R.I.P. Mercury

[Harold]

For years the Mercury has had nothing to offer over the equivalent Ford models. After the death of the Cougar and Sable, what was the point anyway. There was no real reason to 'put Mercury on my list', unless I wanted a rebadged StupidUV or Fusion. Edsel Ford must be spinning in his grave...

[Chuck Most]

Not to be the Negative Nancy here, but I really don't see the reason for Mercury even existing anymore. The multi-tiered branding so famously run into the ground by Generic Motors has been obsolete for at least three decades. Who wants a 'sub-premium' line, right? Yeah, I'd hate to see Merc go, but it does make sense. The whole reason Mercurys became rebadged Fords was to prop up sales at Lincoln-Mercury dealers- Lincoln sales volumes weren't enough to support those dealers alone. Now that Lincoln has the broadest product line it's ever had, and selling quite a number of them, Mercury really seems redundant.

No matter what, though, I'll continue piling on the miles on my '98 Tracer (4-door Escort with a different nose and tail)and keep the good times in mind!

[gasman]

Ford is expected to announce today at 3:00 P.M. the demise of Mercury.....

[Harry P.]

Not to be the Negative Nancy here, but I really don't see the reason for Mercury even existing anymore. The multi-tiered branding so famously run into the ground by Generic Motors has been obsolete for at least three decades.

I wonder how well that theory really ever worked. I mean the GM idea of getting a young first time buyer into a low-priced GM car (Chevy)... then maybe he moves on to a Pontiac or trades up to a Buick or Olds in a few years... then maybe a Caddy once he can swing the payments. Get the buyer when he's young, offer a "ladder" of products with the ultimate prize (Caddy) at the top, and keep the customer for life.

That worked for GM for years, probably Plymouth/Dodge/Chrysler-Imperial and Ford/Mercury/Lincoln too, to some extent. But with the onslaught of foreign competitors, and buyers being a little more informed than they used to be, the old "Customer for Life" idea doesn't much work anymore.

Plymouth is history, Pontiac and Olds are gone, Mercury next. Makes sense when the American car makers' slice of the pie is a whole lot smaller than it was 30-40 years ago.

[Modelmartin]

s. Get the buyer when he's young, offer a "ladder" of products with the ultimate prize (Caddy) at the top, and keep the customer for life.

Perhaps part of the problem is that no one wants to work up the ladder anymore. They want to start with the Caddy, the Lincoln, the Lexus. With all of the easy credit - why not? Luxuriate now, pay later!

[Harry P.]

Mark, excellent points regarding the extra costs of crash testing, emissions, etc. Makes a lot of sense, and no wonder that car makers are consolidating these days. Like you said, the world of car manufacturing is much different today than it was back in the domestic makers' "glory days" of the 50s and 60s when "badge engineering" still made economic and business sense.

[Peter Lombardo]

I agree 100%.

Harry, I think you could make a case for “separated at birth” with these two cars.

Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo

And just for the record, I certainly don’t think that a new Cougar could have saved Mercury……This car didn't save Oldsmobile did it?.....this was a long time in coming….and the wind that blew Mercury away has more victims lined up. The problems in Detroit are far from over. I fear that the storm is just gathering in strength.

Edited June 2, 2010 by Peter Lombardo

[Joe Handley]

Well guys, it look to be official

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1453/mercury-falling-ford-eliminates-mid-range-brand/

Mercury falling: Ford eliminates mid-range brandprint

By Dee-Ann Durbin and Tom Krisher, Associated Press

Ford Motor Co. will cease production of its 72-year-old Mercury brand by the end of 2010 after years of declining sales.

Mercury's death is the latest in a string of casualties as Detroit carmakers try to cut costs and invest more heavily in fewer offerings. By shedding a mid-range brand that was more and more irrelevant to buyers, the automaker can focus on accelerating sales of Ford and beefing up its luxury Lincoln brand.

Ford plans to expand its Lincoln lineup to make up for lost Mercury sales and support Lincoln-Mercury dealers who will suddenly be without a brand. Derrick Kuzak, Ford's product development chief, said Lincoln will have seven new or revamped vehicles in the next four years, including the brand's first compact car.

The automaker's board of directors approved ending the brand Wednesday morning. Ford Americas President Mark Fields said the decision was made this spring as part of an annual business review. He said Mercury's sales make up such a small percentage of North American market share less than 1 percent, compared with Ford brand's 16 percent and that the profile of Ford and Mercury shoppers is so similar, it makes more sense to focus on Ford and Lincoln.

The move should help the Ford brand. Mercury was the No. 1 brand that was also considered by Ford buyers, said Aaron Bragman, an analyst for the consulting firm IHS Global Insight. Ford said 53 percent of Mercury shoppers consider Ford and Lincoln. Ford said it will offer discounts through the summer on Mercury vehicles to shed inventory.

Ford shares rose nearly 4 percent to close at $11.85.

Ford has 1,712 dealerships currently selling Mercurys, although none are stand-alone Mercury dealers. All sell either Lincolns, Fords or all three brands. Ford expects some of its 276 Lincoln-Mercury dealers will continue as stand-alone Lincoln dealerships and it will try to consolidate others into existing Ford dealerships.

All dealers will be eligible for compensation, although Fields wouldn't say how much they will be offered.

Bob Tasca Jr., who owns two Mercury dealerships in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and is the head of Ford's Lincoln-Mercury Dealer Council, said many dealers will get through the Mercury closure and do well selling Lincolns.

But he said the closure is still emotional, because dealers will have to lay off staff and, in some cases, close showrooms.

"From a financial standpoint, it was the only decision Ford Motor Company could make," Tasca said.

Ford didn't say how much it expects to pay to shutter the brand, but Fields said the closure doesn't affect the company's forecast that it will be solidly profitable this year. The company also doesn't plan to lay off any workers at its Dearborn headquarters.

The story is a familiar one in Detroit. General Motors Co. recently shed the Saab, Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer brands. In 2004, GM spent more than $1 billion to kill Oldsmobile. Chrysler Group LLC dumped its Plymouth brand in 2001 after a sales decline similar to Mercury's.

Mercury got its start in 1935, when Henry Ford's son Edsel Ford began designing a more upscale car he planned to call the Ford Falcon. But he didn't think it fit with the brand's other offerings, so he created a new brand named for the winged Roman god.

The first Mercury, the 1939 Mercury 8, went into production in 1938. It sold for $916 and boasted a 95-horsepower V-8 engine. More than 65,800 were sold the first year.

For many years, Mercury remained the mid-range option between the no-frills Ford brand and the luxury Lincoln brand. But it struggled to find a niche. It tried importing some vehicles from Europe under the Merkur name in the late 1980s, but buyers weren't ready for the advanced design and higher prices.

In recent decades, it has struggled to differentiate itself as Ford moved upmarket and the two brand's vehicles became almost indistinguishable. The company also failed to give Mercury new products or advertising support. There is no Mercury version of the hot-selling Ford Focus, for example, or the Ford Edge crossover. Mercury currently has four models: The Milan sedan and Mariner small SUV and their hybrid versions. The Ford brand has nine.

Mercury's sales peaked in 1978 at more than 580,000 vehicles. Just over 92,000 Mercurys were sold last year.

Even though some of its products such as the Milan have received strong reliability scores from Consumer Reports magazine and other outside groups, Mercury's sales have never come close to Ford's Fusion, which is nearly an identical car. While Ford sold more than 75,000 Fusions and Fusion hybrids through April of this year, it sold just 11,800 Milans and Milan hybrids.

But Mercury did have one thing in its favor: It consistently outsold the Lincoln brand, which has been struggling despite a relatively new lineup and high scores in dependability surveys. Mercury sold nearly 10,000 more vehicles than Lincoln last year, even though its sales fell 23 percent from the year before.

Ford will have to invest serious dollars into Lincoln to make the plan work, but it should be able to do that because it has unloaded Aston Martin, Land Rover, Jaguar and Volvo in recent years, said Bragman of IHS Global Insight.

He said the difference between Ford and Lincoln vehicles needs to be similar to the difference between Volkswagen and Audi or Toyota and Lexus.

Kuzak and Fields said that with the end of Mercury, Lincoln will have the resources it needs, and Kuzak said the brand will get more exclusive technologies in the future to differentiate it.

Pricing could be a stumbling block. A Ford Focus compact likely will run around $25,000 with options, Bragman said. Lincoln would have to charge more for a luxury compact, and Bragman questions whether people will pay that for a small car.

"There's still some concern about whether Americans really do want these small cars," he said. "We have to see the next-generation Lincolns."

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

Edited June 3, 2010 by Joe Handley

[SSNJim]

As Mark Twain once said, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated". Many observers have thought that Mercury is on the way out for several years now, since the demise of Oldsmobile at least. Both those articles are about 3 years old; as of last Thursday, no formal decision had been made by Ford.

UPDATE:

The second link that Harry referenced seems to be updated today, and says Mercury will be shut down in 4Q 2010, and be rolled into Lincoln:

Jun 2, 2010 6:25 p.m.

Ford is dropping the Mercury brand after 71 years, choosing to focus on the Ford and Lincoln brands.

The company announced the plans Wednesday afternoon. Ford says the wind down will occur in the fourth quarter of this year. All warranties will be honored and Mercury customers will be able to get parts through Ford dealers.

Under the plan, Ford says there will be no job cuts and the Mercury division will be folded into Lincoln. Mercury dealers will receive information packets on the wind down Thursday.

Earlier Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ford's board of directors had given approval to shut down Mercury. The paper also said company CEO Alan Mulally was given the go ahead by key members of the Ford family.

Bloomberg News first reported that Ford was preparing to wind down the Mercury line last week. Mercury has been one of the company's three core brands.

In its initial reports, Bloomberg said the move was in response to plunging sales in the line. Sales have reportedly fallen 74 percent since 2000. Bloomberg says Mercury accounted for only 1.9 percent of Ford's first quarter global sales. In numbers released today, Ford reported May 2010 sales dropped 10.7% over the same month last year.

Mercury currently has four models, two of which were already scheduled to be eliminated next year. A new model that was scheduled to be introduced, the Tracer, will now be launched under the Lincoln brand. It will be built on the C platform, which is the same platform on which the Focus is built.

With the elimination of Mercury, the brand joins Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Plymouth as some of the once celebrated car brands that have vanished from the marketplace. The line was created in 1939 by Edsel Ford, the son of company founder Henry Ford.

At the time Ford was looking to create a mid-priced alternative line during the Great Depression. Edsel's great grand-daughter Elena Ford is currently the director of global marketing for Ford.

Edited June 3, 2010 by SSNJim

[Harry P.]

As Mark Twain once said, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated". Many observers have thought that Mercury is on the way out for several years now, since the demise of Oldsmobile at least. Both those articles are about 3 years old; as of last Thursday, no formal decision had been made by Ford.

From ford.com/news:

Mercury Announcement

Updated June 2, 2010

You may already have heard about an important announcement we made recently to end production of Mercury branded vehicles by the end of this year.

Ford will continue to provide existing and future Mercury owners with parts and service support at Ford and Lincoln dealers, and honor current warranties and Ford’s Extended Service Plans.

For additional information please view our Frequently Asked Questions section of the website.

Sincerely,

Your Mercury Customer Support Team

[Poncho-Power]

this mauy be a little late but the G8 and G6 are supossed to be the generations of the cars G8, 8th generation of the Grand Prix, G6 6th generation of the Grand Am, I don't understand why they kept GMC when all GMC is is a rebaged Chevy Truck, Buick is doing very well in China, Chevy is the may stake for GM but Pontiac sales we double that of Chev for the 2008 year, G8 was an exciting car....or is an exciting car! Pontiacs last muscle car!!!!

RIP Pontiac!

[Peter Lombardo]

Why GMC? It’s really simple. First….Truck sales have always been strong in the U.S. so GM does not want to abandon that market. Second, GMC truck sales are counted as Chevy truck sales for all of the sales numbers and “bragging rightsâ€â€¦so the sales do not take away anything from Chevy. Thirdly, Chevy is a “full line†brand which means they have cars and trucks, but Buick does not. The plan is to have stand alone Chevy dealers with cars and trucks and dueled Buick / GMC dealers so they will have both cars and trucks.

If you will recall, GM had Pontiac and GMC together before, but Pontiac was deemed to be expendable in the cull of last year so now it is combining Buick and GMC, It gives the remaining dealers a more balanced lineup to sell. And in case you missed it before…Pontiac was killed, and not Buick, mainly because Buick is a huge seller in China, where they sell more product than they do in the U.S.

But like I said before, there are more shifts and changes to come to the U.S. auto industry. With the Gulf Oil Spill growing, this plays directly into the hands of those in Washington and in Europe that was to see the end of the internal combustion engine. Just sit back and watch….more crazy events are coming…….hint….watch out for “Cap and Tradeâ€. It will change everything. And as the White House Chief of Staff has said many times,

“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.â€

— Rahm Emanuel

Gentleman, we have a crisis!

[Chuck Most]

GMC exists for the sole reason of providing non-Chevrolet GM dealer franchises a truck line to sell. If Buick gets the axe next, GMC is probably a goner a week from Thursday. Then again, my money was on Buick being the next GM 'brand' to be shed after Oldsmobile was euthanized... the Pontiac thing was totally out of left field to me- you see WAY more Pontiacs than Buicks in my area.

Edited June 3, 2010 by Chuck Most

[Harry P.]

... the Pontiac thing was totally out of left field to me- you see WAY more Pontiacs than Buicks in my area.

Depends on your zip code.

There are areas of the country where you probably see more Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches and Jaguars than Pontiacs...

Say, 90210, for example...

[Chuck Most]

That's certainly true. In the Chicagoland area, you're probably more used to seeing Cadillacs... their trunks loaded down with the bodies of the 'whacked'...

[highway]

OK, guys. Here's a little education on how this works. GMC costs General Motors almost nothing as a brand outside of marketing precisely because they are just re-badged Chevrolet trucks. The market accepts this and buys them by the tens-of-thousands.

Excatly, Mark. It's just like I told Nick earlier in this thread, GMC stands for Generic Made Chevies!!

GMC is fairly unique in the brand universe in that nobody has a problem, or ever has, with the idea of GMC and Chevrolet trucks being basically the same thing. It helps, of course, that light/medium-duty trucks are one of the biggest selling market segments out there, and that Ford, GM, Chrysler have mostly to themselves. While Toyota and Nissan sell pickups, they stop short of the 25/3500 class, not to mention any of the larger medium duty and commercial classes that the Big Three so profitably sell into.

Actually, Mark, GMC and Chevy are also unique in this area. They are the only Big Three manufacture to still offer any larger than one ton medium duty commerical chassis trucks. Ford (I think) may still offer the pickup F550, but it is still just a heavy duty pickup and not built on a medium duty chassis like the GMC Topkick and Chevy's version that I can't remember the name of offhand. Ford sold the medium and heavy duty truck lines to Freightliner, who rebranded the line to the Sterling truck brand. If you ever get a chance to see a Sterling truck up close, the Sterling badge was designed to fit in the void where the Ford badge was previously, thus changing the Blue Oval to a Silver Oval. I also do not remember Dodge ever offering a medium duty line, execpt maybe in the 60s in the era of Dodge semis. If you are in the market for a medium duty chassis nowadays and don't want one from a heavy truck manufacture like International or Mack, your only choice is the GMC or Chevy.

[charlie8575]

Well...

Ford offers trucks up to F-450s as pickups. There is a pickup-based F-550 in Chassis-cab only. I don't know if they've got evey GM GVWR covered but the Ford F-650 and F-750 (chassis cab) would seem to be Top Kick competitors.

Sterling, by the way, is a dead brand too. It was sold to Freightliner, which is owned by Daimler-Benz. They phased the brand out since they had other brands in the same markets. Since Daimler owned Chrysler from '98-2008, there was no need for a medium-duty Dodge during that era. Prior to that Chrysler didn't have the resources. Since then, they've introduced a 45/5500 series Dodge truck, but nothing bigger.

Oh? All of a sudden, I'm seeing a lot of Sterling-trimmed Rams out therre? Perhaps they're the 4500/5500 variants? I've seen several dumptrucks and at least one motorhome.

Charlie Larkin

[charlie8575]

Okkay...I just never noticed them until now. I wonder how they escaped my notice? That grille is quite distinctive.

Charlie Larkin

[highway]

Yeah, me too! I seen a similar Ford cabbed Sterling like that a year or two ago, but never the Dodge. Guess I better start following the medium duty trucks a little more!

[charlie8575]

There's an RV lot near me with one or two Sterling motorhomes on it. Next time I'm going by and have a camera with me, I'll try to remember to stop and take a picture.

Charlie Larkin