Mercury Dead by 2012
 

This sucks.

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=126901

By Ford's own hand, no less.

Mercury has been dead for much longer, just stuck on life support. No reason the Ford brand can't fill the mid luxury shoes with options on its models. and then keep lincoln as the high end luxury.

But many people who drove Mercurys might switch to Buick or Chrysler.

Not exactly a shocker, really, as Mercury has been a dead man walking for about the past decade, Ford just didn't have the guts to admit it or the backbone to make it viable. A shame as I think it could have been Ford's analog to Pontiac, the slightly upscale performance division bringing in product from Europe (Mondeo is screamingly obvious) and Australia (various hot RWD rides from down under to go against the awesome G8).

I used to work at a Ford/Lincoln/Mercury dealer. Could never figure out why Mercury hung on. Just seemed like to much duplication of effort to me.

We all know that people in the USA wants European Fords, but are they willing to pay European prices for them?

There Are Ford Dealers, Ford Mercury Dealers, Lincoln Mercury Dealers. And Ford Lincoln Mercury Dealers. It Would Make Sense For All to Merge into All Ford Lincoln Franchises. We are an FLM Dealer BTW!

KC

Mercury continues to miss the mark
 

Mercury continues to miss the mark. There were/are so many opportunities for them to make and sell desirable cars.

They killed the town car, they choked the sporty mark series, they have totally dropped the ball.

Where is my **** retro 1969~1970 styled 2005, 2006, 2007, & 2008 COUGAR???

This Cougar should have used the same platform and performance options as the SN197 Mustang with the requisite Mercury creature comforts, like automatic temperature control.

If I could have gotten a 2008 Mercury Cougar Eliminator complete with 500 horsepower 5.4 and six speed manual transmission along with performance suspension, brakes and automatic temperature control, I may well have bought that rather than my GT500.

Well, if Audi can bring their A3 and A4, and Volkswagen their Passat, all of which are very equivalent to the Mondeo, at affordable prices, then why can't Ford seem to do the same? Yes, given what I know and have seen of the Mondeos (while overseas), I would certainly pay Passat-level prices for one.

I think Dearborn takes too much of a quantitative aspect to their thinking -- how big and how much stuff is in the car -- as to a more qualitative aspect -- materials, craftsmanship, driving dynamics -- and thus have a hard time grasping something like a Mondeo and then marketing and selling it. The Mondeo is rather unremarkable in the first aspect but superb by most accounts in the latter, much like the Audi and Volkswagen examples, which are very popular here. Mercury especially seemed most comfortable selling two-ton barges with baroque styling and brothel-inspired interiors.

A3 starts at $26,000, A4 starts at $30,000 and Passat starts at $24,000.

Would you really pay that much for a 4-cyl Mondeo? I wouldn't, especially after I was able to get 4-cyl Fusion with bunch of options for only $15,500.

Considering that Ford may sell more Mustangs than Mercuries in 2008, the Mercury Brand is dead.

Not if Ford gets their *** in gear and offers something like this Mondeo 'coupe' instead >>

http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/upload/...CoupeScoop.jpg

In a fireman's minute as I think the Mondeo, certainly the 5-cylinder version, is every bit the equal of at the Passat and A3 and close to the A4. As for the Fusion, certainly a nice and pleasant enough car, can't really say anything's wrong with it, but pales in comparison to a the Mondeo, especially in the more intangibles of aesthetics and driving dynamics, IMO.

I'm not saying that Mondeo is not a nice car, but I'm saying that it's too expensive for the USA market.

It would be great if we could get Mondeo for same money we get Fusion, but that's never gonna happen.

If we're using Passat for an example, I4 Passat starts at $24,000 and V6 Passat starts at $36,000. For that kind of money you can get any entry level luxury car including twin turbo BMW 335i.

And after last Mondeo failed in the USA I don't think Ford wants to take a chance again. Too risky.

bummer....I love my mariner.

Drop that $h!t cold.

I see the Mondeo as being a notch up the food chain, certainly qualitatively rather than quantitatively, than the Fusion and pretty much on par with the Passat in value and price, if not even lower end Audis, Acuras, and Infinitis. Your example of the previous Mondeo (Contour) is a good example, but probably more of Dearborn's ham-handedness in wrapping their minds around the idea of sophisticated, high quality (materials, dynamics, finishes) cars rather than high quantity (big size, big motors, big option list, big stylistic glitz), much less actually marketing and selling them effectively.

That the aforementioned Audis, Acuras, etc. have sold well and profitably in the $25K-$35K range shows there is indeed a viable market for such cars. While the Fusion is probably perfect for the more bread and butter Ford lineup, I always thought the Mondeo and other more sophisticated, higher-end Euro wares would have been perfect for Mercury to actually distinguish itself in a meaningful way from standard bulk-item Ford vehicles and make inroads into the lucrative yuppie market. Mercury also tried this tactic before with the Merkurs and early Capris, even, amazingly the DeTomaso Pantera, but again, was incredibly ham-handed and clumsy about marketing and selling anything without plush velor seats and opera windows.

In the end, for a variety of reasons (insular "not invented here" syndrome, myopic market focus, lack of leadership, etc), Mercury basically pottered along on selling slightly tarted up Ford models that were nice enough but really made little market sense, lacking the true substance and sophistication to actually appeal to discerning yuppies while costing more than essentially identical Ford models right down the street.

Pontiac, somewhat if not wholly analogous to Mercury, as is perhaps Saturn too, have started embracing the concept of bringing in and selling these more sophisticated models from overseas. Saturn is quickly turning into Opal's North American marketing arm while Pontiac, with cars such as the awesome G8, is finally turning (returning?) to being a truly viable performance car division with the level of dynamic, stylistic and detailing sophistication demanded by the aforementioned yuppies.

I don't know why you keep mentioning Passat. Passat's sales in the USA are horrible (under 30,000 per year) and it's not worth the effort to bring a Mondeo in the USA just for that.

Correct, Audi and Acura had a success, not Volkswagen and Honda. Which means if such a car (Mondeo) it's even gonna exist in the USA it must be a Lincoln or at least a Mercury.

Pontiac's first try to import an Australian car was a disaster (GTO), and I'm not sure that G8 will do much better. Sales of G8 in May were around 1,800 vehicles which is a pretty low number.
As for Saturn, their line of Opels is a disaster. Aura's sales were far below expectations last year even with heavy advertisement, and sales of Astra in May was only 1,000.

Overall, all imported Ford's that I wanted to see in the USA are gonna be here soon and that includes European Focus and Fiesta and Asian Ranger.

In EU, the Mondeo is ranked higher then the 3-class/C-class, and any VW product. A4 is nothing special either. Its actually the exchange rate that makes the Mondeo expensive here, if it were built in the Americas it would be competitively priced. Which is pretty much the idea for the next-gen Focus.

Passat pulled a "maxima" with this generation. The Jetta has grown up enough to take the original car's spot and the Passat now is in entry-luxo territory. When the Altima grew up from its sentra-based platform, it matched the existing Maxima line in options and the Maxima got booted right into spitting distance(and sometimes over) $$ of the Infinity G. Which is why at the Nissan dealer I worked at, keeping 45 Altimas in stock was the norm, and 3 Maximas in stock were more then enough.

But Mercury needs to go away. It won't be any big loss.