http://www.autoblog.com/2008/09/20/autoline-on-autoblog-with-john-mcelroy/
HOW FORD WILL SAVE MERCURY
When Alan Mulally came to the Ford Motor Company two years ago he finally forced the company to face reality. It wasn't going to go anywhere, he told his executive team, unless it put all its resources into resuscitating the Ford brand on a global basis.
So Jaguar and Land Rover were given the heave-ho, and Volvo was put "under review." The decision was made to let Mercury slowly die, and Lincoln's turn-around was put on the back burner until the Ford brand revived.
But as the company formulated its turn-around plan, it slowly dawned on everyone involved that there was a real opportunity to save Mercury. They figured out a way to give the brand a unique line-up of vehicles without breaking the bank. So in April of this year they took their ideas to Mulally, and after extensive studies they got the go-ahead in June to save it.
John McElroy is host of the TV program "Autoline Detroit". Every week he brings his unique insights as an auto industry insider to Autoblog readers. Follow the jump to continue reading this week's editorial.
Mercury was worth saving for a couple of reasons. Even though Mercury sales have been sinking for a decade, Lincoln-Mercury dealers still need the volume that the brand provides. Many, if not most, Lincoln-Mercury dealers couldn't survive without it. Second, Mercury brings in younger buyers than the Ford brand does, and a more diverse group of buyers at that, especially women.
Historically, Mercury's sales volume was never enough to justify the cost of tooling up unique models for the brand. Most Mercury models are nothing more than re-badged Fords. The fact that it's still alive shows there's a lot of power in that brand. But how to give it a terrific line-up of unique models?
Back to the plans to resuscitate the Ford brand. The company determined that it was going to build its product portfolio around C-segment vehicles. After all, it's the biggest segment in the world. And where there's volume, there's economy of scale. That's how mass marketers make money in this business.
Ford has a slew of C-segment vehicles in Europe. There's 3-door, 4-door, 5-door and station wagon versions of the Focus. Then there's the C-Max and Kuga that are built on the same architecture. Mazda and Volvo use that platform, and the B-class Fiesta shares a lot of it, too. With a little bit of modification they can bump it up to the C/D segment, where they have three different body styles of the Mondeo, plus the S-Max crossover and Galaxy people mover. Talk about manufacturing volume!
Up to now it didn't make much sense to build small cars in the U.S. Sky-high UAW labor rates were twice as much as Toyota or Honda had to pay their American workers. But last year's UAW contract changed all that. Now the Detroit Three have a fighting chance to build compact cars profitably in their home market, and Ford is going at it with a vengeance.
The plan is to retool a number of its U.S. plants with flexible manufacturing lines that can build just about any of these C-segment vehicles. The company is going to put six of these models (including the Transit Connect) in Ford showrooms in the next few years. But that leaves a lot of other models to choose from, and that's where the company realized it could sell some of them as Mercurys.
After all, if the cars are already designed and they've got the plants to build them in, the financials just became attractive enough to justify giving Mercury a unique line-up of models. For example, why not give Mercury dealers the 5-door version of the Mondeo, and the S-Max and the Kuga? OK, so they're still re-badged Ford's, but to most Americans they'll be completely different than anything they'll see on the lot at a local Ford dealership.
Ironically, the plan to save Mercury rose directly out of the plan to kill it off. And so a brand that was literally on its last legs will finally get a shot at proving what it can do.
Heh, saving Mercury is a "what have we got to lose" scenario now :hick:
Maybe I will get to buy that 50th Anniversary Cougar after all :D
lol ill buy it if it looks like our cars just "redefined for 2009" like the mustang and challenger.... i think it would look sick!
As of mid-2007 there are no Mercury only dealers. I don't think there are any Lincoln only dealers so the decision to keep Mercury makes sense. Ford does not really want to sell Lincolns at Ford dealers, although a few do as they are Ford/Lincoln-Mercury outlets. Lincoln needs the volume.
So, finally Mercury will get it's unique models that are not just re-grilled Fords.
It sounds like a plan to me. :D
A rebadged cougar off the mustang would be cool as well. I think the new mustangs are the best looking mustangs EVER. My opinioon on that is the only one that counts for me anyway. It's all about preference.
All dealerships in Canada are Ford-Lincoln. Mercury went bye-bye here a few years ago, with the exception of the Maurader and Grandma Marquis
Personally I'd rather see a new Cougar sharing the Mustang's drivetrains and platform, but with modern styling. Give retro to the Mustang, let a new Cougar be modern. Perhaps even use the Mustang's platform but with IRS and drivetrains aimed more at the "tuner" crowd, such as the Ecoboost 4 and V6. Price it accordingly and go hunting for potential Genesis Coupe buyers...
i used to be very brand loyal to Ford until i bought an 01 Focus wagon for my wife. it was the worst piece of i've ever owned. when i went to get it( i had it shipped to holland) the door jambs were still painted yellow primer, the wheels were covered in undercoating and the radio face plate was missing. it's first trip to france the fuel pump went and it burned up the converter and o2 sensor. Next trip the wheel bearing literally exploded causing the wheel to nearly fall off. Ford should change it's logo to Quality....NOT!! i'm tired of their pathetic excuses while puppiesan kicks their ass into yesterday. And now they cry to the government for $80 BILLION in bailout money so they can create alternative energy cars...never mind that they've had the technology forever and coward down to big oil. Screw em all, i wont shed a tear if they go under...same with the greedy unions and the blind sheeple that are killing the industry from the other end.
whew!!! Man, I feel better now...
All Licoln and Mercury dealerships are Ford Dealerships too.
Did you buy it used, because I've never heard of a Ford product with poor paint from the factory, or missing interior pieces. The undercoating would be your dealership's fault. For the rest of it, that's crazy. You got a lemon. Even still, it sounds like you got a car with the life burned out of it before you laid hands on it.
It had 11 miles on the clock. Seriously though and i dont mean to hijack the thread, but why should we bail out a company that sells polished turds...and i'm a ford guy :toilet: . if your going to do something do it right... redo the cougar ala 68 and make the stang and cougar sisters again...same chassis different styling. and for god sake get rid of that 80 year old man, no power having, no handling thunderjunk, and replace it with a NASCAR useable body. then Mercury needs to do the same and bring back cool names like the Marauder and Cyclone. The whole company is run by a bunch of mamby, pamby sissy boys who go to freaky clubs to wear diapers and get spanked by their "mommy" while sucking their thumbs. I feel ill thinking about it
you remind me of this guy...http://maddox.xmission.com/
I have no idea what you're talking about with the Thunderjunk comment. Do you mean Taurus? They are getting rid of it. As for Mercury looking to the past to save them, in case you haven't noticed, the retro T-bird, GT, Mustang aren't really pulling Ford out of the fire. Why would it do so for Mercury? Mercury needs to be differentiated from Ford. Honestly, catering to the NASCAR crowd is what's killing the company. They need to cater to the people buying new cars, not those fixing up old ones because 'no one makes a car for ME' (V8, four seat, two door, RWD, and carbed). Ford and Mercury really need to let go of the past to survive. The lashing they got for the live rear retro Mustang should spell that out. It's cars like the next Taurus, Flex, and Fiesta that will save them.
thunderjunk=thunderbird. Ford hires people to do market research, perhaps they should be fired or something. Mercury was always a small, niche market anyway and with puppiesanese makers flooding the market maybe they have filled those gaps. they are going the way of oldsmobile.
Dude, Ford doesn't make a Thunderbird.
what!!!!!! then who's the wiseguy that stuck a blue oval on my car!
When you say that, it makes me think you're telling ford to stop producing the Thunderbird. Something they don't do.
I don't know who put a blue oval on your car. I've never seen a Fox Thunderbird with a factory blue oval on it :hick:
Semantics aside, your car (if a Fox) is over 20 years old. 20 years ago Honda was still putting carburetors in Civics. Toyota was still building carbureted Corrollas. GM was still building carbureted Camaros and Firebirds. Hyundai was still building Excels. Oldsmobile and Plymouth were still building cars. A lot has changed in 20 years.
Comparing a 20+ year old car to modern vehicles (and blaming Ford's current problems on them) is kind of silly. Like Oldraven said, Ford doesn't build a T-Bird. They haven't for several years (and IMO, the last one was built in 1997). The T-Birds they did build in 1983-1988 were not only competetive to their contempraries, they were quite advanced. 155 horsepower seems silly today, but in 1988 it was quite competitive. Yes, we all agree that Ford should have put the HO engine into the 'Bird, but they sold quite well without 'em. On the same token, we all think Ford should've had Mustang power figures closer to the F-bodies, but the survival of the Mustang over the Fbody showed Ford made the right decision.
Ford doesn't need a successful Mustang or Cougar, it needs a Taurus that people will actually buy. It needs a Focus that makes a compelling alternative to the Civic. Mustangs are niche vehicles. The boring cars pay the bills.
my point is, is suppose, that Ford(and GM/Chrysler) have been busy making good excuses instead of good cars. Look at the recent crisis...the puppiesanese antited it and had a hybrid ready. Ford has a 65 MPG car they wont sell in the US, GM sells 70%(at least that but i think it's more) of it's flex fuel vehicles overseas and look at the top ten for quality the past ten years. and whats the response by the big 3...they cry to the govt for regulation or a bailout instead. Sorry i am out of sympathy for them.
gm built electric hybrids before any of the puppiess did. Ford is one of the few manufactures right now that actually is trying to put in-line 4's in full sized cars and trucks to lower fuel consumption. Look at chevy and dodge. The win button appears to be to throw a v-8 in anything that it will fit in, and get lower highway ratings then your car gets now, even with their mds and technological advances in the last 20to30 years. and most European fords haven't been brought over because of crash tests and other government issued requirements. You pay alot for gas cause the government wants you to and because the average person wants to. If you have a problem with gas mileage, then why don't you have an in-line 4 econo-poper instead of a full sized boat from the 1980's?
The puppiess have small cars cause that is what they use overseas where the prices for gas are far above what we pay.
If you want a ford with good gas mileage, look at the ford escort's that were recently killed. Or a ford focus or inline 4 tarsus. They all have the same or higher epa then the Toyota's and Honda's, with about the same power or more. Toyota and Honda are getting sued right now because there hybrids don't even pretend get what they advertise.
If you want a car thats good on gas, go buy a civic without ac instead of talking shiznit on a 20 year old car, that gets almost the same gas miliage as a civic now does.
http://autos.yahoo.com/honda_civic_si_coupe/
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/3233.shtml
apereantally the mpg has gone down in the last couple of years?
Used to be 19 city and 27 highway...
I'm going to jump in here. The puppiesanese didn't foresee any gas crisis. No more than GM and Ford did when they made their EVs in the 90's. The domestics sold vehicles that made them profit, large vehicles. They were making so much profit off of these during the 90's and early Ots that the puppiesanese jumped into the fire with them. When was the last time you looked at Toyota's entire lineup? You won't find many compacts. Less than you'll find on GM's website, even if you include Scion.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v613/oldraven/junk/toyolineup08.jpg)
Also realise that the Domestics have a fair number of hybrids already on the market. I can think of ten, off the top of my head. GM produces more cars that achieve 35mpg than any other automaker.
Imports are no more ahead of the game. They're just 'preferred'. If the media tells them Domestics are gas wasting, unreliable, pieces of junk, the public will believe it. It's popular to shiznit on domestics, so that's all the papers and news does. Popular media has no place for truth, just a catch to get you to buy. If you want an example, watch the Wall Street Journal over the course of a month. How many times will you see a story about our 'failed' automakers and what they're doing wrong? A lot!
Here's a great example. Toyota's Tacoma just got completely off the hook for cases of 'unintended acceleration'. There were some 400 reported cases of it happening, and even some injuries. Nope, not Toyota. But Saturn; that's a different story. GM just settled a Class Action Lawsuit over Saturn's VTi CVT's. The problem was 'premature failure'. I've been hearing and reading about this failure since I bought my Vue, and have been waiting for doomsday. Then I read this little tidbit. The transmissions were failing 'routinely' at around 125k miles. That's 200K km! A decade ago, if you were looking for a car, you wouldn't even consider buying something over 100k km. Now twice that is 'premature failure'? Or the recall Saturn just issued on their power steering, due to leaks. They recognised a potential for fire and immediately issued the recall. No recorded accidents, or even incidents where a Vue caught fire, but they jumped on the issue. Guess what the majority of people are saying about that on the blogs. You guessed it, GM builds nothing but , they should just give up and stop building 'inferior' machines that constantly need to be recalled. And now you're falling for it.
BTW, a loan isn't a bailout. This isn't the same thing we saw with Chrysler in the 80's.
Haystack and Oldraven pretty much summed up what I was gonna say, but I'd like to point out one other Toyota Tidbit: Through the 90's and early 2000's Toyota touted themselves as "The SUV company, with an SUV for everyone". If I felt like going through my car magazine back issues I could show you the ads (but I don't feel like doing so, so you'll have to take my word for it).
The fact is that trucks were licenses to print money, and Toyota wanted a piece. Their first foray into trucks was the T-100. It was a failure for two reasons: Too small and no V8. Toyota's answer? The next version, called the Tundra, was bigger and had V8 power. Still a failure. Why? Still too small, and the V8 wasn't big enough. Cue round three. Much bigger and much stronger. This time it looked as though Toyota had a hit on their hands, but alas, it was not to be. Timing was the problem this time around: Just when Toyota got it right, people didn't want trucks anymore.
Honda fared slightly better, but still fell into the SUV trap. The came dangerously close to falling into the full-size pickup trap as well. As ridiculous as the Ridgeline is, it's still a truck that weighs two and a half tons and gets dismal fuel mileage. More importantly, though, it was a stopgap measure. Trucks were generating lots of cash, and Honda wanted some of that cash NOW. Since Honda had no experience making real trucks it had to use what it had, hence the sissy Ridgeline-with-the-heart-of-an-Accord. Just something to get truck buyers thinking Honda. You can bet your bottom dollar that had the bottom not fallen out of the truck market the NEXT Ridgeline would have had a proper full frame and a V8 engine.
Hyundai/Kia also fell for it. If you can tell me a more poorly timed new vehicle introduction than the new Borrego, I'd like to hear it. A full-size, full-frame, V8-powered SUV introduced right when absolutely nobody wants one. And yes, a full-size truck was planned for the chassis. Not surprisingly, those plans are now on hold.
Lest you think it was only the Domestics and the Asians, let's also remember that BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Volvo and Saab have all dipped their toes into the SUV pond. Even Porsche, fer chrissake!
please dont mistake me for a hater...quite the opposite. My 88TC is my pride and joy, as was my 91 GT Mustang and my 89LX, etc. It's probably not fair to paint a broad brush based on my one bad new car experience but it royally pissed me off. I would rather fix up my 20 year old car than buy ANY new car. I then see the domestic companies asking for an $85B "loan" and i ask myself....for what? why should the taxpayers, many who couldnt afford a new car, bail out a company that failed to see the future. And let's not kid ourselves, you really think they are going to pay it back? A friend of the family had an 84 Mercury Lynx wagon that got nearly 60MPG... a carbureted 84!
http://www.mpgfacts.com/?did=1586&year=1984c
and what about the Volt....have you seen the PBS special on "who killed the electric car"? GM melted to big oil. Sorry for the rants but I have no sympathy for big companies.
I cannot put my finger on it, but for some reason I am feeling more confident than I should with Ford's future plans.
First, they are in a much better position than GM or Chrysler to shuffle things around. Really, they always have been, if you stop and think about it. Three divisions, three (relatively) distinct levels of marketing. It doesn't get any more black-and-white than that...the problem was in that middle segment (Mercury), everything has always been grey. So that's the level that needs the most "fixing", I suppose.
Second, it is amazing to see how scalable and flexible that Ford has become. Immediately upon announcing their new vehicle plans a few months ago, they also announced which production plants would be made over for the new models, which lines would accommodate other vehicles, and which plants would no longer be needed. It was swift action...much, much swifter than anything I've seen from domestic automakers in my lifetime. Remember, the current Town Car's roots date back to the disco era (1978) and the Ranger is from the grunge era (1991). To say that Ford is "slow to change" under normal cirspoogestances would have been an understatement. But, ah! Light a fire under their feet and see how quickly they dance. Abnormal times call for abnormal action. It was surprising but satisfying to see their decision--which, I'm sure, was kept with one eye fully open on the shareholders.
Last, the decision to import/build the European Ford vehicles into North America is flippin' brilliant. We've long clamored for such vehicles, at least here on the board. But the general population of America just didn't get it. They saw no reason why we should forsake our American goodness for imported Euro flavor. Well, times are tough, chips are down...Ford made the call. We're getting them, whether people are ready or not. But think about this: the new Focus has now become the gateway drug, the bridge between the old way and the new. Because of the Focus--let's face it, it's not a pretty vehicle but it is absolutely bpuppies over with details--Americans have been given the chance to drive a semi-Euro feeling vehicle. And they like it a lot. And now Ford can say, "Heh, you like this car, wait until we bring the REAL European cars over here." It builds hope for a positive future and more importantly for Ford, future customers to make their return on investment worthwhile.
Now giving the majority of the Euro cars to Mercury division...that, I guess we'll have to see what happens there. Those of us faithful Merc owners really can't connect with smaller cars because traditionally Mercurys were larger vehicles. Plus the heritage (the few cars that had heritage, anyway) is totally forsaken. It's going to be difficult to see these little cars at the L/M dealerships in the near future.
However...I like change when it's a good change. And I think this will be a good thing. When you consider that the Euro cars are going to be distributed in such a variety of flavors (gasoline, hybrid, possibly diesel, possibly fuel cell), it makes sense to put a more uplevel feel to them, and Mercury Division is probably the most logical slot for that.
I remember the new Mercury "M" logo being unveiled around 1986. At the time I was in high school, just getting into computer and graphic design, and immediately I felt a connection to the "M". After becoming a Mercury owner in 1987 and still to this day, it didn't take long to realize that there was no unifying badge for Mercury in the 1970's and half the 1980's. It was a mish-mash of crown logos, (bad) script nomenclature and general non-direction. The new logo ushered in the new era of Mercury, particularly with its debut on the Sable. Some people think the original Mercury logo, the so-called godhead design, is stlll the better of the two. I like that, I respect that, but it is not so much a forward-thinking logo. Its only recent iteration was on the Marauder, which is a heritage car and made logical sense. The new "M" is much more modern, a simple circle with three bars (some see a stylized wing). It is a logo that requires just a little thought to connect, but once you do, you can appreciate it for its symbolism.
This new era for Mercury is just like the changeover from the old to new emblem. Some long for the old, some embrace the new. I never wanted Mercury to become the dinosaur division...but it kind of did. The time for Mercury to sweep out the old has long come and gone. Merc died when it killed off the RWD Cougar in 1997. Since then (with the exception of the Mountaineer) it has languished in uninspired design. So...new flavors, new cars, somewhat smaller but much better all-around.
I don't see a problem with that.
But I am still hoping for a RWD Cougar for its 50th anniversary in 2017...
well said Ericcoolcats. my focus was the 1st American production model year. My sister in law is married to a guy on the Focus design team and he said in Ford's rush to get the car to american production, they only sent a skeleton crew to America to help tool up production lines and the initial quality suffered. i spent 8 years in europe and the Ford badge is alive and well there. I hope they do well and get it going again and MAYBE they'll bring over some Cosworth goodies.