I recently attended the Los Angeles Auto Show. Other than 30-inch custom wheels, the sheer desolation at the Mercury stand was the most amazing sight of the day. A forty- something couple ambled about the premises studiously avoiding the half-dozen or so Mercury “product specialists” looking for something to do before lunch. The revamped Mariner and Mariner Hybrid spun on their turntables, revealing their inescapable Fordness to an ocean of deserted carpeting. I couldn't help but conclude that the brand is doomed.
I remember the Oldsmobile stand in the years leading up to its ignominious demise. Even in its lame duck form it had a couple dozen visitors milling around. And unlike Mercury, there was very little chatter within the industry suggesting that Oldsmobile’s extinction was imminent. Olds was an Indy 500 and IRL championship-winning engine supplier. According to those “in the know,” GM was about to reinvent the brand to capitalize on its racing rep. Oldsmobile was going to become the premium American import alternative– the orbit [once and again] occupied by Saturn.
In contrast, today’s Mercury has no motorsports involvement and sells a range of fractionally ritzier but still blander-than-John-Kerry- eating-vanilla-ice-cream Fords with waterfall grilles. Even employing a drop-dead gorgeous spokesperson like Jill Wagner, the fact remains that Mercury’s product line remains an armada of badge engineered mediocrity.
So how should Ford CEO Alan Mulally and his posse fix this situation— other than pulling the plug and let the dealer lawsuits fall where they may? Step one: axe the Milan. As the Brits say, the Milan falls between two stools. Any customers willing to pay a premium to drive a frillier Ford Fusion will make the jump to the automotive artist formerly known as Zephyr. Although you couldn’t ask for a better platform from which to badge engineer (just ask Mazda), that way oblivion lies.
Mercury should also kill the Mariner (Escape), Montego (Five Hundred) and Monterey (don’t ask). To quote the Brits again, the first thing you do when you’re in a hole is to stop digging. Badge engineering is killing– has killed Mercury. To reinvent itself, Mercury must take one giant step away from Ford and decide what it wants to represent.
Step two, Mercury should replace the Milan with a federalized, waterfall grilled version of the head-turning Euro-spec Ford Mondeo. Yes, this same scheme did a face-plant in the form of the late, unlamented Mystique. But a Mercury version of the new “kinetic” Mondeo would go a long way towards restoring some semblance of street cred for the amorphous brand– especially if Dearborn includes the five-door and wagon versions. (Multiple bonus points for a high-po “Cyclone” version.)
Step three: import the Euro-spec Focus. The Euro Focus is a full generation ahead of the current vine-rotted model barely sold in the U.S. The domestic version should be rechristened a nuevo Mercury Comet. By adding this “premium compact” to their NorAm portfolio, Mercury could present a viable domestic alternative to the BMW MINIs and Audi A3s mopping-up the high-end of the small car market.
Step four: bring over the Ford S-Max. Other than the fact that the S-Max is an award-winning minivan (a genre Ford recently abandoned), this “MPV’s” chief advantage is that it looks like nothing else in Ford’s domestic lineup. When you’re trying to re-build a brand without a visual identity, you have a unique opportunity to deploy completely new models without worrying about the effects of new design language. Moribund Mercury needs a completely unique vehicle. The S-Max is it.
If all of this sounds a bit familiar to armchair Iacoccas, that’s because GM’s is now using its “import fighter” Saturn brand to sell, uh, imports. Although Saturn’s weak-selling Aura suggests that re-badging Euro-derived vehicles doesn’t guarantee success, Mercury could pull it off, under one condition: no other Ford brand is allowed to share the European swag. Repeat after me: badge engineering blows. Besides, importing cars ain’t cheap. The allegedly upmarket Mercury brand can charge the premium required to maintain profitability. [How Saturn expect to make a profit on a European-built Astra is something of a mystery.]
Alan Mulally has decided that Ford’s future depends on international parts and platform sharing. If The Blue Oval’s Thirty Million Dollar Man can get his guys to use these platforms to create highly individual models suitable to each brand’s specific DNA, the global strategy could work. Meanwhile, Big Al needs a way to reenergize Mercury right now, cheap. This is it. If the Divine Mr. M maintains the status quo– letting Mercury stand for nothing more than a babe and a badge– by the time the new models arrive, there’ll be no one left who's interested in them.
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Ford is a strong brand in Europe. Most European auto journalists consider the new gen Focus to be a best handling car in its class. Interior is really nice looking with hq materials. S-Max is an award winning car in Europe. New kinectic Mondeo looks like sex and I bet it will be a success in Europe. I agree that Ford should bring those cars to U.S.
The biggest question is…
If Mercury would disappear tomorrow, would ANYBODY miss it?
Really?
Just give those dealers Ford franchises (if they don’t already) and be done with it.
As far as importing “Euro Fords”… They tried it already, remember “MERKUR”? No, I don’t either.
Let’s face it “badge engineering” as you put it is providing product to the market that appeals to a specific market segment while at the same time providing product that the dealership can sell. Remember the Edsel was a failure precisely because the identified market for that product no longer existed by the time Ford brought it to market. The Edsel was created to meet the demand for a product between the Ford and the Mercury in the post war economy of the US when disposable incomes were rising and the industry was retooling from the war effort. When the Edsel hit the market in 1957 there was a post war recession and the demand for the product that existed in the early fifties evaporated.
Differentiating product is how to meet the demands of different market segments. The auto manufacturers do this is by providing differing visual elements in a product that will appeal to the different market segments. The Mercury customer doesn’t want a Ford but basically likes the size, performance and other physical attributes of the Ford. The Mercury provides that segment with a product that it wants. You can see the same thing in appliances, clothing, furniture and even lawn tractors. Many of these items share the same mechanicals and or material but vary by color, design and features. Combine all of this with providing a product at a specific price point and you have the basics of the world consumer product economy.
I agree with most of the comments in this forum regarding the engineering attributes of different automobile designs and long remember the days when each brand had its own unique engineering and design. Those days are gone and the products that survive are those that can be manufactured using common components and design. We that appreciate automobile design and engineering only have to look at the failure of Dusenberg, Packard, Pierce Arrow and dozens of others to realize that we are not able to provide enough demand to economically support the manufacture of that kind of product on a large enough scale to be viable.
Personally I think the automotive industry is trying very hard to find a solution to its continued existence in this country and is bringing to market some very good product.
In fact the product is so good that its now not unusual to see cars 15 and 20 years old still operating with mileage in excess of 150,000. When I was learning to drive in 1963 it was rare to see a car on the road from 1953 and even rarer to see one from 1943. Today I see many cars from the 1980’s and 1990’s and they are in pretty good shape.
Granted their continued success requires them to compete with the manufactures from the rest of the world and in many ways they are meeting that challenge. The question remains if they are meeting the challenge fast enough to survive. Hopefully they will not go the way of the television industry, where all of our product now comes from a company outside our borders.
I enjoy reading this forum, but do have to take a break now and then because the critics sometime fail to offer any constructive advice. I think an element of the auto industry that really needs attention is the manner in which cars are sold. Have you visited a dealership lately? The car buying experience has become the part I try to avoid and for that reason I probably keep my car longer than 5 years when I would like to trade and take advantage of some of the new products offered.
The Euro-Fords sure beat the hell out of their American counterparts (ok, I’ve never so much as sat in an American Ford but I visited the website…once…).
Anyway, the new S-Max and Galaxy (sister model) really impressed me. I got the chance to look at one closely recently and the interior and finish look quite good indeed.
Btw, the picture in the review is of Ye Olde Mondeo, here’s a link to some info and pictures about the new one:
New Mondeo
Also, do us and Mercury a favour and throw in a picture of the lovely “Miss Mercury” please. She’s already an integral part of the review anyway.
Dump Mercury, leave Lincoln and dual Mazda dealerships with Lincoln dealers that ‘demand’ some middle-priced cars (as long as there is an open sales point available).
Meteor and Monarch were Canada-only marques from post-WWII through about 1960 and nobody misses (or even remembers) them.
As for Euro Fords, bring ‘em in as Fords, assembled in the US to Euro specs. As FORDS. No brand confusion then.
Yep. New Focus, New Mondeo, S-Max, Galaxy.
Tom, did you steal my Ford playbook? This reads like the script to my brain on FoMoCo. Whether broadening the model range would drive costs through the roof is probably the deciding factor.
I would also like to add that the new Transit and passenger-friendly Transit Tourneo need to come this way to replace the Econoline and provide a more spacious alternative to minivans. This is something that Sprinter could have done (and may still do), but Ford can beat them to it. One platform, everything from a panel van to a passenger vehicle to a medium-duty pickup. Ford is out the minivan business here, so why not start fresh with the S-Max for small families, the Transit for big ones?
JJ
I haven’t seen the “new” Galaxie, but I piloted an ‘05 tdi model last summer all over the southern half of England (1,000+ miles). Apart from a few minor ergonomic/seating issues, it was terrific. 35+ mpg (imperial) on the motorways.
This approach for Mercury has been mentioned before and I can’t see why it hasn’t already been done. GM is doing it for the Saturn brand and is having some success and good press. Currently Mercury is worthless and has nothing to offer and needs it badly.
ash78: I would also like to add that the new Transit and passenger-friendly Transit Tourneo need to come this way
According to Winding Road, the Transit is on its way.
Very timely, Frank, thanks. I don’t know about the smaller Transit Connect version, though, the styling is a little…err..odd? I much prefer the cleaner face of the regular model. But that’s probably OT for Mercury discussions, just general Ford ramblings.
JJ
I haven’t seen the “new” Galaxie, but I piloted an ‘05 tdi model last summer all over the southern half of England (1,000+ miles). Apart from a few minor ergonomic/seating issues, it was terrific. 35+ mpg (imperial) on the motorways.
The old Galaxy wasn’t bad, but essentially a Vee Dubb Sharan (made in Spain along with it’s other sibling, the Seat Alhambra). Ford’s contribution was mostly the petrol engines, while VW took care of most of the design and, obviously, the diesels.
The new one is a clean sheet (Ford only) design (designed together with the S-Max) so they aren’t really comparable. It’s a good car though, I’m pretty sure it would be an asset for the American market as well.
About the Transit; you don’t want that as a people carrier. trust me, you don’t. It’s a good commercial van and it always has been. As a car it’s rubbish. Same reason you don’t want a Mercedes “V-class” either, it’s the same story. It’s real name is Mercedes Vito – No really.
PS Good work on the pictures.
The reason no one is at the Mercury display at car shows is became the people who buy Mercurys don’t go to car shows. Mercury has a nice, loyal market of low-to-mid level American business executives. They’re nice enough guys that aren’t particularly bright and never quite made it to the top before they retired.
I’ll never forget talking to one of these guys back in the early eighties. At the time, I had one of the recently introduced LeBaron convertibles. He was asking me about it because he was in the market to trade in his brown Grand Marquis and was considering getting the LeBaron.
A month or two later, I saw him again and asked him if he had bought a new car. He said he had, but he just traded his brown Grand Marquis in on a new one just like it.
Ford needs to rationalize its brand structure. Mercury is clearly the one brand nobody needs (or wants).
Mercury is somewhat different from Olds in that there are no (?) stand-alone sales outlets. They’re all Lincoln-Mercury stores. As such, Ford wouldn’t put anybody out of business by shuttering the brand or significantly restricting the lineup. To this end, drop everything but the Grand Marquis, which becomes just a “Mercury” and sell that along side the expanding Lincoln line up.
Bringing the Euro Fords here as either Mercurys or Fords would tend to step into Mazda’s territory. Ultimately the direction that Ford’s domestic lineup needs to go to be competitive with Honda/Toyota is where Mazda is, creating another conflict. Its like trying to match Ford against Toyota and Mazda against Nissan all within the same market segments.
Volvo is a legitimate mid range product viewed as a step up from Fords or Mazdas.
Lincoln needs to be revitalized to be a step above Volvo in a Lexus pure luxury vein.
Jaguar/Land Rover can fill the top end of the range with products matched against M-B, BMW and Audi (especially with Aston Martin being sold).
In marketing and psychology, there’s a notion called “extremeness aversion” that states most people will choose the middle ground when given three alternatives of varying cost/size/features. By that token, Mercury should be the best-selling marque in the Ford family–nicer than a Ford, but cheaper than a Lincoln. In turn, companies often try to eke the best profits from that middle option because people will naturally gravitate towards it. IMO, that is the only reason to have a “middle brand” and Ford seems to be failing to capitalize on it.
I believe the only way to apply this theory to the car biz is to be sure that middle ground has the greatest number of options (be like Toyota, along with Scion and Lexus), rather than trying to “spin off” two upmarket brands from a single lower-end marque. Think of a bell curve, with Mercury commanding the middle cluster (say, +/- 1 standard deviation, or the middle 68% of all FoMoCo prices or luxury), with Ford the cheapest/most basic 16% and Lincoln the most expensive/luxurious 16%. That’s a little extreme if only to illustrate the point. Instead, you have the greatest product breadth at the lowest-end marque, bookended by Lincoln, thus squeezing Mercury out of the mix in people’s minds.
Your suggestions require some creativity, something obviously lacking in the shepherds of Mercury and Ford. I’m sure if they’ve read your suggestions they’re thinking of lots and lots of reasons why none of them would work. I fear there is little hope left for this brand.
I say Ford has at least 1 too many brands. Noone below the age of 40 even understands what a mercury is supposed to be. For our life-times they have been nothing but copies of Ford products.
Lincoln may carry some cache’ with the baby boomers, but for the most part, young people only associate the brand with the Navigator they saw in a hip hop video (Holy crap, I feel old just typing that sentance).
I think bringing the euro-fords to the US is a great idea. I’m not sure Mercury is the right brand to bring them in under, though.
If Mercury deep-sixes their current lineup and brings in the Eruo-Focus, Mondeo, et. al., then what does Ford (the brand, not the MoCo) have to aspire to? If the minds at Mercury can’t coalesce to generate an original concept of their own rather than copying and importing, then I say nix the entire brand. But keep the spokes model for the Ford ads. And the Lincoln ads. And Mazda, too…
The reason Ford receives less criticism than GM concerning brand strategy is that people have never learned to expect anything special from Mercury because Mercury has rarely in its entire history had well-differentiated products. It never had the following of a Buick or Olds.
Many people have been suggesting that Ford sell its European cars here. The problem is that as products engineered for the European market they’d have to sell at VW prices, and Americans aren’t ready to pay VW prices for a Ford or Mercury.
I’d personally love to have a manual transmission S-Max, but I don’t know if I’d pay what they charge Europeans for it.
Finally, it’s a widespread fallacy that Mercurys generally cost more than Fords. When both are loaded up, Mercurys usually cost the same or even a little less than their Ford counterparts. You can run comparisons here:
http://www.truedelta.com/prices.php
For what it’s worth, Mercury models are very rarely researched on my site. A brand cannot be more dead.
Maybe they could axe Mercury and bring the Euro models over with a derivative version of that name, say “Cury” (Cury: it’s radioactive!)
Or has that been done before? ;)
I think the problem with brands like Mercury, Plymouth, Oldsmobile, Buick and so on is, that traditionally, American car manufacturers have had lots of brands, each for a certain demographic and with a limited lineup.
But today those demographics disappear. People aren’t Mercury guys or Ford guys anymore.
People in the 50s and 60s wanted to be as average as possible, live in an average suburb and drive an average car. Today people are more selective. Even if they are average, they don’t buy average anymore. Depending on personal taste they either get an “above average” (=luxury) car and maybe save a little on the home or they get an “below average” (=economy) car and maybe spend the extra money on a nice vacation.
Today it’s all right if a brand offers the whole line up, as long as their image fits into a category that’s as far away from being average as possible. BMW for example offers everything from the 1-series to the 7-series and from the X5 to the Z4. But each of those vehicles is perceived to be the benchmark for sporty luxury in their class. On the other side of the spectrum you have brands like Hyundai that also offer a car in every segment but all of them perceived to be cheap quality.
So you see that the basic positioning of Mercury as the thing between Ford and Lincoln (=average) is its major problem.
The next problem of course is that American brands started to expand their line-up, driven by the competition. As I pointed out, this isn’t necessarily a problem, but since there are simply too many brands within each of the former Big 3 (we actually have to exclude Chrysler since they got rid of Plymouth) and on top of that the positioning of the brands are all wrong, the brands themselves have no choice but to compete with each other. But not enough, all the badge engineering makes things even worse.
Badge engineering sounds great at first. If our brands have to compete with each other then we can at least save money by competing with identical cars and thereby only having to develop them once. All for one and one for all is the idea behind it. So it’s only logical that with expanding line-ups we also get more and more badge engineering. This of course makes it impossible to have three makes under one roof because of two simple scenarios:
1) Either the badge engineering is done well and there realy is a difference between the different brands in terms of design and/or options and/or interior. In this case people will either go for the top of the line brand (Lincoln) or the cheapest brand (Ford) but definately not for the average brand (Mercury) as described at the beginning.
2) Or the badge engineering is done bad. In this case the different brands are quite similar and everyone will go for the cheap model.
In both cases Mercury is toast. So Mercury’s only options are to either become very different from the rest or to die. However dying seems to be the better option…
I am a huge Ford fan but Mercury should just die. Take the money you save from that bloated marketing exercise and reinvest it in Ford and Lincoln brands.
The amount of money it takes to keep this division afloat is likely staggering. The marketing and advertising costs alone are in the hundreds of millions per year.
The Mercury premise is a good one though… a slightly nicer Ford. I would keep the idea but just build another trim level on existing Ford product (ie. SE, SEL, LX).
Transplanting Euro products to a domestic nameplate is a risky game. While I personally loved my Contours and my last gen Mondeo (nee Jag X-Type) most of the buying public did not. If the statement about the Aura is true, then we see another instance of a Euro-spec product not cutting it on a domestic showroom floor.
Let’s put it another way. If you had the choice of buying a Euro-spec Focus or a VW Golf/Jetta and all things were equal, which would you buy? Which do you think Euro-snob shoppers would buy? What do you think price-sensitive domestic shoppers would do?
Nope, the day for Ford to have a mid-level-entry-lux brand is over. Get Ford and Lincoln healthy and then you’ve got some magic waiting to happen.
On another note about Euro cars in North America.
I believe I would be safe in saying that the vast majority of the market share lost by domestic brands has been to Asian brands over the past 20 or so years.
It is also safe to say that the really good share erosion started when those brands started making cars and trucks specifically designed for the North American market.
It is also safe to say that with some examples that prove the rule aside Asian brands have not attempted to take something that sells well in Japan or Korea and make it work well in North America.
Thus, the keys to success are not in bringing over cars built for success in Europe but cars that are built for success in North America.
It may not appeal to the pistonhead in us but mass market survival is about catering to the masses, not the “elite”.
I love the phrase:
“inescapable Fordness”
–chuck
While I applaud TomAnderson’s proposal to at least do *something* with Mercury, I think this is a near sighted solution. It has been tried twice before, with the Merkurs and Mondeo, and failed. Americans have spoken: we won’t pay $30-40K for European Fords cross-dressing as Mercurys.
The bigger question for Ford is: how can a company that is losing $Billions annually afford to have separate teams engineering different platforms of similar vehicles. The Mondeo, S60 and Mazda6 are great cars, but why have separate platforms? Why are the Escape, Edge, Freestyle and Explorer all so similar in execution, but ride on separate platforms? Especially when the CX-7, CX-9, XC90, LR2 and LR3 are all out there in the dealerships next door?
The answer for Ford overall is to consolidate these engineering teams, which would cut cost and give their separate brands access to world class platforms. Then, Mercury would be positioned to develop its own brand persona – not American Ford with Chrome, not Euro-Ford, and not rebadged Volvo.
Jill Wagner would be a good place to start.
I certainly prefer the Fords produced in Europe. However, I disagree with this notion that Ford should start shipping European products to Americans if they want to starting making money.
They’ve tried that in the past, and failed with it. The Merkur XR4ti (anybody remember that one?) was a sporty 3-door variant of the Ford Sierra, a car that was ubiquitous in Europe but an utter failure here. Ditto the Merkur Scorpio, which was a failed US version of the successful-in-Europe Ford Scorpio. The Ford Contour was an American variant of the Mondeo, and it was also a resounding flop.
The problem with Euro-market cars in the mid-sized middle-market sedan class and other similar segments is that they are too small for American tastes. One reason that the Camry and Accord lead the pack in their class in the US is because they are larger than rival cars such as the Mazda 6 that are smaller and intended for a wider global audience. Americans who buy niche products such as BMW’s don’t mind the size differential, nor do those who buy cars for image or sporting pretension (the VW Jetta and the old European-style Ford Capri comes to mind). But for those preferring a mass-market everyday sensible-shoes runner, the Yanks believe themselves as having bigger feet.
If the advertising means much, Mercury seems to be marketing itself toward women. On the surface, that sounds like a bright idea — women allegedly buy about half of the cars, and influence the purchase of about 80% of them. The only problem is that women don’t tend to have significantly different preferences than do men to the extent that these would justify an entirely seperate brand to appeal to them. Marketing specifically female products is a bad move in the car game, because whereas women will happily buy a “guy’s car” if they like it, a guy will flee from a “chick car” showroom more quickly than a Kenyan runner. When you create a brand that is going to immediately repulse half of the potential buying public, then it’s probably time for a serious rethink.
Mercury has been the stepsister brand at FoMoCo from the very day it arrived on the scene. FoMoCo has never given Mercury the attention and products required to succeed. The special Mercury only cars thing has been tried many times before with the Merkur, Villager (shared with Nissan, but not Ford), Tracer (shared with Mazda) and so on.
Many of the Euro Fords should be brought to the US, but sold at Ford dealers. There simply is no reason to keep the Mercury dealer network alive. If shutting down cold is to hard, then bleed them to death by keeping the Mercury Grand Marquis alive until the last dealers give up. Put all of the taxicab and cop car business under the Mercury label as well and let the dealers try to survive selling and servicing them. The Checker company got a few decades more out of that strategy.
Ford doesn’t have the money or will to market all of it’s brands let along provide each with the needed product to compete. The winning brand strategy has pretty much been settled on by the marketplace. One mass market brand and one upscale brand per maker is by far the simplest and most successful model. Toyota/Lexus. Chevrolet/Cadillac, VW/Audi, Ford/Lincoln, Mini/BMW, etc. Sure there are some counter examples, but the answer for Ford is clear …. dump the never really loved Mercury brand and get on with fixing the Ford and Lincoln US brands. Sell the rest of PAG to anyone with cash.
BTW, Volvo has a similar market strategy problem to Mercury. It is neither a top end or nor a mass market brand. If FoMoCo really wants to bring more Euro Fords into the US then put them into the Volvo dealer network. Put some lipstick on the Ford S-Max and finally give Volvo the minivan it should have had for the past 20 years!
I dont know what all the fuss about “badge engineering” is. I see Nissans that look just like decontented Infinities. Ditto with Toyota and Lexus. VW and Audi. Perhaps there is not as much differentation, i dunno.
But I think that if more people wanted Fords in the first place, Mercury would be in better shape. Should Mercury have specifec non-shared brands? sure – more for us to complain or rave about. I can see Mercury as the high tech division maybe. The euro spec focus could lead the assault.
Notice that the GTi has a smaller engine that the standard rabbit. Sure, turbo, other goodies, but this is an interesting development.
Mercury could tech up other ford products maybe. Have you seen the Interceptor concept? Perfect platform for all three divisions to have a little fun.
Mercury’s advertising:
A 20-something risque lad-mag model disguising herself as a 30-something soccer mom to sell cars? Are they really targeting women with that, or is it a simultaneous thing? (Wife: “That’s just like ME!” Husband: “Mercury will make my wife look like that”)
It’s like the old adage about selling magazines to women vs men: Put scantily-clad women on the cover. Of both.
Hoo, boy.
Kill the Mariner and the Milan…the only models to percolate Mercury sales in the last couple years? Was this written after a Super Big Gulp of “medicated” eggnog?
Why not solve the, y’know, problems instead?
I’m all for using Mercury to introduce some Euro Fords to the market, but anyone arguing that this approach guarantees success has NOT paid attention to previous efforts in that direction. While I think the S-Max would be a great addition and the Euro Focus could be gently modified into a usable MErcury product, why kill the Milan and Mariner?
The Milan is due for freshning soon, so that would be a great time to switch it to the Mondeo architecture…but it could keep its name. As for killing the Milan…I can’t go there, I see the things everywhere I go. I’d suggest instead giving it the new V6, 2 more cogs in its transmission, rear disc brakes, and save your ire for the product planner that omitted the above items. In terms of styling, I’d rate it easily as attractive as the St. Bernard-esque CRV.
They’re all Lincoln-Mercury stores. As such, Ford wouldn’t put anybody out of business by shuttering the brand or significantly restricting the lineup. To this end, drop everything but the Grand Marquis, which becomes just a “Mercury” and sell that along side the expanding Lincoln line up.
I agree with Lichtronamo, but I’d take it a step further. Dump both Lincoln and Mercury divisions (since they are joined at the hip) and sell them next to Volvos at all their dealerships. Retain Ford/Lincoln/Mercury dealers in rural areas, however.
Sell Volvos in the showroom, have a corner dedicated to the Navigator, Town Car, Grand Marquis, and 1-2 Merkur-ized Ford imports wearing Mercury’s aluminum trimmings.
Probably the dumbest thing Mercury’s done is not spun off the new Mustang into a Cougar. They need that halo vehicle so bad it Hertz.
I don’t understand why anyone would want to save Mercury. Hasn’t one of the consistent criticisms here has been too many brands??? Better for Ford to face the consequences of letter Mercury die, than to waste precious resources trying to save a brand with no reason to exist. To me, letting Mercury die would be a sign that Ford was getting serious about its survival.
Brings European Fords into the US market really doesn’t depend on Mercury’s survival. And yes, Ford has tried this. HOWEVER, if you recall, Ford tinkered with the Merkur before it was brought over here and the tinkering made the car worse, not better. Let alone as much as possible, I think many of Ford’s European offerings would do well here.
My buddy’s first new car right out of college was a 1990 Celica GT-S. (Couldn’t talk him into the All-Trac.) Awsome car though underpowered. Rock solid, awesome handling, reeked of quality.
But when he found out that 89% of Celica owners were women, he almost rolled the thing into the lake!
The cost of making the Euro Ford compliant with US regulations would simply not be an economic venture considering the sales volumes. Ford already has a luxury brand – Lincoln – they don’t need a second. Mercury has replaced its brand identity with bland identity – get rid of it.
Probably the biggest failure of the Merkur lineup was the L-M sales tactics. You can’t sell a Merkur/Mondeo like you do a rebadged Ford, its a different clientele.
Can L-M actually sell a Euro-Ford without screwing it up?
Sajeev Mehta:
Probably the dumbest thing Mercury’s done is not spun off the new Mustang into a Cougar. They need that halo vehicle so bad it Hertz.
YES!
THATS what im talking about!!!
Mustang = cougar would be a great idea. They’ve already spun the Cougar name into two disparate cars in the past 20 years, why not a third?
Maybe that waterfall grille is giving them…(wait for it)…cataracts!
try the veal.
“… Cougar …”
Mmm… yeah… I haven’t thought about the Cougar – or even noticed one on the roads – for a while. What happened to it? The Cougar was one attractive car.
I surfed to Edmunds and checked the 2000 and looked at the user reviews… I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a car rated as low as a 7.2 on Edmunds before.
There’s the good and bad for Mercury. They could use a halo car like the Cougar. I’m both surprised and unsurprised that they let it die. Surprised because the looks had to be good for the brand and unsurprised because I’d bet bad word-of-mouth meant that they wouldn’t be able to sell enough to make the project worthwhile after 2002.
As far back I can recall, all Mercurys were badge engineered rides for somebody who thought they were too good to be seen in a Ford, but didn’t have the cash for a Lincoln. This identiy crisis is nothing new, and I preditct it’ll lumber along aimlessly continually supported by Ford until Ford keels over and dies.
Honestly, you’d have to go back to the Eisenhower administration to find a Mercury (other than the final Cougar) that could actually stand on its own two feet as a product that wasn’t badge engineered.
As Kris Kristofferson wrote, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
I thought Janis Joplin wrote that.
Mercury Sales:
1998 – 438,000
2005 – 195,949
A drop of over 55%.
Does anyone seriously think bringing over European Fords will lead to over 400,000 in sales?
I’m a loyal Mercury customer. What is killing Mercury is Ford let their products rot and die, and the final nail is this horribly mistaken marketing towards women and younger people.
Mercury has always been a middle America brand for respectible, stable, married men. Those customers have not quit buying cars – they are now buying Toyota’s, Honda’s, etc.
This quote from a prior post is 100% correct (other than the brightness factor – I think it is more accurate to say they are guys who will not sell out their marriage, family, etc., just to get ahead in the corporate world)
The reason no one is at the Mercury display at car shows is became the people who buy Mercurys don’t go to car shows. Mercury has a nice, loyal market of low-to-mid level American business executives. They’re nice enough guys that aren’t particularly bright and never quite made it to the top before they retired.
I’ll never forget talking to one of these guys back in the early eighties. At the time, I had one of the recently introduced LeBaron convertibles. He was asking me about it because he was in the market to trade in his brown Grand Marquis and was considering getting the LeBaron.
A month or two later, I saw him again and asked him if he had bought a new car. He said he had, but he just traded his brown Grand Marquis in on a new one just like it.
One other comment – I bet that guys Grand Marquis was running long after the LeBaron was remade into beer cans.
I don’t think importing current Euro-Fords would fail like it did with Merkur and the first Mondeo. Today’s european Fords are much better and considered much more competitive than in the 80s and early 90s. While the early Escorts were cinycally engineered to a price and couldn’t dream of competing with the Golf, the first and especially the second generation Focus are seen as strong contenders in the ultra-competitive european compact market. The same is true for the new Mondeo (3rd generation).
Don’t forget that the last batch of Euro imports (Cougar and Focus) were pretty well received at the time, even though the Cougar sort of fell flat later on, and the Focus is suffering from lack of updates.
I don’t recall the specifics, but I believe both came to the US from the UK design office, which is why they were substantially different from the rest of the company’s products at the time.
You keep the Merc. I’ll take the cute girl in the TV ads. Ford should just axe everything domestic and sell Euro-Fords in the US. The Fords I saw in England were certainly more up-to-date than the old fogey sleds they sell here.
From it’s inception in 1939, Mercury was always meant to be a gussied-up Ford. Nothing more, nothing less. Back before WWII, you went from a Ford, to a Mercury, to a Lincoln Zepher (bet you thought they picked that name out of a hat), to the Lincoln.
Once Ford started turning out more than one car per nameplate (say, 1960 with the advent of the Falcon and Comet), the lines started blurring, and quite frankly Mercury was toast anytime after that. Ditto for Pontiac, Oldsmobile and DeSoto if they didn’t come up with a different reason to exist.
Two of the four didn’t. The other two are on borrowed time.
One problem with importing European Fords is that doing this might not be cost effective due to unfavorable labor costs and low value of dollar. Maybe if they price the European Fords somewhere similarly to the competing Volkswagens, they might make money but the question is whether enough will be sold to make the North American launch worthwhile. But then again, Mercury is _supposed_ to be a semi-upscale brand, with prices similar to VW but not quite in the luxury car range. I think it’s a great idea personally. Ford needs bold moves, and what can be bolder than bringing three new shiny models to the American market?
When I went car shopping, I considered a Focus. I didn’t buy one simply because it was “just” a Ford, and I figured it would be cheap. That’s all. I didn’t even bother to test drive a Focus because I couldn’t wrap my head around Ford being cheap cars. I liked the look, I like the size of the hatch, I liked everything about the Focus except that it was a Ford. On the other hand, I’m relativly savvy, and I hear nothing but praise for the European Focus.
Had Mercury sold a European Focus, I might be driving it now over a VW.
If Mercury really is floundering, why not take a chance. I hear about all these excellent EuroFord products, and then in the next breath how Americans won’t buy an expensive Ford (they’re right!). Why not use Mercury to try something out? Sure, they’re “just” Fords, but they’re also Mercurys (-curies?). They can command that higher premium. They can give us European styling, performance, and even the cost increase that goes along with it, while not giving the Ford brand a potential black eye. Take it further, Mercury can be the FoMoCo testbed for passenger diesels, as well.
Plus, that makes perfect sense to be mated to a Lincoln dealership. The higher, European edition Fords or the flagship luxury of the Lincoln under one roof.
On the other hand, maybe that’s how they’re supposed to be selling Volvo, but they’re not as far as I can tell.
Also, keep Jill Wagner. I didn’t know her name, but I do know that I can recognize a Milan ‘coz she tries to sell ‘em to me on the TV. Heh.
The key questions about a strategy I agree with:
1. Will Ford actually be committed to this approach, and can the Merc dealers warp themselves into a Volvo/BMW mindset?
2. Why wouldn’t a domestic company bet a division that the American auto market will start to look a lot more like the Euro market thanks to higher gas prices?
3. If it turns off current Mercury buyers (all 12 of them) and sales start off slow does Ford have the money to keep doing it?
4. I do think you can get a premium price for their high spec Euro offerings, certainly Mercury hasn’t seen those kinds of buyers in their showrooms in decades, but I have the feeling it will be like their Mercur and Cougar offerings, drop them at the first hint of trouble.
5. Please, please, no Mustangy Cougar. A band aid solution to patient with serious heart, lung, and spleen problems. Which is probably why Ford will do a Mustangy Cougar. Sigh.
Hey North American Cars manufacturers: Stop taking us for stupid buyers! give us better cars or else we will buy elsewhere. Mercury is just another excuse to buy elsewhere!
Thinking about it… Mercury should die. Just tag it and bag it.
Ford needs to concentrate on Ford and Lincoln and… that’s it.
In California Mercury has less than 1% market share, so no wonder their stand at the LA Auto Show was as empty as the Mojave desert.
Before making new product road maps for Mercury, let’s answer the following simple existential questions:
1. Can FoMoCo make a profit with such a small brand? (I think not)
2. Should their attention be focused on the survival of their other upscale brands (such as Lincoln, Volvo)? (I think yes)
3. Do you need a seperate Mercury brand to achieve product differentiation? Do upscale model versions within the Ford brand already give enough differentiation? (I think yes)
4. Does FoMoCo have the money and talented staff to revive a Mercury brand that has become irrelevant? (it seems they don’t)
Sajeev: Probably the dumbest thing Mercury’s done is not spun off the new Mustang into a Cougar. They need that halo vehicle so bad it Hertz.
How about a nice rebadged Focus? Mercury could call it… Bobcat.