What does the future hold for Mercury? This picture is the Mercury Messenger, a concept based off the new 05 Mustang chassis. I guess Ford was seeing about another Mustang clone for Mercury. Why not, that's all Mercurys are, pimped out Fords.
Do any of you remember when Mercury had distinctive models, not just rebadged Fords?
At one time, Mercury had their own distinct motors and models and if they were using a Ford chassis, they would modify it to suit their car. Now I know that "Platform sharing" is important in today's market to keep costs down, but Mercury has lost it's soul.
I've said before, that Mercury should have one or two distinct models from Ford. The Mercury Capri roadster from the 90's and the Mercury Cougar are two examples that with more support and development could have done more to get traffic into Lincoln-Mercury dealers.
Recent news on the blogsphere about GM's waking to reality and their new plan to focus their brands and combine dealer networks, has got me thinking again. While I acknowledge Mercury will always need some Ford clones, they still need something unique and this Messenger is not it.
Mercury could be Ford's answer to Scion and Honda and Saturn, but selling some unique small vehicles aimed at the youth market. click the link above and see how boring Mercury is now. Look at the archive of my blog and see some of what Ford could import here to change that.
2 comments:
The problem with mercury is Lincoln. Lincoln has failed to go up market , they may be great limo/airport rentals. But lincoln has failed to follow thru with the LS euro fighter premis. so what if Jaguar drops the chasis , why did Lincoln not follow cadilacs example with rwd .lincoln barely except for teh trucks, attained over $50k . lincoln dwelss in the same market as mercury.
Midnight Magnum
You have a point, Lincoln with the exception of Fleet sales and their SUV is doing poorlly. They need the next big thing, maybe the Mark X roadster or a revamped more powerful LS. I hope the Zephyr works out for them but it may not be enough. Lincoln should do more like Cadilac that is true.
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