"THE 2011 MERCURY"

“A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;” (Ecclesiastes 3:2)

A few weeks back, I wrote a posting on the blog about the significance of the end of the 2010 model year for the Ford Motor Company...that being the end of the Ford Crown Victoria, AND the end of the Mercury brand. I don’t just put information like that out there lightly. I did check all that out before posting it. That’s why I was surprised by an advertisement from Framingham Ford which appeared in Friday’s MetroWest Daily News newspaper. The ad was for a lease deal on a brand new 2011 Mercury Milan. I read it over a few times and concluded it HAD to be a mistake.

I actually sent off an e-mail to Framingham Ford asking if that was a misprint and if the car was really a 2010 Mercury Milan. Mr. Charles Simpson from Framingham Ford was nice enough to e-mail me back and explain that the Ford Motor Company DID build some 2011 Mercury cars before permanently pulling the plug on the Mercury brand a few weeks ago.

This sort of thing will probably only interest the BIGGEST automotive history geeks among us, but that has happened before. Ford Motor Company pulled the plug on the Edsel brand after only a couple of years. Most history books list the final year of the Edsel as 1959. 1959 WAS the final production year of Edsel, but as with the 2011 Mercury, Ford DID build a little over 500 1960 Edsels in the summer and early autumn of 1959. I have never seen an actual 1960 Edsel...only photographs. They’re VERY rare, and thus expensive and collectible. The 1960 Edsel does NOT look like an Edsel. There is no “horse collar” grille that the ‘58 and ‘59 Edsels were famous for. Rather the car looks a lot like a 1960 Ford Galaxie. Well, to be even more accurate, it looks like a cross between a 1960 Ford Galaxie and a 1959 Pontiac Catalina.

I once owned an AMC car. I had a 1982 AMC Concord station wagon. AMC was the “renamed Rambler”. If you’re a baby boomer, you probably remember American Motors’ popular Rambler cars of the late 1950s and 1960s. By the late ‘60s Ramblers were being thought of as terribly uncool, so the brand name was changed to AMC. Sales dropped and dropped and dropped. American Motors also built the Jeep brand and that was largely the company’s salvation, because the Jeeps sold very well, and of course, they had the contracts with the U.S. military, but the AMC cars during the 1980s could hardly be given away. In August of 1987, Chrysler bought out American Motors Corp. Chrysler mostly wanted to add the successful Jeep lineup to bolster it’s sales and image. Chrysler immediately discontinued the AMC brand. However, during July and August of 1987, over 1,000 1988 AMC cars had been built. So, it also gets confusing that American Motors ended in 1987, but there was a 1988 AMC car. In fact, although there were some 1987 AMC coupes built, the 1988 AMC cars were strictly station wagons. Those are also collectible cars...not as valuable as 1960 Edsels, but maybe someday they will be.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the 1961 DeSoto. Chrysler killed the DeSoto make in December of 1960, but after a number of 1961 DeSotos had been built.

Would it make sense to get over to Framingham Ford and buy or lease a 2011 Mercury? Will they be collectible cars someday? Honestly, there’s a good chance that will be the case.