Sunday, June 21, 2009

What does Ford have for Mercury? What's left in the global cookie jar?

Wow, I've been going round and round with this, wondering what the hell FoMoCo can do with Mercury. For 2009 the brand has 4.5 models, none unique to the brand. There's the Grand Marquis, Milan, Mountaineer, Mariner and Sable, but only 3 of those will be around in 2010 and there are no planned new models for Mercury. Lincoln has the MKS, MKT, MKZ, MKX and Navigator (right?) and even the Concept C based on the Euro Focus. But as I've said before, there aren't any new Mercury models, no Flex based CUV, no Edge, no Taurus based Sable, no Focus based small car. Nothing, not anything. And so I was going over past posts where I had proposed stuffing Mercury dealers with overseas FoMoCo models from Europe and Australia.
Much like the last "unique" Mercury Models the Cougar and Capri, one based on Euro Mondeo and the other Asutralian Ford Capri (Laser or Mazda 323). But with the Fiesta, Focus and Transit Connect all on their way to Ford dealers next year, what's left?
Well, they could bring the Ford Focus CC as a Mercury. But does it pay to ? I assume the new Focus powerplants would be EPA certified and since it's basically a Volvo C70 I would assume it wouldn't have a problem passing crash tests. It's a stretch, but it's one of the few models that Ford could bring to give Mercury a Halo model. Call it the Capri or Cougar or If you insist call it the Msomething. It would never be a huge seller, but considering Mercury brand itself only sold 180,000 or so units last year, it could be enough.

And I've said it before, but the land down under could be tapped for some fresh Mercury blood.
Falcon and Territory models, the sedan, crossover and maybe even the ute? I don't know if the 4.0 I6 could ever pass EPA certifications, but how about the 3.7 V6? Or even just the 4.6 V8?
I'm still convinced that FoMoCo plans on letting Mercury fade away, but if the brand is to have any future, these are the only ideas I have. What say you?


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hi MFD, 2b2 here.

We "know" some form of C3 global-Focus will be a Merc
&
IMHO a C3 whitespace hybrid/BEV/whatever could intro as a Mercury too.

After that maybe something spunoff the Fiesta...

THEN
Maybe we'll be over the (temporary) SmallMerc Theorem
OR
maybe interpret the S.M.T. to include the smallest entry in each class? Like an S-Max derivative could be the smallest Fomoco 3-row peoplemover?
or a COUGAR could be the smallest GlobalRwdPlatform car that seats 4 adults? etc...

just wanted to chime in :)