Ford axes Mercury

The seemingly perennial Mercury brand - named after the Roman mythological messenger of the gods - has been pensioned off at 71 years.  It finished up with the last model - the Grand Marquis - rolling out of production.

The Mercury name is only one of  Ford's brands to be chopped. More, says Ford CEO Alan Mulally, will follow.  When Mulally took over the CEO chair in 2006, Ford had 97 nameplates.

Many have disappeared as Ford disposed of brands including Aston Martin, Land Rover, Jaguar and Volvo.  In his address to the Confederation of British Industry in London in October, Mulally says Ford plans to reduce its product lineup to as little as 20 nameplates.

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The 'One Ford' concept aids the plan by marketing one model - for example the Focus - under than name in as many as 180 countries.  "Fewer brands means you can put more focus into improving the quality of engineering,' he says.

The Mercury Grand Marquis is the brand's biggest and oldest model and shares its underpinnings with the Crown Victoria. It dates back to 1983.  Ford announced in June that Mercury would go. Its Mountaineer ended production in October and more recently, the Mariner and Milan finished up.

Ford admitted that this year to November, Mercury sold just 84,802 vehicles for a paltry 0.8 per cent contribution to Ford's total production.  Launched by Edsel Ford in 1938, Mercury created a long list of nameplates including Bobcat, Capri, Colony Park, Comet, Lynx, Marquis, Marauder, Meteor, Monarch, Montego, Monterey, Mystique (dubbed Mistake), Park Lane, Topaz, Tracer and Villager.

Amongst its classics were the performance cars of the 1960s - Marauder, Comet and Cyclone - and the Cougar and the later Cougar Eliminator of the 1970s.  The brand also has exposure to the stars. James Dean drove a 1949 Mercury in the 1950s movie `Rebel Without a Cause'.

In the TV series Hawaii Five-O, Jack Lord drove a Mercury sedan, actress Farrah Fawcett started her career as a model in 1970s Mercury advertisements and Jill Wagner was for the past five years the "spokesmodel" for Mercury.