Mercury

Everyone who truly loves cars can likely name that special moment when his Car Guy Eye opens.  We always noticed some cars more than others. Some looked kind of strange, others set hearts aflutter. This writer’s moment came on a rainy winter day in early 1967. From the front seat of my dad’s car – this was in the days before kids had to be strapped backwards into car seats - it was those sequential indicator lights that drew my attention. “What’s that?” I asked my dad, voice full of wonder and pointing at the silver car ahead. He replied, “A Mercury Cougar. They’re new.” A Mercury Cougar… I watched that impossibly pretty car slowly turn and disappear down a side street. A few days later I made my dad stop in front of the local Lincoln-Mercury dealership where he indulged me a few minutes so that I might give the new Cougar a proper looking over. I was a little kid then and couldn’t articulate the car’s artful blending of line and proportion; that thrusting power stance of the 1965 Mustang, elegantly merged with the graceful restraint of the equally iconic 1961 Continental. All this six-year old boy knew was that this was the best looking car he’d ever seen. I had awoken to Mercury. As a car guy, you could say that I was born under the Sign of the Cat.

Mercury was a brand that was never quite sure of what it wanted to be. From its origins in 1937, it was conceived as a bigger more powerful Ford. Mercury indeed found initial success in the marketplace as a kind of super-Ford. In the late 1950s, the marque was pushed uptown to make room for the ill-fated Edsel, reshaping it into a cheaper alternative to Lincoln. That didn’t work out so well. In the 1960s it reverted back to being a stylish step up from the mainstream Ford brand and rose to new heights. Mercury lost its way again during the malaise of the 1970s. It soon became just a collection of rebadged Fords with not much to offer but a different showroom. And so it was for the Ford Motor Company’s middle child. There were moments when the brand’s star shown bright: The ’49 Merc is an automotive icon, and the ‘67 Cougar is one of the most beautiful cars ever made. Diehard Merc-o-philes would likely name a dozen more favorites (make mine a ’68 Park Lane, please). To the casual observer, however, most of its offerings are long forgotten. Until the end, Mercury never stopped searching for its place within the Ford "family of fine cars," looking for its role in the nebulous space that its siblings did not occupy. Mercury was an entity forever in search of an identity. 

Mercury Rising

Mercury’s path to production was long and arduous and fraught with obstacles. Not the least of which the man whose opinion throughout the first half of the 20th Century meant everything at the Ford Motor Company. The great Henry Ford was a brilliant entrepreneur with an obstinate soul. His legendary Model-T was the first automobile to be all at once simple, sturdy and cheap. Because of Henry and the Model-T, virtually anyone who wanted a car could now have one. It forever altered the way the world viewed personal mobility. Lovingly referred to by its owners as the Tin Lizzie, the T made a Michigan farm boy who was good with a wrench into one of history's greatest industrialists. 

Henry Ford loved his Lizzie and was fiercely protective of her. Henry steadfastly refused to replace the T with a more modern car, keeping it in production more than a decade after it had become obsolete. She had become an obsession, one that nearly brought down his company. 

Edsel Bryant Ford was Henry's only son, and second in command of the Ford Motor Company. The two could not have been less alike. Henry was tinkerer who loved the down and dirty of the manufacturing process. Edsel was an astute businessman and possessed a fine esthetic and sense of design. Where Henry was crude and confrontational, Edsel was refined and mild-mannered. Henry looked fondly on glory days past of the Model T. Edsel's view was forward, to a market that was evolving while his company was not. Their disagreements were many. Few had the son prevailing over his domineering father. 

By the early 1920s, General Motors, was enjoying tremendous success and profit with its popular mid-priced car lines, Buick, Oldsmobile and later Pontiac. The American public, who once salivated after the simple Model T, had now advanced in both status and income. More and more of them sought an upgrade in comfort, style and power. They wanted more than old Lizzy could give them. Edsel knew his company was missing the boat in this lucrative mid-priced arena. His father, transfixed and obsessed with past success, flatly refused to acknowledge market realities. At the Ford Motor Company, the way Henry Ford saw things was the way they would be.

Well known for his autocratic rule and his paranoia, Henry employed spies all over the company to report unauthorized activities. In the early 1920s, Edsel took advantage of a European trip by the elder Ford to engage in one such endeavor. He ordered trusted men in the design department to craft a modern, low-slung body onto a Model T frame. Edsel reasoned that if he could show his father a complete and functioning prototype, the older Ford would see the wisdom in replacing the T with a more modern car. Through his spies, however, the old man got wind of what was going on. Unannounced, he returned a day early. As the legend goes, Henry Ford walked into the studio before Edsel could get there. Upon seeing the modern looking sports tourer parked on the floor he asked, “Is this a Ford automobile?” After answering in the affirmative, the designers could do nothing but watch in horror as the slight but athletic Mr. Ford took up a hammer and crowbar and proceeded to literally tear the sleek red car apart.

Perhaps the one trait father and son shared was doggedness.  For a dozen years more Edsel fought to get his obstinate father to see the light and modernize Ford's product range. For a dozen years old Henry repaid his son's reason with wraith, to the detriment to Edsel's health. He was developing stomach ulcers. But the son’s perseverance did eventually win the day, albeit incrementally. Some years later, the vivid memory of the red roadster’s fate remained as Edsel spearheaded work on a new, smaller Lincoln called the Zephyr. Everyone involved with the project knew that if Henry Ford found out about the Zephyr while it was still in development he would have aborted it in its tracks. They had to use an outside firm to carry out the design work. The resulting car was so stunning, that even Henry when he saw it could not find fault. For the first time Blue Oval customers had a car to bridge the gap between Ford and Lincoln. 

The 1936 Zephyr, however, was far closer to a Lincoln than it was to a Ford. More steps would be needed to complete Ford Motor Company’s product range. Edsel’s next victory came in the form of the Ford Deluxe. For some time, Ford models had been available with an upgraded trim level. With the 1938 restyle, the Deluxe became its own model range, sporting a nicer interior and distinctive heart-shaped grill. The Deluxe sold well and at a higher profit that standard Fords. That went a long way toward pleasing Henry. Still, there was a nearly $500 price gap between the most expensive Ford Deluxe at $825, and the cheapest Lincoln Zephyr at $1295. It sounds like a pittance today, but in 1938 it was in that very $500 range that nearly every Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Buick was priced. It was in that range that The Ford Motor Company still had nothing to offer. 

That would change the following year. Edsel finally got Henry to sign off on a new mid-priced brand positioned in between the most expensive Ford and the cheapest Lincoln.  With guidance from Edsel, Ford's legendary chief designer E.T. “Bob” Gregorie created a car that, even though its Ford lineage was apparent, still managed to convey a completely different image, a unique identity that made it a worthy competitor to Oldsmobile and Buick. 

The name Mercury was chosen to evoke the attributes of the Greek God that embodied speed, dependability, eloquence and skill. These were fine qualities and used well in creating the marque’s first car. It used a Ford chassis with the wheelbase stretched by 4 inches.  Power came from the company’s well-regarded flat-head V8 engine, Mercury’s version bored out from 221 to 237 cubic inches. Horsepower increased from 85 to 95. This doesn’t sound like much, but a 12% boost made a big difference in the performance and character of the new car. The engine would become a favorite swap-in for hot-rodders of the 1940s and 50s. 

The new Mercury 8 was introduced to the public on October 6, 1938. In its first year, 54,000 were built, and 80,000 in the second. 82,000 more Mercurys were produced in 1941 and early ’42 before world war shut down civilian production. The sad irony was that after struggling so mightily to make Mercury a reality, Edsel Ford never saw another one built after that. The years of battle with his intransigent father were likely the cause of the ulcers and eventual stomach cancer that took his life in the spring of 1943. 

The Lead Sled

Like all manufacturers, Mercury resumed peace-time production in 1946 with warmed over pre-war models. These satisfied a frenzied market for 3 more years.  The first all-new post-war Mercury was the 1949 Series 9CM, a rather forgettable name for what would become Mercury’s most memorable car. 

The ’49 Mercury was also the last Ford Motor Company product inspired by Edsel Ford and his chief  good friend Bob Gregorie. But the car hadn’t originally been conceived as a Mercury. In the early years of the war, before Edsel became incapacitated by cancer, he and Gregorie had hatched a plan for a complete revamping of Fords product range. The 9CM was originally planned as the new standard sized Ford. Below it in the lineup would be a smaller compact Ford, and above it a larger Mercury, and then a still larger Lincoln. After Edsel’s death, a new leadership team reviewed the plans and deemed the big Ford too big and the small one too small. Gregorie was forced out of the company and a single medium sized Ford was created by outside designer, George Walker. Gregorie’s big Ford was turned into the new Mercury. His previously planned Mercury became a Zephyr-like smaller Lincoln model called the Cosmopolitan. 

The small Ford was subsequently shipped off to the company’s French subsidiary where it became the Vedette. Considered too small for America, the Vedette turned out to be too big for post-war France and flopped. (Ford spent the next half decade trying to unload its massively unprofitable Gaulish holdings before successfully fleecing the Simca Group, who incurred another decade of losses before unloading themselves on an even more gullible Chrysler Corporation…but we digress)

Unlike the Vedette, the new Mercury did not flop. Instead it shattered that marque’s image of being just a bigger fancier Ford. Unlike previous Mercs, that were built on lengthened Ford platforms, the 9CM used the same body shell as the Lincoln Cosmo, with the wheelbase reduced slightly to differentiate the two. The shortened frame also allowed Mercury to share Ford’s 2-door “woody” station wagon body. 

In addition to the wagon, the Mercury line was offered in a 2-door coupe and convertible and a 4-door sport sedan with “suicide” doors. All Mercs got an updated version of the flathead V8 engine, now displacing 255 cubic inches and good for 110hp. For the first time, the new Mercury had some real separation from its more common sibling. Mercury production rocketed from 111,000 in 1947 to 186,000 in ’49, and 318,000 in 1950. 

While it’s true this car put the Mercury brand on the map, it wasn’t until a few years later that the first post-war Mercury became an iconic symbol of cool. A mildly customized ’50 Monterey coupe was the car of choice for troubled teen, Jim Stark, played by new heartthrob movie star James Dean, in 1955’s Rebel without a Cause. The car played prominent role in the film featuring hard driving Southern California teens struggling to find their way in a suburban society whose structure was decaying.

Only months after the film was released, Dean was killed in a high-speed crash. It didn’t matter that the car in which he met his end was a Porsche. The rising star’s untimely death sealed the bond between the image Dean personified and the cool Mercury millions saw him driving in Rebel without a Cause.

It probably wasn’t happenstance that a Mercury coupe was chosen to be the car of the star in Rebel. Just a few miles down the Harbor Freeway from Hollywood stood the epicenter of the budding Southern California custom car scene, where dozens of young men with imagination and a blowtorch worked their magic on Detroit’s finest. They transformed ordinary coupes and sedans into rolling artworks. The powerfully sleek shape of the ’49-51 Mercury turned out to be their favorite canvas. 

Considered the best of the craft were George and Sam Barris. Their reputation and talent was such that in early 1952, when a young Navy veteran named Bob Hirohata wanted to transform the slightly used ’51 Mercury coupe he’d just purchased into something like no other, he called on George and Sam at Barris Kustoms. The car they created became a symbol of the SoCal kustom scene, and came to be known as the Hirohata Merc.

The Barris brothers took the stock Monterey Coupe and first chopped 4 inches from the front of the roof and 7’ from the rear. The B-pillars were removed to make it a “hardtop”, and the suspension was lowered. Taillights from a ’52 Lincoln, chrome spears from a ’52 Buick Riviera and grill teeth from a ’52 Chevy were integrated into a smoothed and channeled body painted seafoam green. Lead Sled was a term used for a customized full sized American car with lowered suspension and altered sheet metal. Before the advent of Bondo, the designers used lead to shape bodywork.  The Hirohata Merc and other artfully altered Merc’s had such an effect on the custom scene that the term Lead Sled became synonymous with the ’49-51 Mercury.

The Hirohata Merc was on the show scene for more than a year. At the same time, it was also Bob’s daily driver. The chopped and channeled show car with its lowered suspension was beginning to show the effects of the LA streets. Bob sold his Mercury, and later it would change hands several times, including another trip back to the Barris brothers for some further modification. A few years after Bob Hirohata parted ways with his famous car, he turned up dead, shot in the head gangland style. The crime was never solved. With a story like that behind it, what other choice could Hollywood make for the Rebel co-star but a Mercury?

The ’49-51 Mercury was followed up with a major body restyle for 1952. The updated cars were attractive. In 1954 they were a lot faster, too, thanks to a modern, high compression OHV V8 producing 161hp.  

The Turnpike Cruiser

To understand the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, one must understand the times in which it was conceived. 1950s America was experiencing growth and wealth like no other time in history. The automobile industry responded accordingly. Cars got bigger. Features were added. Power rose as well, although most of the latter was applied mostly to lugging around additional bulk caused by the two formers. To give visual movement to all that mass, designers took inspiration from the premier technologies of the day, rockets and jets. It started innocently enough, a fin here, a spear there. Soon, fenders and bumpers were sprouting wings and thrusters. The Jet Age was upon us. One after another, new cars seemed to burst from the pages of a science fiction comic book, each more opulent and outrageous than the one before. It was a chrome encrusted orgy of SciFi bling.

But the cars of the mid-fifties were more fiction than science. For while they were getting bigger and wilder looking, and they did more stuff than ever before, they weren’t really any better. Handling didn’t improve. Stopping distances didn’t shorten. They certainly weren’t more efficient. Innovation in Detroit seemed defined only by the different ways in which sheet metal could be stretched, glass curved and chrome applied. What passed for advanced technology came now in the form of gadgets. It was all a show, a spaceship to Mars parked in every suburban driveway. Perhaps no other car embodied this age of excess better than the 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.

Since its inception, Mercury had occupied the ample space between the mainstream Ford and the upper-crust Lincoln. Comfortable in this range, Mercury consistently sold upwards of a quarter-million cars a year competing with Dodge, DeSoto and Pontiac. All that changed in the mid-1950s as the Ford Motor Company embarked on a brand binge that got out of hand. First, the suits in Dearborn separated Lincoln-Mercury into two distinct divisions, each with its own engineering and design staffs. Then they added an opulent Continental division above even Lincoln in the status-sphere. These decisions made sense. Ford had its namesake volume make, plus the near-luxury Mercury, luxury Lincoln and uber-lux Continental, making for substantial coverage of a broad market. They should have stopped there.

But they didn’t. Arch-rivals, General Motors and Chrysler each had five brands. Ford still had only four. In the one-upmanship world of Detroit, the claim of “mine’s bigger” could go unanswered. So, in what would turn out to be one of the most ridiculed moves in the history of the automobile, they added a fifth automotive division called Edsel. The result of course, wasn’t pretty.

The story of Edsel has been well chronicled, including by this writer. In summary, it involved two powerful factions within the Ford Motor Company who wanted to take the firm in very different directions. The obsession of one was to have their own 5th automotive division like their Detroit neighbors. Another nearly as powerful group wanted to par divisions and proceeded with alternative plans. The first faction won… kind of. A new Edsel Division was shoehorned between the Ford brand and Mercury in an utterly half-assed way (not surprising with only half the company behind it.) The result was five automotive butts fighting for space on a 4-cushin sofa. Mercury got squeezed, and Edsel, in the end, was crushed.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.  To make room for the upstart Edsel, Mercury was pushed uptown. It’s 1957 cars were 5 inches longer, 4 inches lower and 3 inches wider than the previous year. Even so, designers found themselves boxed in by the huge Lincoln and the still pretty big Edsel. They would have to employ unique styling and advanced technology to make the big new Mercurys stand out. The most unique, most advanced and biggest of the Big M Mercs would be the Turnpike Cruiser. The results were, how shall we say, mixed.

Stylists employed what they called a “horizontal plane” theme. In fact, the long, flat hood must have looked quite enticing to low flying planes. Like the big Oldsmobiles and Buicks it was now competing against, the Turnpike Cruiser looked pretty impressive. It was big and bold and had lots of bling fastened to most every available surface. You noticed it. The trouble was, you also noticed how old fashioned it looked next the graceful and flowing Chrysler Saratoga and DeSoto FireFlight, which were also new for 1957. Instead of making a styling splash, the Big M landed with a visual thud.

The other realm where the new Mercurys were to stand apart was technology. The Turnpike Cruiser would have the latest and greatest tech the fifties had to offer. Among the more dubious innovations unique to the Turnpike Cruiser was the “Monitor Control Panel”. This was the industry’s first crude attempt at a trip computer. The device calculated the car’s average speed on a journey. But the programing process was complicated. Often the fussy system failed before owners were even able to learn how to use it.

Then there was the “Seat-O-Matic” memory power seat; another industry first. This system automatically pushed the front seat back and down for easier exits, and returned them to their original position when the car was started again. It was very cool... unless of course the seat belt was engaged before starting the car. In that case, the driver would get to have the fascinating experience of what it felt like to be a boa constrictor’s prey. 

Another more practical innovation was the Turnpike Cruiser’s “Breezeway” system. This included dual air intakes at the top of the “Skylight Dual Curve” windshield (the glass was curved at the top as well as sides…yet another of the TC’s firsts) At the other end of the breezeway was an electrically retractable rear window. The vents worked quite well letting fresh air flow through the cabin. Unfortunately, the windshield vents also let in water to puddle in hidden crevices. We can guess how that story ends.

Say what you will about the 1957 Mercury’s looks and its tech, but it was no slouch. Base Mercurys came with a “Safety-Surge” 255hp V8 engine. The flagship was equipped with “Turnpike Cruiser” 368 cu in V8 with hydraulic valve lifters that was good for 290hp. A Turnpike Cruiser paced the 1957 Indy 500.

The Mercury Turnpike Cruiser was a symbol of an era, and that era had come to an end. At the same time the TC was hitting the market, author John Keats was putting the finishing touches on what would be a best-selling-book called Insolent Chariots. In it, Keats roasts the industry for its overpriced, over weight, over chromed beasts.  The big Merc would become a poster child for American excess. To top it all off, less than a year after the Turnpike Cruiser was introduced, the U.S. economy lurched into its worst recession since the Great Depression. Only 16,800 TCs were sold in 1957. The misguided move upscale, combined with the vicious recession, had a disastrous effect on overall Mercury sales. Barely a third as many cars were sold in 1958 as the division’s previous peak in 1955. Mercury was saddled with its bulky, over-styled cars for several more years, and sales would not recover until a decidedly downsized addition was made to the brand. 

The Small Savior

Prior to 1960, the Big Three’s brands each consisted of essentially one basic car. Other than the low volume Corvette and Thunderbird, variety with in each make consisted essentially of trim packages. Chevrolet, for instance, had the stylish Bel Air as well as the mainline 210 and the basic 150. Sometimes there were different engines or even different wheelbases. If, however, one where to peel off the bits of chrome, pull out the engine, he would find it was essentially the same car. It was a different story at the smaller automakers. Always in search of niches outside the purview of the Big Three, the Independents went all-in on smaller, more efficient cars. Nash opened up the compact market in 1950 with its Rambler. Kaiser, Willys and Hudson followed in succession. Let the best compact win. Studebaker waited until the dust cleared before offering their Lark in 1959, a move of impeccable timing that saved the company…at least for a few more years. 

Import makes like Volkswagen and Renault were also launching their attacks on this diminutive corner of the market.  Sales were not huge, but they were growing. The Big Three eventually noticed. The response from Chrysler was a befinned mini version of a big-car called the Valiant. General Motors went radical with a rear-engined Chevrolet Corvair. The Ford Motor Company would enter the compact fray conservatively but strongly with two entries. The volume model would be the handsome but utilitarian Ford Falcon. The new Edsel division was to get a somewhat more upscale version known internally as the Edsel B. That car never got an official name before the Edsel brand was shut down. What remained of the B-car was folded into Lincoln-Mercury, where the B became the Comet.

Production Comets sported winged taillights that reveal vestiges of its Edsel origins. They are a fitting tribute to perhaps the only element of Edsel’s design that could be called graceful. 

The Comet was introduced in March of 1960. Lengthened by more than a foot, it was larger than the Falcon, but smaller than a full size Ford. This gave Comet the distinction of being the first of what would become known as a midsized car. Back in 1960 the ad men called it a “senior compact”.

With its origins as an Edsel, the Lincoln-Mercury division wasn’t quite sure what to do with Comet. Initially it was sold through L-M dealers as a separate brand. However, in its first, somewhat abbreviated model year, the Comet “brand” sold 116,000 cars. Offered for a full year in 1961, 183,000 Comets found homes. This was about 40,000 more cars than the combined sales of Mercury and Lincoln. Come 1962, Mercury claimed Comet as its own.

A reputation for poor quality earned in the late-50s dogged Mercury into the early sixties. A bold statement would be needed to wash away that soiled image. Mercury turned to Comet for some cleansing. In November 1963 at Daytona speedway. Five redesigned 1964 Comets were run for 24 hours a day for 42 days, each piling up 100,000 miles. The cars achieved an average speed of 105mph, including driver changes, fuel stops and maintenance. Four of the five finished the run. This would be an impressive feat today; 50 years ago it was astounding. It helped Mercury sell 50,000 more Comets in 1964 than they did in ’63.

In addition to new sheet metal, the ’64 Comets got the option of a powerful 289 cu in V8 engine. That mill powered not only the endurance cars at Daytona, but at other competitions. From the quarter mile drag strips of Southern California, to the wilds of Africa, Comets won. Ronnie Sox piloted a Comet dragster “to Top Eliminator” honors at the 1964 NHRA Winternationals. Of the 94 cars that started the 1964 East African Safari rally, only 21 finished. Two of them were Comets. 

A 1966 redesign saw the Comet go from a senior compact to a true midsized car. A few years later Comet switched segments again. This time, Mercury took the very successful compact Ford Maverick, rearranged some trim pieces and called it their own. The Comet name disappeared in 1978 after selling a total of 1.6 million cars over 17 model years.

The Total Performance Era

In 1963, the Mercury swept away its overweight, out of date full-sized cars of recent years, welcoming a trimmer, sharply creased lineup that was strongly influenced by the breathtaking 1961 Continental. The bodies of the new cars were attractive, but it was the rooflines that got the press. Most obvious was the return of the Breezeway. This iteration, thankfully, was far better executed than the ill-fated Turnpike Cruiser six years prior. The rear-canted backlight had its advantages, providing more headroom and better sun protection for rear seat passengers.  The unique roofline also set the new Mercs apart visually from their competitors. 

The other lid of note was a 2-door fastback called the S-55. The aerodynamic properties of the fastback helped the new roofline live up to its name. This, combined with a 300lb weight reduction from the portly 62’s, and powerful new engines, made the new Mercury very appealing to stock car racers. 

Appealing to racers was becoming more important from a marketing standpoint. Motorsports in the early 1960s had become the number-two spectator sport in America.  The adage, Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday, had entered the marketing lexicon. Customers were coming into showrooms looking for a car like the one they’d just seen at the track or on television. Winning races was had become a relatively cheap and very effective way to build brand awareness, and a mighty engine producing massive horsepower was the ticket to victory lane. The new 427 cu in “Super Marauder” version of Ford’s awesome OHC V8 would spearhead Mercury’s winning ways. The engine, the car, the times, all the elements were in place for success. 

But suits in Dearborn were reluctant to be seen as openly supporting racing.  They feared a potentially negative backlash should anything go wrong. The L-M division instead contracted with racecar builder, Bill Stroppe, to set up Mercury’s official-unofficial racing team. Stroppe already had a strong relationship with Lincoln-Mercury dating back to his preparing and racing the winning Lincolns in the 1952-54 Carrera Panamericana, a grueling and perilous road race through Mexico. The new team signed well-known racers like Roger Ward and Parnelli Jones to drive Mercury S-55 fastbacks, later called Marauders, in the NASCAR and USAC stock car series. Mercury had some success on the circuit, especially the USAC team.

If the sky truly is the limit, then the legendary 14,000ft Pikes Peak Hill Climb was the place to test it. It was called “The Race to the Clouds,” a twelve-mile dirt road, 2 ½ miles above sea level, with 146 turns and no guard rails. Wimps need not apply. Parnelli Jones and Louie Unser were not wimps. They drove a pair of Stroppe-prepared Mercury Marauders for the assault in late-1963. Jones would set a new stock car record of 14 min 17 sec. 

A few months after Parnelli Jones blasted his Marauder to the stock car pinnacle, came the feats of endurance by the little Comet at Daytona. It wouldn’t stop there. In 1965 Mercury enlisted another legendary endurance racer, Fran Hernandez, to take three new Comets down to Cape Horn at the bottom of the world, and drive them 16,000 miles north to Fairbanks, Alaska. Their challenge: Do it in 40 days. 

Symbolic of a biblical transformation of the same number of days, the world of Mercury had been transformed. The old talk about shoddy build quality was washed away in the torrent. 

A Mercury in Paradise

The big Mercs grew bigger as the Sixties progressed. While added girth put an end to their stock car racing careers, they were still seen by millions on television. Car historians and Merc-O-philes tend to agree the 1950 Coupe driven by James Dean in Rebel without a Cause is the brand’s most famous representative. But each Tuesday night during the 60s and 70s, another Mercury was seen by many more eyeballs.

Hawaii Five-O was a CBS crime drama about an elite unit within the Hawaii state police. Five-O was charged with battling the darker elements of Paradise. Commander Steve McGarriett, played by Jack Lord, was head of Five-O. He was of the John Wayne hero mold, strong jawed and stoic. (He also wore TV’s coolest sideburns this side of James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise) In a different genre, a marshal McGarriett might have looked at home perched tall on a tall white horse in a dusty border town. But here on Oahu, McGarrett’s steed was a 1968 Mercury Parklane. The sinister looking black hardtop lent a sense of dichotomy to Jack Lord’s character. Perhaps it was the hair, the burns, the tan, that suggested McGarrett might have had a dual nature. You got a sense that this upright defender of order might have, on his day off, strapped a long board to the roof of the Merc and headed for the waves. 

The car’s role in the long-running show once again nailed cool for Mercury. Each week, millions of viewers, this writer included, watched that black beauty lay down rubber while helping to vanquish evil in paradise. The Parklane was retired after the 1973 season, replaced by an equally black and menacing 1974 Marquis. The new Mercury served McGarrett for another 6 seasons. That car was even brought back for a scene in the 2010 premier of a reimagined Hawaii Five-0.

The Sign of the Cat

In April 1964 the world was introduced to a new kind of car and the world liked it. The engineers at Ford took a Grampa-worthy compact sedan, pushed the cockpit back on the chassis making room for a long, thrusting hood. The stylists gave it a sexy body and a racy interior. The marketers offered option packages for everyone from secretaries on a budget, to honest-to-God race car drivers. They called it the Mustang, and it was the most successful new car model in the history of the automobile.

Visions of a Mercury version materialized almost a year before the first Mustang rolled off the line. Initial plans were simple; graft Mercury-style front end and taillights onto a Mustang body, much like the way Pontiac would turn a Camaro into a Firebird. Their resulting prototype didn’t turn out well, looking a lot like a Mustang wearing funny nose and glasses. Fortunately, the product planners were able to go back to the drawing board - this time with a $40 million budget - to develop a truly unique Mercury. They sold the car to management by positioning it as a bridge between the sporty Mustang and the luxurious Thunderbird.

Cougar had been the name of an early Mustang prototype. Ford later decided that a wild horse better evoked the image of speed and power they sought. The new Mercury would be graceful and elegant, traits associated with a big cat. Cougar became the obvious choice for Mercury’s personal luxury sports car.

Cougar shared the 2nd generation 1967 Mustang’s driveline and chassis. But while the two cars had common underpinnings, the bodies were unique. With the wheelbase stretched by 3 inches, Cougar combined the long-hood, short deck formula of the Mustang, with the graceful elegance of a Thunderbird. Add to the mix a European-type cockpit, and the result was perhaps the prettiest American car ever. 

The new Cougar was introduced in the fall of 1966 with a base price of $2,851, about 10% more than a Mustang.  While sales would not come close to its cousin’s record-smashing levels, at 150,000 cars sold in its first model year, the 1967 Cougar would be the most successful new nameplate in Mercury’s history.

It is always difficult to improve on a masterpiece. The Cougar continued to sell well in 1968, but a makeover the following year was, inevitably, a little larger, a bit less graceful. True, a convertible was added to the lineup, and the new cat was more powerful than the original. Unfortunately, that that extra power was negated by greater heft. The 1969 Cougar lost a little of its European elan that made the original such a beauty.

None the less, perhaps because of the new convertible - or maybe it was Mecrury’s product placement budget - but that year, the most beautiful Bond Woman of them all, Diana Rigg, drove a 1969 Cougar Convertible in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Check out the Alpine chase scene where she, not Bond, does the driving.

As the seventies progressed, the Cougar, and indeed all American cars, continued to get bigger and heavier. Nineteen seventy-four saw Cougar move to a larger platform and into the booming midsized personal luxury market. Since its introduction just seven years earlier, the Cougar had gained over 1,200lbs of bulk. The sportiness that remained was merely pretense. 

By the end of the decade, the Cougar name was affixed to all of Mercury’s mid-sized cars. Yes, just 10 years after the debut of the sleek Euro-inspired original, Cougar was now available in a 4,500lb station wagon. The once-wild Cougar had been thoroughly domesticated.

Just a Ford with Different Makeup

The decade of the Sixties had been a second heyday for Mercury. Sadly, there would not be a third. Throughout its history, Mercury struggled to find an identity within the Ford Motor Company. But in the malaise of the 1970s it gave up its quest for individuality. The turn of the decade ushered in a new era of government regulation of exhaust emissions and safety equipment. Born of choking smog in the Los Angeles basin, and GM’s troubled Corvair, tough new regulations put an abrupt end to the performance era. Pollution control systems sapped the life out of big V8s, while heavy impact resistant bumpers mutilated the lines of the marque’s traditionally stylish look. Mercury’s that were only yesterday fast and pretty were now sluggish and fat.

Had it only been the heavy hand of government, Mercury might have been able to gather itself, adapt and again thrive. But market forces were also conspiring against it. The 1973 Arab oil embargo strangled supplies of imported oil. Cheap fuel, the lifeblood of the American performance car, became a fond memory. The crisis helped bring on the nation’s worst recession since 1958. This brought on a cash crunch at the Ford Motor Company. Mercury was starved of the resources needed to maintain a look and feel unique from its less prestigious sibling. There simply was no money for a distinct look, only for a few alternative trim pieces. In essence Mercury had become no more than a collection of Fords with nicer jewelry and makeup. Called badge engineering, it would over the next 30 years, bludgeon to death Mercury’s once proud image.

The first blow came from the Bobcat. Based on the Ford Pinto, the Bobcat was introduced to America as a 1976 model. Since a Pinto was a littler, gentler horse than the wild Mustang, a quick trip to the Detroit Zoo revealed to Ford product planners that a Bobcat was cuter and more diminutive than a Cougar. The cost of Bobcat’s slightly larger taillights and its stand-up grill was no doubt considerably less than the $138 price premium it fetched over a Pinto. One asks the question, however, were those few extra bucks on Ford’s ledgers worth the damage done by affixing this proud nameplate onto this cheap knock-off of an even cheaper car?

At the other end of the automotive scale another assault on the Mercury mystique was taking place. After a restyle of FoMoCo’s full-sized cars in 1975, the formerly top-of-the-line Marquis was now called the Grand Marquis. It was most certainly grand; big and plush with a 460 cu in engine. But consider this Merc next to the Ford division’s new top of the line LTD Brougham. The two cars looked different, if one is looking very carefully. But in truth they were both a couple of luxurious 5,000lb cars with hidden headlights and lots of stuffing. Was there any reason to pay $600 more for the Mercury? 

There were enough folks who paid… for a while longer at least. In 1977, Mercury topped 4% of the U.S. car market for the first time. The following year, it topped 4% for the last time. Mercury had reached its apex in popularity. The people who thought the Mercury name was worth a premium were beginning to die off.

Seeds of Destruction

Japanese carmakers had made even bigger inroads on the US market during yet another severe recession in 1979-82. People bought Toyotas and Hondas for their superior fuel economy. They came to love them for their superior quality. By 1982, the Japanese brands accounted for over 25% of the U.S. market. In order to stem the tide, American auto companies, together with the United Auto Workers Union, pressed hard for protectionist legislation from Washington. The Japanese sought to head off official measures that might do them long-term harm. They offered instead to implement a quota system called the Voluntary Export Restraint agreement (VER) that limited auto exports from Japan to 1.68 million vehicles in 1982. In the short run, the VER was very good for American carmakers and their sales and profits rose immediately. Over the long-term, however, the effects of the VER would prove devastating for Mercury.

The VER indeed suppressed the supply of Japanese cars, but it did nothing to quench Americans thirst for them. Demand was as great as ever. Anyone who has had a basic economics class - and stayed awake on the first day at least - knows that when supply is tight, prices rise. According to a 1987 study by the Brookings Institute, prices of Japanese cars were pushed up as much as $2400 higher than they would have been without the VER. Car dealers selling Japanese makes got very rich as their customers bid up the price of the limited number of Hondas and Toyotas available. 

The Japanese car companies would get rich, too. While the VER covered cars imported from Japan, it said nothing about those made here in North America. Japanese manufacturers soon began building factories here. By the late eighties, Honda and Toyota had multiple North American plants. Nissan had operations in Tennessee and the smaller firms all were involved in joint ventures to produce cars. Because these factories had more flexible work rules and relatively young workforces, who incurred low healthcare and no retirement costs, they could make cars here for $1000-1500 less than the American companies. Low costs and still high demand meant the Japanese earned profits not seen since the days of Henry Ford and the early Model T. 

In another unintended consequence of the VER, the Japanese not only invested their windfalls in more U.S. plants, but also in new, upscale brands. The reason was simple: A luxury car counted the same against the VER tally as an econo-box, and a luxury car is a lot more profitable. First Honda, then Toyota and Nissan, developed more powerful and substantial cars. They built brands that took the stellar engineering and quality reputations of these companies to a new level. Midrange American brands like Mercury suddenly had tough new challengers that they were ill-equipped to meet. The stated targets of the Japanese upstarts were the uberbrands; BMW, Mercedes and Audi. In reality, they did far more damage to the mid-level American marques. 

What’s in a Name: The Merkur

By the mid-80s, the country was recovering from its long malaise. Well-paying jobs were returning in numbers, and those jobs most often went to younger people. These newly affluent Yuppies, as they came to be called, spent a great deal of their newfound discretionary income on cars - nice cars, expensive cars. But they were not buying Lincolns or Mercurys. Not only were they not buying them, they weren’t even considering them. Things were no better at arch-rivals Cadillac or Oldsmobile. GM had its own problems in the 80s, with cracking diesel engine blocks and cylinder deactivation devices that ended up deactivating the whole car. A fit and hip yuppie wouldn’t be caught dead in one of Detroit’s overweight oafs. They were buying sports sedans. They were buying Mercedes, Saabs, Audis, and soon they would be buying Acuras, Lexuses and Infinitis. But mostly, they were buying BMWs.

Enter one, one Robert Lutz, a.k.a. “Maximum Bob”, CEO, Ford of Europe. Lutz had been responsible for bringing a new aerodynamically inspired European executive car to market called the Ford Sierra. Introduced not quite a year after the groundbreaking Audi 100 (called the 5000 here) The Sierra was roundly criticized for copying the Audi’s slippery shape. But the truth is, Ford had turned to aerodynamics long before anyone had heard of the Audi 100. With development started in the troubled late-70s, Ford didn’t have the money to tackle fuel economy improvements with lighter weight FWD that many of its competitors were employing. Lutz knew that a slippery shape could achieve the same fuel efficiencies and weight reduction for a fraction of the cost of switching multiple assembly lines to FWD. 

A Franco-German design team of Patrick le Quement and Ewu Bahnsen gave the Ford Sierra a shape that was both radical and stunning. The Sierra’s combination of ultra-modern looks, authentic Euro car handling, complete with RWD and 4-wheel independent suspension, gave Lutz reason to believe he had a legitimate answer to BMW’s inroads in the US. He convinced Ford CEO, Donald Petersen, a former Ford of Europe CEO himself, to spend $50million to convert the Ford Sierra into a legitimate BMW-fighter in America.

Before this car could be sold in the US, several hurdles had to be leaped. Number one was a name. GMC was already using the Sierra name on its full-size trucks. GM also had an Oldsmobile sedan called the Ciera. No way Ford could use the moniker without a slew of copyright headaches. The high performance version in Europe was called the Sierra XR4i. BMW, Saab and Mercedes had Alphanumeric names, so why not just drop the Sierra and call it the XR4i?

The next task was meeting U.S. emission standards. At first it was thought that they could use the same tried and true 150hp “Cologne” V6 that powered European XR4s. But regulatory requirements would choke this 15-year old engine to the point of impotence. Instead, they swapped in the 2.3 OHC turbo 4 from the Thunderbird. The engine was actually more powerful than the V6. But while the XR4Ti was fast, very fast, unfortunately it was not very refined. The big four vibrated like a farm tractor at high RPMs. In addition to more horsepower, the turbo added a new letter to the car’s name: The XR4Ti.

To meet U.S. crash standards, side impact beans, stronger bumpers and the like were incorporated, adding 280lbs to the car’s mass. These measures also took up much of the development money and left nothing for crash avoidance features like 4-wheel disc brakes. In terms of performance and refinement, the resulting car was drifting further and further from its stated benchmark, the BMW 3-series.

As the XR4Ti got closer to market the compromises continued. To sell the cars in the States, Bob Lutz pushed hard for s separate dealer body, one that understood the European Fords and were trained sell them to savvy young Americans. Don Petersen, whose amiable pose and piercing stare earned him the nicknamed, “The Smiling Cobra,” nixed the idea. Too expensive. He wanted the cars sold through 800 select Lincoln-Mercury dealers. L-M personnel - who were versed in selling overstuffed Lincolns to the geriatric set - would now be asked to sell turbocharged sport coupes to yuppies. It seemed the wrong way to go, but who was going to argue with the “Smiling Cobra.”

Petersen is also said to have been responsible for the off-criticized Merkur name, which means “Mercury” in German. Americans had trouble getting their mouths around it. Many list this name at the top of the many reasons for the brand’s failure. Possibly so, but did anyone really know how to pronounce Audi until they found out what a good car it was? Petersen may have had something else in mind in choosing the Merkur name. I have never seen it reported anywhere, but its seems reasonable that the unsentimental and very smart Petersen would have seen by now the writing on the wall for Mercury. Why not ease in a fresh German-made Mercury that was more attuned to a changing market, as you ease out the American one that was past its time?   

Merkur actually beat Honda’s new upscale Acura to market by almost a year, and Lexus by 3 years. Ford might have used that year to better develop both the car and the concept. (For instance, could the magnificent DOHC 24-valve V6 engine that appeared in the 1988 Taurus SHO been used in the Merkurs?)  No, Merkur had been done on the cheap. It was hastily put together and then poorly executed. The market delivered its verdict. Internal projections had Merkur selling 15,000 cars per year, with that number rising as new models were added. Actual yearly results averaged half that. A second model appeared in 1987, a larger sedan called the Scorpio. The Scorpio sold even more poorly than the XR4Ti.  Ford pulled the plug on Merkur in 1989 after selling just 59,000 cars over 5 years.

It could have turned out so differently. At about the same time as Acura, Lexus, Infiniti….and Merkur, were in development, Mazda Motor Company was planning their own luxury brand called Amati. Mazda was controlled by Ford with a 34% ownership stake. The project was eventually cancelled in 1990 because Mazda didn’t have the resources to do it properly. One has to wonder what might have happened if, instead of slapping together their half-assed Merkur effort, Ford had invested those resources into a joint Amati/Merkur venture with their long-time Asian partner.  The graveyard of lost brands is littered with what ifs. 

Lost in the Premier Automotive Group

Within a year or so of its rollout, it would become clear that Merkur was not going to be a player in the luxury car market. But while Americans were not buying German accented Mercurys, they were continuing to buy premium foreign brands. In the five years from 1984 to 1989, the segment grew 27% to nearly half a million cars. Most of these sales came at the expense of America’s mid-priced makes like Mercury. Nonetheless, a booming car market in the later eighties, combined with those Japanese import restraints, helped fill Ford’s coffers with $9 billion in cash. If they could not build a luxury brand, then maybe they’d buy one…or perhaps even four of them.

It began as a raid on the British Iles. Ford took a 75% stake in boutique carmaker Aston Martin in 1987. A few years later, they out-maneuvered rival GM for the honor of relieving the British government of the chronically unprofitable Jaguar. A year after that they purchased Land Rover from BMW, who was happy to be rid of their “English Patient.” Ford paid over $6 billion for the three financially troubled companies. But they weren’t buying these firms for their balance sheets. It was prestige they were after and the British makes had that in spades.

Ford’s plan was to make further investments to clean up finances, modernize factories, and get the firms back to doing what they do best: create beautiful, capable high-end cars and trucks. With Ford’s money and production know how, these regal marques would be turned into major players in the luxury car market. And invest it did. It is estimated that between the purchase prices and 20 years of almost continual subsidies, the Ford Motor Company spent $30 billion on its British heritage collection. It is cheaper to buy status than to earn it, as the saying goes. True, unless of course you’re buying British.

Ford soldiered on in the U.K. for another decade before crossing paths with another smaller carmaker looking for a rich partner. Volvo wanted to sell its auto operations and concentrate on the more profitable commercial truck business. At the same time, new Ford CEO, Jacque Nasser, was casting about for a midrange brand to bridge the gap between Ford and Jaguar. He seemed to have forgotten about Mercury. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. A match was made, the $6.5 billion dowry was paid, and Volvo became the newest member of Ford’s Family of Fine Cars. 

Nasser next gathered his shiny collection of European luxury marques under a big new umbrella called the Premier Automotive Group. With the prestigious luxury of Jaguar, the premium executive cars of Volvo, sports exotic Austin Martin, and the pioneer in luxury trucks, Land Rover, the PAG blanketed the high-end auto market.

Learning from the Merkur mistake of rushing into a market without a sorted out product and a well-thought out plan, Nasser selected a top product man to pull it all together. Wolfgang Reitzle was the former chief engineer and #2 man at BMW. Reitzle was responsible for sublime BMWs like the E46 3-Series and the Z8, and considered to be an engineering genius. He understood what it took to be the best. If the PAG was going to be brought up to the standards of BMW, Mercedes, and now Lexus, Reitzle was the man to do it. 

It was also decided that Lincoln-Mercury would be rolled into the PAG. One can imagine that the conversation between Nasser and Reitzle went something like this. Nasser: “And Wolfgang, while you’re at it, do something about these.” Reitzle: “But dat makes no sense.” Nasser: “Just do it.”

Maybe it made some sense with regards to Lincoln. While the European marques basked in their titles, Lincoln, that darling of upscale retirement communities and the Manhattan “black car” scene, would represent American Luxury. It would receive nifty Jaguar derived underpinnings and become cool by association. Or something like that. But Mercury? Not officially, probably not even verbally, but the decision on Mercury’s fate had likely been sealed.

As umbrellas go, The PAG was an unruly thing. Jaguars and Range Rovers came from the British Midlands, while Volvo was based in Sweden. Ford’s Headquarters was in Dearborn, of course. The frequent flyer miles would really soar when it was decided that, since Southern California was ground zero for the import car craze, that was where PAG’s brand headquarters should be. At the same time, Dr. Reitzle wanted his own offices situated in London so that the brand’s brain trust could bask in posh traditionalism, while enjoying the fruits of the world’s most international city. So while Wolfgang Reitzle packed up to London to soak in the atmosphere of traditional wealth, the rest of the PAG was off to the Golden State to soak in the culture of cool.

Someone forgot to give Mercury the itinerary. By 2000, Lincoln was in the midst a Hollywood makeover - avant-garde and Infiniti-like, complete with confusing ads and alphabet soup nomenclature. Volvo was now thriving in the midrange sector, grabbing customers Mercury would never see again. The beleaguered brand did get a new European Ford sport coupe they called Cougar. But it had no real link to the Mercury brand. One could imagine it switching its badges to Ford or Lincoln or even Volvo, without anyone batting an eye. 

Meanwhile, PAG executives jetted across the globe as Jaguar and Land Rover continued hemorrhaging money. Ford executives in Dearborn began to resent Reitzle and the high living of a luxury car maker. Especially when that luxury car maker wasn’t earning its keep. The knives came out. It wasn’t long before Jac Nasser was shown the door by the Ford family. Exactly one year later, Reitzle, too, became unemployed. The PAG experiment deemed a failure, Ford set about getting back to “basics.” It would take the rest of the decade to divest itself of the PAG.

The End, At Last

While the brass in Dearborn was occupied with untangling itself, Mercury got half-hearted reprieve. For the new century it got a new logo and some pretty waterfall grills. It managed to peddle another million or so cars over the next 10 years, though no one much noticed.

People did notice the 2003 Mercury Marauder, if only because of the lustfully smoking burnouts its owners could do with a 303hp on tap from its OHC V8. (And also because in their rear view mirror the Marauder looked like a police car approaching very rapidly) Entertaining as they were, the Marauder couldn’t save Mercury. 

Checking the dates on tombstones in the graveyard of automotive brands highlights the fact that economic contraction is by far the most common cause for a weak marque’s demise. So, when the 2008 financial collapse forced General Motors to shut down three of its car divisions, not even the most hopelessly irrational of the Mercury faithful harbored hope that Mercury would be spared the same fate. It had been in 1961, a year removed from the limelight of the Edsel debacle, that Chrysler quietly pulled the plug on DeSoto. The press hardly noticed. In 2010, Ford used the same play to do away with Mercury, taking advantage of the calm following GM’s and Chrysler’s bankruptcies. The lights went out on Mercury when a silver Grand Marquis rolled off the line on January 4, 2011. Any cars not sold by December 31, 2010 were directly titled as used, thus cleansing the 2011 sales charts of the Mercury name. It was an unceremonious ending for the 73-year old marque. The only tears shed were the ones that dropped onto the pages of Quicksilver, the Mercury owner’s newsletter.

This chapter on Mercury began on a personal note, and so too shall it end. In the spring of 2010, a few months after the announcement was made that Mercury would be no more, there occurred this writer's impromptdu memorial to his beloved marque. Much of Mercury’s final year production run had been sold to rental car fleets. It was therefore no surprise - but a pleasure nonetheless - that at the Avis counter at Dallas’s Love Field, I was handed the keys to a brand new Mercury Milan. A very enjoyable 5 days and 1,500 miles ensued, cruising though east Texas and the Louisiana oil country, and the hills of Arkansas and south eastern Oklahoma, enjoying a part of the country I’d never before experienced… and also marveling at how good this car was. Solid and stylish, fast and economical: Why would anyone prefer a Camry? The unfortunate answer was that the Milan was hidden away at Lincoln Mercury dealers, where no one would ever find them.

 Adieu, Mercury, and thanks for the memories.