Mercury, the maker of higher grade Ford models with waterfall grilles such as the Milan and Grande Marquis, will have the same fate of GM's Pontiac and Saturn brands, according to a report from Bloomberg citing two unnamed people familiar with the plan.
The news agency said that Ford Motor Co executives could ask the automaker's board of directors as early as July to green-lit the (eventual) axing of the Mercury brand.
Ford did not give a straight out answer when asked about the report. "Our plans regarding Mercury have not changed," said Ford spokesman, Mark Truby. "Like any good business, we constantly assess our business portfolio. If things change, we will let you know." Bill and Elena Ford declined to comment, Truby said.
People familiar with matter said that Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford and other members of the founding family, who have an all-important 40 percent voting control of the automaker, clearly support the elimination of Mercury.
The Mercury brand was created in 1939 by Edsel Ford as a Buick-like, entry-level luxury marque slotted between mainstream Fords and premium Lincolns.
The brand's sales peaked in 1978 at 579,498 units, but have since plunged to just 92,299 vehicles last year. In the first quarter of 2010, Mercury's sales accounted for a mere 1.9% of FoMoCo's global sales.
Via: Bloomberg
16 Comments:
i predicted this years ago and think i was the first to write about "my fears" for the corporation and lincoln-mercury brand in a major automotive news trades paper. i never suggested the killing off of mercury, yet received tons of hate mail for merely writing the article about the prospect.
fmc is making a grave mistake. they allowed mercury to fail with too few models, slow redesign times and little differentiation from ford division products. sadly, lincoln has a major identity crises - their cars are underpowered (perception at least - with the lack of v8's), too costly, relatively slow sellers (i.e. mks, mkt, navigator, navigator-l) and a model-line consisting of nothing more than glorified fords. added smaller, less expensive vehicles would only water down the lincoln marque more.
It's about time! Badge-engineering is so over with.
It's a missed opportunity.
If Ford considers American Fords [that is ADM models] to be good sellers at economical/entry-level prices, just re-masking them as Mercuries will not be enough, not these days anyway.
But there is a brand awareness, brand loyalty, and dealer network. Instead of rebadging, it should sell European and Australian Fords which may be more premium because those markets demand it, and since there's nothing like them here, they have exclusivity as well.
--JORGE
This is sad. I have a Mercury Milan, and it has been the most trouble-free/ low mantainance car I have owned in 38 years. And they have been in the top 5 of the JD Powers surveys for a few years. To throw that away is a shame, but if Ford is not going to give Mercury and new and distinctive product, then get rid of it and focus on Ford and Lincoln. It reminds me of GM, Oldsmobile Cutlass was the best selling car in America in the mid 80's, but they screwed it up and Olds was gone by the early 2000's. If you don't water a garden, it dies.
If Mercuries are nothing but rebadged Fords, while feel anything but indifference at it's demise?
I don't know a lot about the company, but it seems Mercury has died years ago and has been replaced by Ford clones. So by closing down Mercury nothing really changes except the badge. It doesn't matter if the Mercury Milan is the best car on Earth, you can still buy a Ford Fusion?
In response to SamuraiJack, I feel bad about Mercury's demise because I learned to drive on a '65 Mercury. My brother's first car was a 63 Meteor. Mercury's have been around since 1939, there is something called sentiment that you might not be aware of. Unfortunately Ford has taken away anything that might make Mercury special, but they used to be upscale from Ford, and not as ostentatious as Lincoln. I also own a '97 Ford and at 13 it is still going strong. It's a good brand, but I hate to see them throw away part of their history.
it's not that mercury will be missed because of its current weak line-up, rather the potential it had to bridge ford and lincoln that once worked out nicely. lincoln will seem cheapened without mercury, i think. fords, like a loaded taurus, flex and edge are terribly overpriced in my opinion for a "mere ford" - as the company now has a new fiesta on the horizon (if not out already)that no matter now nice, is a "low end" car. the span is too wide in my opinion. a "buick-like" division made sense to edsel ford countless years ago. the vision of and product from mercury were lost, but the need is still ever-present.
There was a place for Mercurys, like Buick, a more upmarket car that was somehow more special than a Ford, though not as stately (at the time) as Cadillac. Like in the UK decades ago, you had the ordinary Austins, but then you upgraded to a Rover (the country doctor's car), which was still distinct from a Jaguar, which itself was also beneath a Rolls-Royce. The strata were distinct.
But badge-engineering means that you usually just try to sell a more or less standard car as a higher version with the other's guts fully intact. I say "usually," because while difficult to achieve, VW does it very well. Many of their ranges are from the same platform, and even engines cross platforms, but the VW Golf, Audi A3, and Skoda Octavia look, drive and feel different enough to be distinct targeting different markets, even if many engines are shared even with the lower (Polo/Fabia) and higher (Passat/A4/Superb) cars.
Perhaps with even "basic" cars moving up a few notches this past decades to include fuel injection, ABS, power windows/locks/mirrors, aircon, power steering, and have 5-star crash ratings, and features used to distinguish cars for the masses with those of the elite are commonplace, it has become more difficult for carmakers like Ford to create a middle ground between Ford (Fusion/Mustang/Fiesta are very good cars in the US, as are the Focus/Mondeo elsewhere) and Lincoln.
Unless they spend money and create a different and exclusive feel for Mercury, such as a unique and consistent design language (Audi design for example, is very disciplined) and a suspension system unique to Mercury (think Jag) and inaccessible to Ford, decidedly upmarket plastics and materials inside plus a different touch/feel to the controls, it can do it.
Trouble is, for Ford, if Mercury does do it, how do they raise the bar again for Lincoln?
The idea behind Mercury was to fill a gap between entry-level Ford products and premium and expensive Lincolns.
A few things have happened, but namely Ford has left it mostly forgotten not pumping the investment money that a part of any business deserves and only offering slightly more upscale versions of Fords. Also Fords as pointed out above have become quite expensive and have bridged the gap if you will b/n plebeian Ford and upscale Lincoln.
But the shame or what's upsetting is that it seems to be such a missed opportunity for Ford: It's an established brand, it's got an extensive dealer network, why leave it to waste?
Options
1. I would have it sell European Fords: distinctive and more upscale than American Fords. OR
2. Re-invent it as the Green company and offer alternatively fueled/hybrid/electric cars: some based on existing models others like nothing else. In other words, pre-empt Toyota's Prius as an independent line. OR
3. Use it to offer chic models a la MINI. So something like the Ka but premium and more like its equivalent FIAT 500, nice retro-esque trendy cars such as the Bronco concept but for a Mercury. Niche and low volume products, yes, but at a premium to make money.
And the logo must be re-invented too... And no more waterfall grills either.
--JORGE
OK. So, after Mercury's gone, is anyone REALLY going to notice?
"It's about time! Badge-engineering is so over with."
Lexus ES/Toyota Camry
VW Golf/Audi A3/Audi TT
Mercedes S-Class/Maybach 57
VW Phaeton/Bentley Continental
Infiniti G/Nissan Z
I think we should say poorly-executed badge engineering is out. Platform sharing is an economic necessity when one platform can cost over $1 billion USD in development costs. A company has to share those costs across as many strata of the marketplace as they possibly can through brand differentiation. Masters of the technique, Volkswagen, are on their way to be the world's number 1 vehicle manufacturer based upon the realized profits from well-executed platform sharing.
"Badge-engineering is so over with."
A reality check for you my deluded friend, badge-engineering and platform sharing are here to stay forever. Every automaker does to cope with huge R&D costs.
Consider the market segment the car can fill, the price range it can fill, and where on it earth it can be sold.
Sell a car in NA as a compact luxury car with a HO V6 for $45K, and then at the same time sell a super stripped out version of the same car with an econo-max 4-pot wearing a different badge in Malaysia for just over $5K.
It's the benefits of having a platform that can be adapted for it's needs on a global scale. ONLY badge-engineering and platform sharing can aford such flexibility to reach the most consumers at all different price points.
I thought they were dead already
Mercury just isnt competitive anymore. Decades ago Mercury's looked better than their Ford counterparts, but not anymore. Badge engineering doesn't seem to work anymore. Seems Ford should have kept Volvo for their mid-luxury and killed off Mercury.
If Ford was smart they would have at least updated the cars more. Drop a 5.0 and a 6 speed in the Grand Marquis and update the interior.
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