Factors Affecting The Creation of The Mercury Meteor
In the mid 1950s, Ford Executives were convinced by Ernest Breech that in order to compete with General Motors, the automaker had to meet each sales segment with unique product. The plan impacted Mercury by calling for the marques completely new platform and body design since World War II in order to differentiate it from the Ford beginning with the 1957 model year.
Historically, Mercury was usually considered a "lower-medium-priced" car, most often compared to Pontiac and Dodge. Under Breech's plan Mercury would move upmarket and compete more directly with Buick, Oldsmobile, Chrysler and DeSoto and the Edsel would take over Mercury's previous role as the "lower-medium-priced" car and compete more directly with Pontiac and Dodge.
While Breech’s plan could have succeeded in the early 1950s, by the late 1950s the bottom was beginning to drop out of the middle price car market; the 1958 recession effectively rendered Breech’s plan obsolete. Sales of Ford’s Edsel marque were a complete disaster.
Sales of Mercury products failed to reach expected sale levels, leading to cost cutting decisions beginning in the 1961 model year. Had Robert S. McNamara, then head of the Ford division, had his way, Lincoln, Edsel and Mercury would have been relegated to the dustbin of history. Instead, a compromise decision was made, and beginning in 1961 Ford and Mercury would use the basic Ford body shells, and rely upon unique trim elements to differentiate the marques one from another. Edsel, meanwhile, was discontinued after a short run of 1960 models; what emerged as the 1961 Mercury was really initially intended as the 1961 Edsel.
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