Ford pulls the plug on Mercury after 72 years

My ex-father in law has been buying off-lease Crown Vic P71s from local police departments for years, and swears by the silly things. He just got a 2008, for backup when his 2004 finally dies.

I think Ford missed the boat by not updating the Panther platform and continuing to build the big RWD cars.

I also think that the only people who will miss Mercury are the dealers...nobody else seems to care. I was thinking about the dealer situation, and I don't think there are any local Lincoln-Mercury dealers left who don't also have a Ford store, so it would be easy to roll the Lincoln line into the Ford store and be done with it.

On a GM side-note, there are several really big Buick/Pontiac/GMC truck dealers locally...I can't imagine they can make a living just selling Buicks and GMC light trucks, now that Pontiac is dead. At least one of these places is less than 5 years old, they must be gritting their teeth, wondering what to do now.
 
Killing Pontiac was a foolish move on GM's part, but it was possibly a result of having to take the Federal money. Pontiac sold over 4 million cars last year, and Buick didn't even make it to 1 million cars according to a GM dealer that I know. Seems that the feds wanted to keep Buick since it is a big seller in China. I think that it would have been best to kill off GMC, since it is nothing but a re-badged Chevrolet.
Paul

PS... I am a Mercury fan, and will miss the brand..
 
We've had two Grand Marquis lead cars; a 98 and an 03. Neither one had any sort of police package, but boy could they both move fast. It is no wonder why you law enforcement guys like those cars.

Here's a pic of our real Lincoln hearse.
 

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Paul, where did you get the 4 million sales figure for Pontiac in 2009? A CNN site I found showed Pontiac sales for '08 at 267, 348. If 4 million P's had been sold last yr, surely the make would still be here.
 
Jim Tighe said:
Paul, where did you get the 4 million sales figure for Pontiac in 2009? A CNN site I found showed Pontiac sales for '08 at 267, 348. If 4 million P's had been sold last yr, surely the make would still be here.
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Paul Steinberg said:
Killing Pontiac was a foolish move on GM's part, but it was possibly a result of having to take the Federal money. Pontiac sold over 4 million cars last year, and Buick didn't even make it to 1 million cars according to a GM dealer that I know. Seems that the feds wanted to keep Buick since it is a big seller in China. I think that it would have been best to kill off GMC, since it is nothing but a re-badged Chevrolet.
Paul

PS... I am a Mercury fan, and will miss the brand..
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I didn't research his numbers, since he is/was a Pontiac GMC dealership.
 
Mercury is D.O.A.

What a shame!!!!!! I am a huge fan of Grand Marquis and Crown Vic's. It's really sad to see them go,part of ford's master plan.not a very big seller any more.Guess i better grab one before they are all gone! They ride and handle great.another victim of these changing times.:(
 
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Denny Shira said:
What a shame!!!!!! I am a huge fan of Grand Marquis and Crown Vic's. It's really sad to see them go,part of ford's master plan.not a very big seller any more.Guess i better grab one before they are all gone! They ride and handle great.another victim of these changing times.:(
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I honestly think that they are not big sellers any more because Ford wanted them to become losers so they could detach the general public off the conventional V8 frame configuration. If Ford would have kept up on the style and engineering updates, they would have been still a popular car today. Ford still sells a large number of F150 trucks which are still the V8 frame configuration. Truth be known a large percentage of the F150s are not only work trucks. I think a lot of people that buy the truck just like how they drive. I have talked with many people who say that the Crown Vic, Grand Marquis and the Town Car are awesome cars but they are just so frumpy. I think if Ford would have wanted to they could have been much more successful with the panther platform today.
 
full size 4 door 6 pasanger v8 making around 22 MPG on the road with a load and ac on, ya I can see why they would drop that now days. when they get to force you into a 45 grand crosse over or similer type that only gets 25. just try to go find a car you can get 6 people in today. gm still has two but they better be small people
 
I have always felt that big Fords and Lincolns drive "smaller" than big GM cars...that is to say they feel more nimble and not quite so huge, even if they are big cars. I think part of it is the driving position, sitting up a smidge higher than in a GM car...think about the FWD Bonnevilles and Park Avenues, I always felt like I was sitting on the floor with my legs splayed out in front of me.

If you get the chance to look at the new Taurus, you'll be amazed at how big it is, and how tall...the back of the decklid is really high, but it doesn't look like it in pics. The roof is tall too, and that's the Volvo heritage showing.

We have one Grand Marquis lead car, and everyone tries to grab it, because they like it more than the LeSabre and Lucerne we also use.
 
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