mercury saw its sales plummet during the 2000s. Though Mercury sold a solid 263,000 vehicles in 2002 as per GoodCarBadCar, the brand’s fortunes soon turned as it sold around 60,000 fewer the following year. Its numbers steadily declined over the following years until just six years later, in 2009, it managed to sell just over 92,000 cars. This alarming drop in sales made it ripe for the chopping block as Ford looked to trim its product portfolio.

Having continued to offer largely rebadged Fords, such as the Mercury Milan, which was just a thinly disguised Fusion a new set of braces, Ford felt there was little use in continuing to sell Mercurys. So, the Detroit automaker announced it would cull Mercury in 2010, explaining that it was looking to instead focus on perfecting the vehicles it produced under its Ford and Lincoln banners.

And just like that, Mercury was dead. It could be argued this was more of a mercy killing though, given the vehicles that Mercury put out in its final years were a long way away from the brand’s glory days of the mid-20th century.

Sources: XR793.com, GoodCarBadCar, Ford, CNN, Hagerty, Mecum Auctions