Just heard on the radio.. read here.. http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...-of-mercury-after-seven-decades-update1-.html
That sucks. I was just thinking about buying a clean late model Grand Marquis the other day, cuz they are sweet cars.
Mercury has been a badge engineer brand for decades. Almost every one of their cars is just a ford with a different logo. I hate when the old companies die off, but it's in good business sense.
That sucks, but really isnt surprising, they dont make anything worth a crap anymore anyway. It looks like my Comet will soon be an orphan.
Been years since GM made anything other than Planned Obsolescence but who cares? ----------------------- Mercury, from 1939 up was always just a nicer, slightly more refined and powerful car than it's Ford counter part. It's too bad that the American market didn't get to choose from or pick from the Mercury Line up. But then again, maybe that would take away from the lore of the land yacht sized 49 Mercurys or even the Mercury M1 On another note, You can bet that many here will be keeping an eye out for signage that gets pulled down from the Dealerships because it say Mercury on it. .
If you build shit, you eventually die (or get a bail out). I had bought an 89 Mercury Cougar new. Yea, ugly cars now, but that was the new body style and my wife liked it. Before it it 5K miles, the complete air conditioning system had to be replaced. Before it hit 20K it had to be replaced again. It completely failed again 5k miles later. I change oil like clock work as well as all fluids, even though I think some recomendations are over kill. I also drive normal (my last ticket was 1985). We scrapped the car before it hit 90K because, head gasket went out, trans had to be rebuilt, both automatic seat belts wouldn't work, both power windows were shot, among other things I dont recall off hand, but I'm sure I will remember in an hour. They build crap, and I wouldn't drive them if they were given to me. I do not drive any imports, but I can see why they are taking over. Good riddence, even though I drive a 64 breezeway 2 door Merc.
Intelligent argument based on one car out of endless amount. I will agree fords EFI 3.8 was a pain in many car owners asses. I had to replace both head gaskets two separate times. I find it funny when proud hicks argue about car makes.
no big surprise...I have to give Ford credit. They took no government bailout dollars, are back to showing a profit, and if cutting Mercury off helps keep Ford making a profit, then I see no down side. Go Ford!!!! The only part that I will miss is Jill Wagner who has been doing the Mercury commercials for the past few years....humma humma humma!
That's what happens when you stop advertsing your products... Ford has done a poor job of promoting the Mercury line for years. When I worked at the local Ford/Lincoln/Mercury store in the 90's we sold 50/50 Ford/Mercury... the Mercs always had a little nicer option package or a little better standard eqipment than the Fords. The style was also arguably a little more "upscale" and, since people "buy with their eyes", that also helped sell the car. But Mercury also had a little older customer base... Buick has done a nice job recently of stealing import buyers but Ford hasn't seemed to want to do the same with Mercury. Every NEW car I bought from 1970 until 1997 was a Mercury except for two (One Ford and one Toyota).
They made a few good ones. In 1977 in my Mercury Marquis, pushing the 429 wide open on US 34 goin' home from the dirty floor Highway Inn after midnight, in eastern Colorado, with not a care in the world. Was it a 69?(hell I forget year that car was.LOL) Anyhow, listnin' to Freddy FEnder, On 8-track, Wasted days and Wasted Nights, Before the next teardrop falls and others. Ran the wheels off that car and the 429 was still singin' it's song. My 'Mercury Music' Ha. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSm8cVgnTs&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa8sdCvMPtM&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qu8RPvhP-U
I had heard that, just trailered home a clean '49 project this morning just in time to beat the price spike I see!
Mercury is one of many defunct U.S. Auto Mfg. Check out this list from 1898 to 2010 there got to be at least 1500 auto no longer made .......................................... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_United_States_automobile_manufacturers
Now by comparison we had an '87 T-bird we got new, that I totalled when I was 18 - guy was in my lane and I jammed on the brakes, locked it up and slid into a telephone pole. So we replaced it with an '88 used with about 40,000 miles on it. That one got wrecked and rebuilt twice - my dad would later do about the same thing, lock it up and slide off but this time into a guardrail - but we only retired it with 170,000 miles when the left trailing arm mount rotted out - and even then I was going to put the motor in another car but kids broke into where I had stored it and trashed it. An '89 should mechanically more or less be the same, and a Cougar is just a T-bird with a different roofline. My sister has a '99 Sable now and the trans jerks and slips all the time, other than that it hasn't been too bad, the ABS is on the fritz but that may as much be due to being driven in the salt and being 10 years old as an engineering issue. And Ford was the only US carmaker to not get a bailout, as far as that goes. But I'm not that surprised, they've been adding more lower-end models to the Lincoln line-up and could probably fill the same niche in the market with a combination of Ford and Lincoln stuff. Will save them some money tooling up a handful of different parts to make the same cars look slightly different.
Ford has definitely done better about turning around their company: selling off the other companys and now merc, and making cars that people want. Resurecting the Taurus name was a mistake. When I hear it I think of the late 90s one where everything but the wheels was oval
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