By 2007, aside from the Grand Marquis and (defunct) Monterey, Mecury's line-up is new since 2004, making for one of the freshest product lines in the industry.

Mercury won the mass-market segment of J.D. Power's Customer Satisfaction Index in 2009, beating (in order) SMART; Buick; Pontiac, and Chevrolet.

Nonetheless, persistent rumors have it that Ford plans no Mercury products after the 2012 model year.

Ford clarifies its plans in July 2008, stating that the Grand Marquis and Sable will be cancelled, but that the Milan and Mariner will continue - and that a new Focus-based small car will wear a Mercury badge for 2011. Mercury's younger, largely female demographics - Ford confesses - are too precious to lose.

Lincoln will receive no small cars, confirms Ford Global Product Chief Derrick Kuzak in July 2008, as Mercury, whose cars are sold alongside Lincoln, is repositioned as an entry-level premium brand.

Responds Boston Lincoln/ Mercury dealership owner Chris Lemley, "not only is some product news better than no product news, but some Mercury strategy is better than not having one.

"Many people don't realize that while Mercury's heritage is in large cars, the division has sold small ones successfully, too. The last full year of Tracer was more than 40,000 retail sales that Ford thought would get picked up by Escort. It never did" ('Ford shuffles Mercury brand,' Bryce G. Hoffman, The Detroit News, July 26^th, 2008).

Mercury's next product, due in 2011, will be a Focus-based compact dubbed, "Tracer."


Carrying the tag-line of New Doors Opened, the Mercury brand begins revitalizing its design language with its Mountaineer (Ford Explorer) in 2001, followed by the full-size Montego (Ford Five Hundred) sedan in 2003, and - most recently - by the 2006 Milan (Ford Fusion) midsize sedan.

The goal, says Mercury brand manager Kim Irwin, is "at-a-glance differentiation."

For Mercury SUVs and crossovers, this differentiation is being managed by Pat Schiavone, design chief. The new look of Mercury, he says, is about color and texture, as he cites New York Fashion Week; the Milan Furniture Fair, and Frank Gehry as inspirations for what he calls "Metro-cool."

As applied to Mercury vehicles, this incorporates satin-pewter interior finishes; chrome accents, and ice-blue instrument lighting.

Ford, writes The Detroit News' Bryce G. Hoffman, "now wants Mercury to do for automobiles what companies like Target and Ikea have done for home furnishings and furniture: put stylish design within the reach of tech-savvy, middle-class sophisticates."

This places Mercury's audience as more ethnically diverse; higher paid; younger; more likely to have a college degree, and more likely to be female than the typical Ford customer. It also encourages Mercury's advertising department to consider guerilla marketing: an effort to, as Irwin puts it, "surround our target customers."

In Irwin's estimation, the 2008 Mariner SUV/ crossover is "the first vehicle that really hits the new direction dead-on."


Since its introduction in 1935, Mercury is positioned as an up-level Ford; not quite a Lincoln, yet sold alongside Lincolns to offer Lincoln intenders a less expensive alternative.

Mercury's cars, then, are generally mechanical clones of Fords. Yet the Mercury customer is not always a clone of the Ford customer. A post-millennial emphasis on differentiation through marketing; interior design, and (to a lesser degree) exterior design seeks customers who - as Design Chief Pat Schiavone readily admits - are "more likely to be impressed by the look and feel of the dashboard than the width of the wheelbase." In 2003, Mercury stems its sales slide, leveling off at about 200,000 customers per year.

AutoPacific analyst Jim Hall compares Mercury in 2006 to GM's Saturn, itself undergoing revitalization. Like Saturn's late-90s L-series, Mercury's period Cougar was, in its underpinnings, a captive European import. Saturn was once pitched as GM's import brand; in late 2006, Mercury's conquest rates (the percentage of buyers who switch to Mercury from a non-Ford brand) exceed 50% for the Mariner and Milan.