SOME CAR NEWS

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

NOTE: When I started the blog (originally on AOL Journals in early 2006) at least half of my postings were about totally secular topics and interests of mine. Through the years I received quite a bit of feedback that “a pastor’s blog should only be spiritual and inspirational” and “your blog should be like Pastor So-In-So’s"). Thus, especially over the past two years I’ve tried to make most of my postings “spiritual and inspirational”. The reality is, however, that pastors and other clergy do not strictly deal with spiritual and religious topics all the time. We have interests and hobbies like everyone else. Most of us like to “let our hair down” and talk politics or sports, or entertainment from time to time. I don’t have one-tenth the mechanical ability that my late brother did, but I’m one that’s always noticed automobiles and trends in the automotive industry. So, this piece may disappoint some, but it’s strictly a secular piece about cars!

I’ve recently learned of two items of “car news” that some of you may find interesting. Both of these items have to do with the Ford Motor Company. The first piece will not come as a shock to most people as it’s been hinted at for almost ten years. The Mercury brand has ended with the production of the 2010 models. Mercury began back in 1939. In the early days, it was very difficult to tell a Mercury from a Ford. Really, the early Mercurys were just kind of super deluxe Fords. In later years, especially in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, many large Mercury cars looked like cheaper versions of Lincolns. Mercury never seemed to find its OWN niche and look...the cars were almost always very fancy Fords or thrifty and affordable Lincolns.

Henry Ford the First did NOT like the Mercury. In fact, he didn’t like Lincoln for that matter! If you know much about the history of the Ford family and the Ford Motor Company, you know that Henry the First and his son Edsel were very different people. Edsel, along with a number of other Ford executives, believed Ford should be structured much more like General Motors and Chrysler, offering a wide variety of makes for various economic and demographic groups. Henry the First thought they should build Fords, PERIOD! The Lincoln brand was purchased in the 1920s as a luxury alternative to Cadillac and Packard. The Mercury was intended to attract “medium priced” buyers away from makes like Oldsmobile and DeSoto. Poor Edsel could never seem to really please his Dad, nor to bridge the gap between his father and key Ford executives. The stress got to him, and he died of cancer as a relatively young man. Ironically, the Edsel car named for him was meant to compete with Pontiac and be an in-between make between Ford and Mercury. Of course, it was a total disaster.

Mercury built some really pretty and cool cars through the years. The 1967 Cougar is a truly beautiful automobile. The Mercury cars of the middle 1950s were powerhouses and had pretty impressive styling. In more recent years, the Grand Marquis has been very popular with elderly drivers. But sales of the make have been badly sliding. Mercury was discontinued in Canada over ten years ago, and has has SUCH poor sales over the past two years that pulling the plug is not much of a surprise, but it IS the end of an era.

For serious auto buffs and historians, as well as POLICE squad car buffs (and believe me, they DO exist) the end of the 2010 model year is also a huge milestone as this is the END of the Ford Crown Victoria. The Ford Crown Victoria has been the most popular police squad car for almost fifteen years, and was one of the most popular for many years before that. The Ford Crown Victoria is also part of a continued production of a car that began with the Model T in 1908 and was retooled, redesigned, and renamed many times over the years but was always the SAME car in newer and more up-to-date forms. The Model T became the Model A and then the Ford Deluxe and later the Customline and Fairlane and Galaxie and LTD but it was always the same continuous line. As of 2010 that line ends after 102 years.

The latest full-sized rear-wheel-drive Ford was introduced as a 1979 model. Chevrolet Impalas and Caprices had been completely redesigned and downsized for 1977 and in comparison the big Fords looked BIG and awkward and old and dated. The ‘79 was a fresh smart new downsized look. As was frequently the case, the Fords never looked QUITE as smartly styled as the Chevrolets but they were REAL close. The ‘79 look was slightly restyled for 1988 and then had a major restyling for 1992 and another for 1998 but this was always pretty much the same car with cosmetic changes. By the 1990s, sales of full-sized Fords and Chevys were on the decline and Chevy Luminas and Ford Tauruses were selling like hotcakes. Chevy “canned” their full-sized cars in the mid-1990s. but brought out an all new front-wheel-drive Impala for 2000 that has continued to be a big seller. The Ford Crown Vic was looking older and older, and typically was appealing to an older and older crowd. Face it, except for the police cars and taxicabs, the typical Crown Vic driver vividly remembered December 7, 1941! In the mid-2000s Ford made a bold move and introduced a new full-sized front-wheel-drive Ford to compete with the Chevy Impala: the Ford Five-Hundred. Somehow I think that if they’d have called it the Galaxie 500 it might have sold a little better. (I also think Chrysler should have offered a Plymouth version of the Dodge Intrepid and called it the Plymouth Fury, but that’s for another day.) The Five-Hundred was a great car, but they couldn’t seem to GIVE them away! It wasn’t that Crown Victorias were selling all that much better, but the name was a dud. By the late 2000s, Ford had (stupidly, in my opinion) discontinued the mid-sized Taurus. Somebody at Ford decided to rename the Five-Hundred the Taurus. The new car was nothing like the earlier Taurus, but the name change was a HUGE success! After the 2007 model year, Ford dropped the “civilian” Crown Victoria entirely. Now, it was only available as the Police Interceptor and sold to fleet buyers only as police squad cars or as taxicabs. Of course, 2008-2010 former Ford police cars are available on the used car market...usually with new paint jobs!

The police version Crown Vic has a different grille from the civilian version. The civilian version used a chrome grille, but the police version uses a black “honeycomb” design grille. If you check various references on-line, you’ll notice that the suspension and other “stuff” that goes into the police version are different and more “heavy duty” but one downside is the police version has a stiffer and less pleasant ride. A friend of mine is a corrections officer who specifically TRANSPORTS inmates. He told me he and another officer transported an inmate to central upstate New York and that the ride in the Crown Vic was really awful.

I think the popularity of the Dodge Charger police cruisers over the past few years has lit a fire under Ford to make some changes. Chrysler had been completely out of the police car business for well over ten years, but the Dodge Charger is a cool, stylish front-wheel-drive vehicle. Ford IS offering a police cruiser for 2011, but no more Crown Victoria. The 2011 Police Interceptor is a TAURUS. It’s a police Taurus...front-wheel-drive and cool like the Dodge Charger.

For so many of us, seeing Ford Crown Victoria cop cars has been a staple on the roads, but that’s gonna change over the next few years.

You know nothing stays the same forever...Mercurys....Crown Victorias...well, it’s time to say goodbye to them and move on.