Without Volvo, Ford sold 170,900 units last month, for a 15 percent increase compared to June 2009, when the industry was mired in one of its worst years ever. Compared to last month, Ford’s sales (like many other automakers’) were down considerably from their 196,671 unit level. That’s yet another indication of the market’s overall weakness, but Ford’s got its own special problems as well. Even after the announced death of Mercury, Lincoln is nosediving, failing to top its June 2009 number of 7,137 units. At 6,318 units, Ford sold fewer Lincolns last month than GM sold Tahoes. Ouch. Meanwhile, Mercury blithely outsold its fellow premium brand by a healthy margin, moving 9,250 units. Otherwise, the news at Ford was “steady.”

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If you scan the autoblogosphere on a regular basis, you’ve read some half-hearted eulogies to the best and worst of Mercury. Fair enough, as the Mercury brand deserves every one of those backhanded compliments: sharing too much content with a comparable Fords and (sometimes) sharing too many styling cues with the Lincolns means it couldn’t die off without a dig or two. And it is an easy target: aside from the (lead-sled) post war Yuppie clientele that inspired Mercury’s creation, the original sleeky-Sable and a few old Cougars, this was bound to happen.

But obviously my love for Mercury (here, here, and here) means I’m not going to bury Mercury, but to praise it. And to make sure the brand remains in our collective consciousness just as long as it’s GM counterpart, Pontiac. Wishful thinking, Mehta?

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The Detroit News is reporting that Ford has called a press conference on “brand and product strategy” for later today. It is widely believed that The Blue Oval will use the conference to announce the wind-down of its Mercury brand. Fresh updates as they occur...

UPDATE: The WSJ [sub] confirms that Ford’s board made the decision to axe Mercury. According to their sources, Ford “hopes to merge many of those dealers with existing Ford dealerships or shut them.”

UPDATE: Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports from the press conference, quoting Ford’s Mark Fields as saying

Given our improving financial situation, it really allows us to absorb the short-term cost of discontinuing Mercury… We’re very proud of Mercury’s history, but we’re now looking forward.

CNN Money confirms that the death of Mercury will mean more vehicles for Lincoln, as it paraphrases Ford’s Derrick Kuzack as saying:

Over the next several years, Lincoln will get seven all-new or drastically changed vehicles

Mercury isn’t the only entry-luxury brand in free-fall… it’s just the worst of a beat-up bunch. We’ve included Lincoln to help illustrate Ford’s larger luxury-brand issues, and Buick and Acura for competing-brand comparison.

Detroit has a long list of sins it committed over the decades, but one of the more pernicious ones is name debasement. Think of the Chrysler K-cars wearing the once proud names of New Yorker and Imperial. GM’s history of name debasement and other crimes in naming is extensive. But it’s difficult to come up with a more egregious one than what was done to the Cougar. Better pop a Zoloft, because this is a depressing CC: beige, boxy, generic, feeble, padded half-vinyl roof and tin foil wire wheel covers. But the crimes against names and humanity must be documented for future generations. (Read More…)

I was born in the city

A city with no shame

And when I play guitar

They all know my name

Well, as fate would have it, they only really know my name at the local restaurant where I play lunch gigs on my Gibson CS-336. I don’t consider myself a blues man, but I will go to see the blues played when I have a chance. My plan for last week was simple: drive from Columbus, Ohio to New York City to see Robert Cray perform, and then to head down Memphis way to catch the various acts on Beale Street. Tie in an additional trip to the New York Auto Show afterwards, and we’re talking 4,100 miles and plenty of dicey parking. Might as well rent some cars and do an old-school TTAC rental review or two.

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March is shaping up to be the biggest month in car sales since Cash for Clunkers ended, and Ford isn’t being left behind [official release in PDF format here]. The firm’s sales rose 43 percent last month, matching February’s performance and setting another record for sales since 1984. Ford brand sales led the way with a 45.6 percent increase, while Lincoln climbed 18.9 percent and Mercury rose 26.2 percent. Focus hit 19,500 units, a 57.5 percent increase, while Fusion sales grew 79 percent to 22,773 units, an all-time record for the nameplate. Escape flirted with the 20k mark as well at 19,182, while F-Series hit 42,514, a 30 percent increase. Explorer even saw a 78 percent bump to 5,907, and a 53 percent bump in fleet sales sent over 10,000 Econolines out the door. Lincoln sold 450 more MKZs than it did last March, otherwise only the Town Car and Navigator were up (modestly). Milan carried the Mercury brand, up 71 percent to 3,897 units. Grand Marquis and Mariner sold 3,532 and 2,482 respectively. Though Ford had a great month sales-wise, its luxury brand situation continues to be one hot, steaming mess.

Ford already sells a Ford Fusion Hybrid and a Mercury Milan Hybrid, but according to the Detroit News, a Lincoln MKZ Hybrid is en route as well, giving Ford a hybrid model for each of its three brands. Too bad they’re all the same model. As Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics points out: (Read More…)

What are the odds of still being married to your first sweetheart from high school? And of still owning your other first sweetheart, the car you bought for $15 about the same time you met her? And what are the odds of me running into him as he was sitting in his 1950 Ford across the street from South Eugene High School, gazing at the very building where the three of them bonded in 1964? (he was waiting for his grandson). Well, luck may have something to do with the last one, but I give this man credit for having a big and unwavering heart and good judgment. But there’s got to be more. Well, I uncovered his secret. (Read More…)

It’s a little-known fact that nearly half of the 2,000 or so dealer franchises that GM began winding down during bankruptcy were Cadillac stores, most of them located in rural areas. The General’s plan was to focus Cadillac’s dealer network on  standalone stores in major metropolitan areas, following the strategies of more premium luxury competitors like BMW and Lexus. But having marked 922 largely small-town Caddy dealers for death, GM saw 2009 sales of its luxury brand fall 15 percent, or twice the rate of Buick and Chevrolet in the same period. The lesson: small-town Cadillac dealers (like attempts to sell the brand in Europe) are worthwhile after all. Automotive News [sub] reports, the majority of those dealers being reinstated are small-town Cadillac dealers. Will Cadillac’s brand integrity suffer by having to serve the small-town American market as well as competing with the European brands? Probably, but at least Caddy dealers can take heart knowing that things could still be worse: they could be Lincoln-Mercury dealers.

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With news that Mercury will receive new product based on the forthcoming Ford Focus, the bandwagon to crown Ford as the new King of Detroit has halted briefly as its passengers take a moment to remember: oh yeah, Ford is technically still trying to compete in the luxury game. Ford’s recent luxury-brand efforts have been so half-hearted in comparison with its Ford-brand turnaround that many analysts simply overlook Lincoln and Mercury when proclaiming Dearborn’s momentum. As, apparently, have consumers. Neither Lincoln nor Mercury cracked 100k sales units in 2009, a feat achieved even by such marginal luxury brands as Buick, Cadillac, and Acura. And as the Detroit News details, the problems with Lincoln-Mercury run deep, and their solutions are far from obvious.

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When GM axed four brands in bankruptcy, it seemed for one bright, shining moment that the era of America’s auto brand bloat was drawing to a close. No such luck. Both Chrysler and Ford passed up opportunities to hack off purposeless brands, and in doing so perpetuated some of the worst examples of brand engineering surviving in the US market. If there were one brand that needed the hatchet, it is and was Mercury. Now, after a decade of Jill Wagner-supplied life support, Ford is breaking the silence surrounding its entry-luxe brand, announcing that a Mercury-badged vehicle will be built “on the same platform” as the new Ford Focus. Put simply: the Mercury Tracer is coming back.
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For all the praise and positive comparisons he earns, Ford’s Alan Mulally still refuses to man up and acknowledge that at least one of his firm’s brands is as meaningful to the American consumer as Kaiser or Cord. And it’s not like Mulally can just ignore the brand’s slide into ignominy: after all, people notice when you never introduce new products for a brand that was wholly comprised of cheap rebadges in the first place. Well, Inside Line noticed, and they cornered Mulally at the Washington Auto Show to get his take on the brand with no purpose.

“The plan right now is (to develop) Ford, Lincoln and Mercury,” Mulally answered.

He said Ford is working to more effectively position Mercury with smaller vehicles that occupy the void between the mainstream Ford brand and Lincoln, which directly targets the luxury-premium market. “That’s our plan — to continuously improve the Mercury and Lincoln brands,” Mulally said.

But after a little more discussion, Mulally felt compelled to reiterate: “That’s the plan right now.”

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Jeremy writes:

Hello Sajeev, I have a 1993 Mercury Grand Marquis that I picked up from a family member a couple years back. I registered the car in my name with only 37,000 miles on the clock, it now has just over 51,000. The car was garage kept for years. I have updated the fuel filter, spark plugs, tires, air filter, and the regular oil changes.

After driving the car for a while I noticed the transmission shifted with a slow “shudder” from 3rd to 4th gears. The transmission seemed to shift smoothly under light acceleration but mild to brisk acceleration is accompanied by the transmission shudder.

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Having divested much of its premium brand portfolio (Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin), Ford is missing out on luxury sales in growth markets like China. So it comes as no surprise that Automotive News [sub] would ask Ford President of the Americas Mark “MKF” Fields whether Ford’s Lincoln brand could go global. Fields’ reply?

Potentially, but we are focusing Lincoln here in North America for right now. We don’t have any plans at this point to take it global. That doesn’t mean in the future we wouldn’t look at that, but it’s very important for us to focus on North America.

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