An Indie Auto reader recently inquired as to when the Ford Motor Company began to “phone in” the Mercury brand. Also asked: Why did Ford do this and was it ultimately a sound decision?
Since Mercury was launched in 1939, it fluctuated from being a thinly disguised Ford to fielding more distinctive products than its premium-priced competitors from General Motors and the Chrysler Corporation.
For example, in 1949-51 Mercury was given a body it shared only with Lincoln, but from 1952-56 reverted to sharing a body with Ford.
Then, from 1957-60 the brand was moved upmarket and was once again given a more distinctive body (go here). The gambit didn’t work, so for 1961 the Mercury again became a slightly fancier Ford. For a number of years full-sized models shared a fair amount of sheetmetal.
Also see ‘1963 Mercury Marauder: Ford tries to do a premium-priced car on the cheap’
In the second half of the 1960s Mercury’s lineup was gradually made more distinctive to the point that by 1970 it reached an all-time peak. The full-sized Mercury and Cougar both had different sheetmetal and wheelbases than the equivalent Ford, and the mid-sized Montego looked admirably unique despite sharing doors.
The devolution of Mercury began in 1971
Mercury began to go downhill in 1971 when the brand introduced the first in a succession of new models that were “badge-engineered” Fords. The Comet was naught but a Maverick with a new fascia and taillights.
The Comet was followed in 1975 by the Monarch, which had modest trim changes over the Granada and the Bobcat, which was essentially a Pinto with a radiator grille slapped on. Then in 1976-77 the mid-sized Mercurys lost their exclusive sheetmetal in favor of more modest differentiation. And the 1978 Zephyr only had minor trim changes from the Fairmont.
Also see ‘Ford did better than Chrysler in differentiating its 1970s mid-sized coupes’
The last holdout from badge engineering was the big Mercury. However, when it was downsized in 1979, the Marquis was given the same wheelbase and most of the same sheetmetal as the LTD. It was arguably a well-executed design, but it still had less individuality than GM’s big cars, which also shared more sheetmetal than in the past.
Meanwhile, in 1979 the Capri was switched from an imported design to a Fox-bodied Mustang variant. Although the new Capri had more distinctive sheetmetal than any other Mercury, it still looked too much like a Ford because it shared the same doors.
Mercury output peaked despite badge engineering
What’s unfortunate about Mercury’s devolution is that it began when the brand had entered its most successful years. In 1971 output reached roughly 417,000 units, which was then an all-time high. Sales continued to trend upwards until 1979, when production peaked at roughly 669,000 units. But then in 1980 output dropped by 48 percent to under 348,000 units.
Note that 1980 production fell to levels not seen since 1966, when the brand had only two lines of cars — the now-intermediate Comet and full-sized Monterey/Montclair/Park Lane models. In contrast, for 1980 Mercury fielded six nameplates: Bobcat, Zephyr, Capri, Monarch, Cougar and Marquis.
Of course, by 1980 the Mercury lineup had so little differentiation from Ford’s that the cost of producing it was presumably much more modest than in the glory days of the late-60s, when (as we’ve discussed above) product differentiation was at its peak.
Should Ford have killed Mercury decades earlier?
Presumably Mercury was kept alive until 2011 primarily because the brand was paired with Ford’s luxury brand, Lincoln, to give its dealers higher volume. One might nevertheless ask: Should Mercury have been discontinued much earlier?
For example, might Ford have used the deep recession of the early-80s as an excuse to retrench? Getting rid of Mercury would have eliminated badge engineering and given both the Ford and Lincoln brands more room to maneuver. That could have been a timely move given the growth of the low-priced and luxury-car markets at the expense of premium-priced brands.
I could see that only happening with iconoclastic leadership on par with that of Robert McNamara. In the early-80s the U.S. automakers were still so wedded to a hierarchy-of-brands strategy that discontinuing a volume brand would have been considered downright sacrilegious.
NOTES:
Production figures and brand information are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Flory (2004, 2009), Gunnell (2002) and Wikipedia (2024).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International; Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Flammang, James M. and Ron Kowalke; 1999. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999. Third Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- ——; 2013. American Cars, 1973-1980. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Wikipedia; 2024. “Mercury (automobile).” Page last edited Aug. 9.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Mercury (1956, 1971, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979)
I think devolution started in 1961 when Mercury changed to the Ford body, probably because the 1957 through 1960 models didn’t sell as well as hoped. You could blame the bad economy in late 70’s and early 80’s for sales drop at Mercury, but I recall Oldsmobile and Buick did quite well during those years. Perhaps the Panthers needed a few more months in the styling studio.
Of course, there were ups and downs throughout Mercury’s life, such as getting a distinct body from Ford in 1949-51 but then losing it from 1952-56. And then being pushed upmarket in 1957-60 before retrenching in 1961. Another growth spurt through 1970 resulted in Mercury having its all-time peak of distinctive products. However, from 1971 it was mostly downhill. I’ve added some text to the story to discuss this.
I agree that the bad economy of the early-80s hurt Mercury sales, but the brand arguably wasn’t as successful in navigating that period as GM’s premium brands partly because Mercury’s lineup suffered from too much badge engineering.
I think the problem was Mercury to me never had an image. I have a hunch that Lincoln needed the extra line to keep it’s doors open, and it did have a smaller lower cost companion brand in the Zephyr in the 30s. Yes, in 49=51 Mercury shared bodies with one Lincoln line. THe Senior Lincolns had their own body. GM with 3 premium brands could differentiate them. Pontiac youthful muscle, Olds family car with a flair, and Buick understated luxury. The Mercury was either a fancy Ford or a low price Lincoln depending on the mood in Dearborn.
Still in Canada, Ford Canada marketed another brand between Ford and Mercury named Meteor (who got a short hiatus when the Fairlane sized version was sold in the Great White North) as well as Monarch (not related to the Granada counterpart). https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/canada-day-classics-canadian-ford-branding-history/
http://www.oldcarscanada.com/2013/01/1957-meteor.html
Why Ford in the United States decided to gamble on the Edsel instead of Meteor or Monarch is a real mystery?…
Kind of different. As the article states, one was a Fordlike car for Mercury dealers in the sticks to sell, and the other was a Mercurylike car for Ford dealers in the boondocks. Now, Edsel FoMoCos plan to have five full lines just like GM and Chrysler, putting a couple extra rungs in the Sloan ladder. The idea was to slot Edsel between Ford and Mercury, becomine their Pontiac/Dodge. Mercury is moved upscale to Olds/Desoto level, always a marketing risk in such a brand conscious market. So, the Edsel served a different purpose from the Meteor/Monarch. GMs method was shoehorning some Pontiac sheetmetal onto a Chevy platform. Chrysler did the same thing with badge engineered Plymouths sold as Dodges and Desotos.
As told by a senior level Ford design manager: Ford management believed that all that was needed to make brand differentiation were some body side trim and nose and tail caps. They believed that this was accepted by the consumer as sufficient differentiation. Ford played some games beyond that with a double strike on the fenders of the Fox body Cougar to get the wind splits. In the mid 1970s Cougar they used a roof extension that required a vinyl roof to hide it. [Mercury supplied a special Cougar to Motor Trend with a vinyl roof but it had been custom done to blend the seams – such a joke.]
Later after Bill Mitchell retired GM’s corporate leadership fell into this same fallacy that a few trim changes can hide that it is the same sheetmetal.
Mercury’s drop in production was more of a reflection on the trouble that the whole Ford Motor Co. was facing in 1980. Yes, it did see a decline of 48%, but at the same time Ford lost 37% of its figures and the Panther-downsized Lincoln lineup was down 60% year on year. In fact, the corporation’s 41% drop was worse than the 32% crisis-stricken Chrysler experienced.
Also, it seems that in the medium term the buying public didn’t mind Mercury’s shift to copypasting Fords that much – while between 1970 and 1979 Mercury shifted from its own lineup to Ford rebadges, it was also the fastest growing medium priced brand in relative terms (+106%, compared to Chrysler’s +93%, Oldsmobile’s +68%, Pontiac’s +31%, Buick’s +9% and Dodge losing 26% in production), and only came second in absolute growth, behind Oldsmobile (344,422 vs 434,173).
I would agree that discontinuing the Mercury in the early-80s would have been more of a reach than, say, Plymouth. I could see product planners pointing to the sales gains that Mercury made over the course of the 1970s in arguing for the brand’s continuation. At the same time, I don’t think Ford invested enough in the Mercury during the 1980s to build its cachet at a time when imports were starting to undercut the popularity of American premium-priced brands and the whole idea of badge engineering was looking increasingly archaic. Ford didn’t abuse the practice as badly as Chrysler, but it hardly deserves a gold star.
Let’s also keep in mind that building brand integrity isn’t like turning on a light switch. For example, the Sable may have helped to restore some luster to Mercury, but by that point the brand had already been degraded by fielding too many thinly disguised Fords.
And just because Mercury imported cars that were different than domestic Fords wasn’t a huge plus if they didn’t help to build a coherent brand image. Mercury’s lineup could look dangerously similar to Saturn’s in its final days — a junk drawer of random products.
If we compare Mercury sales in 1982, when it was model-for-model a Ford doppelganger, to 1993, where the only cars with full Ford sheetmetal were the Sable wagon, Topaz coupe and Tracer, the Capri had no Ford equivalent, and Mercury’s new minivan entry had nothing to do with the Aerostar, we see the production figures actually increase – from 329k to 366k.
While it did trail behind Ford’s growth (749k to 1.026m), not to mention Lincoln’s Cadillac-threatening explosion, Mercury did grow – an accomplishment that Oldsmobile, Buick and Chrysler all failed at. Even the brands that grew did not achieve Mercury’s 11% – Dodge (if we can call it medium priced) reached 5.5%, and Pontiac only grew by 3.5%.
It may have been a pyrrhic victory because of how little was needed to overtake the rest of the medium priced field, but Mercury’s differentiation did result in class leading production growth.
I would invite you to reread the headline of this story. My answer to the headline’s question is between the years 1971-79. I gather that you disagree, although it is unclear as to what time period you would point to.
As the graph in my story illustrates, Mercury production grew throughout the 1970s despite the onset of badge engineering. However, I would argue that this practice still undermined Mercury’s brand integrity. Again, you seem to disagree, pointing to cars in later years that were unique, such as the two-seater Capri and Tracer. Yet those models didn’t sell very well, nor did they arguably contribute to a cohesive brand identity.
I will leave for another article a more in-depth discussion of the premium-priced field in the 1980s and 1990s, but I would hypothesize that Mercury’s 1982-93 sales relative to its U.S. competitors were not a huge achievement given GM’s decline and Chrysler’s weakness. And why would you even mention Dodge, which at that point was supplanting Plymouth as Chrysler’s low-priced brand?
I would argue that Mercury’s growth relative to the GM and Chrysler competition was because the Ford Motor Company, in general, offered more compelling products than its two domestic competitors during this period.
At GM, Buick and Oldsmobile were also seriously hurt by increased platform and drivetrain sharing among all divisions. GM had always maintained more distinction among its various brands, and as those distinctions lessened during the 1980s, Buick and Oldsmobile suffered greatly.
Mercury had never really carved out an identity that was distinct from Ford. By the 1980s, I can’t remember anyone under the age of 35 who really believed that a Mercury was a step up from a comparable Ford. Mercury simply benefitted from Ford’s product renaissance of the 1980s.
People bought a Mercury instead of a Ford because they either liked the styling differences (particularly the Cougar versus the Thunderbird), or preferred to deal with the local Lincoln-Mercury dealer instead of the Ford dealer.
1979 may have been a year in which Mercury was made a complete Ford rebadge for the first time, but it’s worth noting that the brand’s loss of individuality wasn’t a one and done affair – a few years later Ford started differentiating it again, with either different sheetmetal (1983 Cougar was the start) or models without a Ford counterpart (1st gen Tracer, Capri, Villager, FWD Cougar).
The actual year of Mercury losing its last unique car was 2006, when the Sable was replaced with the Milan – instead of model-specific sheetmetal, the new midsize Mercury was a straight up rebadge of the Ford Fusion. This change came three years after the discontinuation of the last Mercuries without Ford siblings, the Cougar and the Villager.
Also I think the reason why Mercury sales beginned to rose in the late 1960s-early 1970s was the tagline used in print and tv ads “At the sign of the cat” with a big cougar roaring on the top of the Mercury-Lincoln sign since the arrival of the Mercury Cougar along with a little cougar kitten when they promoted the Comet in 1974.
I add a bit more on the table about “The sign of the cat”, here a 1979 Mercury ad showing the new Marquis and Capri with a big cougar running.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT6W5sRPiJo
And a clip showing behind the scenes of the filming of the 1974 models with a cougar and a kitten cougar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apu_mpDKZFk
Now I wonder what if Mercury continued its tagline “At the sign of the cat” during the 1980s with the introduction of the Lynx, Topaz, Sable and Tracer? I think they missed an opportunity when they showed the Lynx, they could have shown the Lynx at the top of the Mercury-Lincoln sign at the end of that ad.
When I saw the title, I asked myself when DID this happen and I reasoned that it really became apparent in 1971. That was the beginning of the end for them to me. The Mercury Monterey began looking like the LTD despite the longer wheelbases and sheetmetal, the Montegoization of the Cougar, and the Comet. My uncle had a ’70 X-100 Marauder and it looked nothing like the big Fords of that year. Direct hit, Steve!
I keep thinking about Mercury and have a hard time coming up with a “why”. Sometimes they had some compelling or unique products, but it sure seems like their ultimate reason to exist was just so that the Lincoln dealer had something additional to sell.
I wonder how much turnover of Mercury leadership there was as this would be an indicator of turmoil in having a consistent philosophy.
Was there even “Mercury leadership” during most of this time? I recall that there was no Mercury Division general manager after the abortive attempt to expand the Ford Motor Company to five divisions in the late 1950s. It was always the general manager of the “Lincoln-Mercury Division.”
Just to throw in a thought – what about 1965, when Ford introduced the LTD? Surely that was encroaching on Mercury’s market space. I totally understand that the latter sixties saw some of the most visually distinct Mercury models, which were sorely needed if the brand was to continue – but I wonder how many customers went for a top-line Ford rather than mid-line Mercury (or however the prices lined up)? Did Mercury have enough cachet in the latter sixties?
The man who tried to keep Lincoln-Mercury afloat, Ben Davis Mills (1915-2003), one of “The Whiz Kids” and decorated with a Bronze Star for his service in W.W.II was the leader for Lincoln and Mercury, saving the Lincoln for 1961 and coming up with a plan where the Mercury brand could be economically spun off the big Ford platform with minor sheet metal and trim, plusher upholstery and upgraded dealerships after the Edsel debacle. Elected to Ford’s board in 1955 as Lincoln V.P., then given the Mercury division in late 1957, Mills was promoted to V.P. of Worldwide Purchasing in late 1964 until he retired in 1971. Because I get the impression that Iacocca was responsible for Mills’ departure from Lincoln-Mercury, Mills had launched the new L.T.D.-platform Mercury for 1965 and had probably signed-off on the Cougar details for 1967. (I base this idea on the later-in-life interests that Mills developed after leaving Ford.) I think that after 1971, the Iacocca pattern of repackaging the same platforms with fender extensions and trim-rearrangements took hold for Mercury. When Mercury offered products like the Capri, the Nissan-based Villager and the Sable, there was showroom interest, but then Iacocca was gone after 1978. (My wife bought a new Villager, and I owned a 1988 Sable GS…both great cars. But I have to go back to leadership: Ben D. Mills had it. I have no idea who headed Mercury or Lincoln after 1964.
One additional thought from me: In 1939, the Mercury Eight was truly a bigger deluxe Ford with more power, “juice” brakes and slightly more Zephyr-like styling. Until the 1949 restyle and the more important 1952 update, Mercury was still a mid-priced car, but not quite in the class of a mid-level Buick. While I think George Walker had a plan for Mercury after 1956, somehow his Mercury stylists did not restrain themselves and the awful 1957-1958 Mercurys (It’s the bumpers that are off-putting, to me.) doomed what might have been a more salable car.