Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Should this be a new Mercury? I think so

The new Ford Mondeo from Europe, formerly sold here as the Contour/Mystique is a much improved car with sharp styling and very flexible powertrain options. This Estate (Station Wagon) version and the Sedan would be a perfect fit for Mercury and them alone. I was reading a comment not long ago from a reader that had driven a Mondeo Diesel and was impressed with the power. The one complaint was the 6 speed manual. Now just think how great that would be. Give me this Modneo Esate with the TDI engine and 6 speed manual, those nice alloy wheels and foglights would be nice too. Option it out with moonroof and leather seats, maybe a satalite navigation system. I'd be willing to break the piggy bank for that. Hell throw in the available all wheel drive and you'd be competing with Audi and BMW. A sophisticated, economical, smartly styled sedan and wagon from Europe? People would pay good money for that. Oh that's right, they already do, but maybe they'd pay good money to FoMoCo's Mercury brand.

3 comments:

Big Ford Fan said...

I don't think either is likely, even though the Mazda 6 is available with a really nice wagon version. Besides, I'm not sure that Mazda has a Diesel in the 6. I'll have to check overseas websites to see.

NLPRacing said...

Ford will have a Fusion "wagon", it'll be called the Edge. Mercury will be getting a fancier version of the Freestyle with the Duratec35 when Ford replaces it with a new "people mover". I think you'll be impressed with Mercury's line-up in the next few years. I still think that they should sell the Euro Focus here as a Mercury and build a new Cougar type car based on the Mustang.

Big Ford Fan said...

NLP will not be the wagon it should be, it will be a crossover suv like the Aviator and the Mazda CX7 that it's based on. Mazda's 6 wagon is a tight package.

I don't know what keeps wagons out of the US market, in Europe Wagons are popular. I guess it's all the aging baby boomers, with hang ups. Bad memories of family trips in the Country Squire. Or the "un-manly" aspect of driving a station wagon.

I for one, and apparently I'm in the minority, would love to see the return of the Country Squire.