The Past Lane: Seven Memorable Mercurys

This week in 2011, the final Mercury automobile rolls off the line at Ford Motor Company’s St. Thomas Assembly Plant in Ontario, Canada. The last Mercury, a Grand Marquis, is the dying vestige of a marque championed by Edsel Ford to fill the cavernous price gap between the Ford and Lincoln. Introduced in 1938, Ford sold more than 21 million Mercury vehicles during its 71-year lifetime. Being the middle child, it rarely had a distinct image, although it did have a handful of memorable models.

Here are some of the marque’s most memorable models.

1939 MERCURY 8

When Mercury automobiles first came out, they wore styling cues from Lincoln and Ford. A Ford flathead V-8 engine with 95 horsepower provides the power. In contrast to Fords, Mercurys has hydraulic brakes, a significant safety improvement that Henry Ford long resisted.

That first year, more than 60,000 are sold.

1949 MERCURY

This is the car that James Dean’s drives in the 1955 film “Rebel Without A Cause” lending the car a reputation as a hot rod. Even so, its driveline suggests otherwise, being a 110-horsepower, 4.2-liter flathead V-8 with a three-speed manual transmission.

For the first time, Mercury shares its appearance and body panels with Lincoln, not Ford. It would prove to be a winning formula.

1954 MERCURY MONTEREY SUN VALLEY

It seemed like a good idea. For 1954, the revamped Mercury Monterey is offered with the Sun Valley option. This transforms the front half of the roof into green-tinted Plexiglas. On hot days, this scorches passengers as neither air conditioning nor a sunshade is offered.

Nevertheless, all Mercs get new styling that year along with a new 198-horsepower 4.9-liter V8.

Too bad about the lack of A/C though.

1963 MERCURY MONTEREY S-55 MARAUDER

in mid-1963, the full-size, high-performance Mercury Monterey S-55 Marauder, leading Mercury to win a NASCAR Grand National race that year thanks to its 425-horsepower 7.0-liter V-8 fitted with dual Holley four-barrel carburetors, four-speed manual transmission.

The Marauder would continue through 1965, when it’s replaced by the S-55 moniker. Returning for 1969. it remains a Mercury option through 1970. The Marauder returns for 2004 and 2005 as a high-performance variant of the Grand Marquis.

1967 MERCURY COUGAR

COnsidered the gentleman’s muscle car, the Mercury Cougar is an upgraded version of Ford’s pony car given to Mercury three years after the Ford Mustang is released. Unlike Mustangs, Cougars exclusively had V8 engines, in this case a 225-horsepower 4.7-liter V-8. Two years later, its new Eliminator trim sports a 7.0-liter Super Cobra Jet big-block V-8.

It remains a muscle car through 1973 before becoming a midsize personal  luxury coupe for 1974. The Cougar’s glory years are over.

1977 MERCURY MARQUIS BROUGHAM

By the time this automotive mastodon appeared, Mercury’s enormous Marquis was effectively a junior Lincoln as it shared Lincoln’s design, platform and 6.6-liter V8 and design. Buyers loved it, sending sales to an all-time high.

Mercury’s popularity fell once Ford abandoned this strategy, becoming little more than rebadged Fords.

1986 MERCURY SABLE  

While cars designed to cheat the wind are common today, it was not the case when the aerodynamic Mercury Sable debuted in 1986. Replacing the midsized Mercury Marquis, itself a derivative of the unremarkable Mercury Zephyr, it sported a light bar instead of a grille.

Suddenly, all other sedans looked outdated, except the Audi 5000.