1971 Mercury Marquis - Saturday Morning Cartoons

I blame my first car, a 1974 Mercury Comet four-door sedan, for my general disdain of four-door cars.  However, if I had to have a four-door, I'd like it to be a "hard top" like this 1971 Mercury Marquis I found for sale on Facebook Marketplace recently. The term "hardtop" denotes any car that lacks a center pillar or post and is derived from the look of convertibles, usually ones with just two-doors, with their top up. 

That's not to say I like this car. In addition to it being a four-door, I've never been much of a Ford girl although a Mustang or Thunderbird or two or three could rock my world. And as I get older, my appreciation for the squishy land yachts of my youth is waning. Still, for some reason I felt it my duty to blog about this '71 for no other reason than, again, as I've gotten older, I feel the ever widening "canyon of time" separating the present from my childhood. Here's to representing us kids who remember Kent State, the Paris Peace Accords, Nixon resigning and washed it all down with our faces glued to a small black and white TV watching Saturday morning cartoons. 

The bulk of my childhood was spent, and in more ways than one, "looking up" at the luxury leviathans like this huge Merc. And it is in fact huge - just over 224-inches long and that's without the clodhopper safety bumpers the government mandated starting out front in 1973 and back in '74. My tenderest of tender years spent in my father's literally rental-grade, 1968 Ford Ranch Wagon. A car so bare bones it had laminate flooring. At least it had seat belts not that we ever used them. Then again, they were federally mandated.   

All Mercury's and especially their top-of-the-line model was always a curiosity to me - why'd they bother? Ford had their plush LTD, upon which it was always based, and they were sold along side the tonier and more expensive Lincoln equivalent to the LTD. For the most part, "Mercury's" were little more than gussied up Fords but their being bundled or partnered with Lincoln at least gave them a veneer of prestige. My first car was a 1974 Mercury Comet (sedan, ugh!) and with its one or two "Lincoln-Mercury" badges, I kidded myself I was driving something more than a Ford Maverick. 

Was this Marquis more than an LTD or less than a Lincoln Continental that shared its frame, albeit with a scooch longer wheelbase? Of course not. Same with Cadillac's of the vintage that were no more than Oldsmobile's or Buick's. Throw in the Pontiac Bonneville\Grand Ville and Chevrolet Caprice while you're at it too. What this is then is but mere status symbol of yore. And like first-class cabins on the Titanic, compared to today's road-going gems, it comes up short. Way short. Then again, think about what the poor folks down in steerage had to put up with. 

The Ford Motor Company created Mercury in 1938 to bridge the price gap between Ford and Lincoln and also compete with General Motors and Chrysler's middle priced makes and models. Much like GM and Chrysler came to struggle with their middle children ultimately snuffing all of them out, save for GM's Buick and that's most likely only for the time being, Ford sent Mercury to the great beyond after model year 2010 taking with it with some seventy plus years of struggles to define what made a Mercury a Mercury. Through my foggy goggles, they never really did. 

About the most interesting thing I can find about this fancified LTD is that its 429-cubic inch V-8 has a two-barrel carburetor; the "2V" was for its two-venturi carburetor. The "429 2V" was the only engine available on 1969-1971 Mercury Marquis' and was part of Ford's famed "385" series of Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln engines that it's successor, the 460, incidentally available only with a 4V, was also part of. "385" was derived from the engine's bore of 3.85-inches. 

But wait, there's more. The best is, the 429 2V has a 10.5:1 compression ratio and requires premium juice. No doubt Ford only offered a two-barrel carburetor in the interest of fuel economy. 

Asking price is $2,500. Is that a good price? I guess. Seems fair, not that I care. It's down in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  You might save some pennies driving it home rather than shipping it, but remember, it'll get may 10 or 11-mpg highway, if you're lucky, and it needs to run on the "good stuff". Bonus, if the AC croaks on the haul home, just lower all four-windows for a full-on blast of unrestricted fresh air to cool off. 

Would my contempt for four-door sedans be less if my first car was a powerhouse, V-8 sedan like this rather than the homely, spindly, wobbly, six-cylinder sedan I did have? I honestly don't know. Perhaps it might be somewhat less but then again, back when I came of driving age anyone who was anything, to me at least, drove a car that had only two-doors. The fact my Comet was so intrinsically awful doing the sappy little thing, and through my eyes all four-door cars, no favors. 

1952 Mercury Custom - (I Ain't) Crazy 'bout a Mercury

Alan Jackson croons in his 1993 country-hit, "Mercury Blues" that he's "crazy 'bout a Mercury". The song makes reference to a "Mercury Forty-Nine" and we see a 1949 six-passenger "Mercury Eight " six-passenger coupe in the video for the song that's similar to the one James Dean's character, Jim Stark, drove in "Rebel Without a Cause". "Eight" referring to the car's two-hundred fifty-five cubic inch, "flathead" V-8 engine. 

Although it goes by in the blink of an eye, about three-quarters of the way through the video we see the '49 with a "JAMES DEAN" license plate on its front end. Very cool.

We see several other Mercury's in the video but with the "b-roll" so dark and with  the constant, frantic edits typical of music videos of any genre, not to mention the degraded video quality on youtube, it's all but impossible to pin-point exact model years of the cars. 

There is this one good shot of the dashboard of a red, "suicide door" four-door  Mercury in the video but it appears to be a customized or after market dash. Safe bet to say, though, it's a 1949-1951 Mercury. While I'm a GM girl first and foremost, with regards to 1949-1951 Merc's, I get what the song-writers and Mr. Jackson were gettin' at when they say, "I'm crazy 'bout a Mercury". 

Just as well as today's automobile soliloquy is not about the Mercury's in the video per se but about this 1952 Mercury Custom. It's was for sale at a automobile consignment shop up in Grand Rapids with an ungodly asking price of some $15,000. The listing is gone now which tells me either the owner pulled it from the market or, remarkably, someone bought it. 

I mention the song and the video because, well, I love the song and Alan Jackson rocks, but it's safe to say I'm, "not crazy about this Mercury". If I just made the "not crazy" comment without framing it properly beforehand it wouldn't have the obtuse impact I hope it would have. 

I don't think that Alan Jackson or the song writers who penned "Mercury Blues" had this "Merc" in mind when they came up with the song. Especially in this color. Well, the writers couldn't have because they wrote the song in 1949 but I hope you get my point. Had the Ford Motor Company rolled this out in 1949 would a song have been written about it? Me thinks not. 

Alan's also a "car-guy" and if us "car-guy's" have anything in common it's that most of the time we tend to have similar reactions to particular models. 1949 Mercury's are "James Dean cool" whereas most other Mercury's, save for 1968 and 1969 Cougars, like our '52 here, candidly, were most definitely not cool. Throw in 1969 and 1970 Cougar's as "cool" because I'm feeling generous today. Most post-war Ford's as well lacked the elan that many GM designs had and post-war Chrysler's were even worse. Well, up until 1955 but that's a blog for a different day. 

After three very short model years in which Ford's self-baked middle child actually had an identity of its own, for 1952 they began badge-engineering Mercury's as re-bodied Lincoln's. From an operational efficiency stand-point, at least on paper, the move made sense. After all, Lincoln's were marketed as rivals of GM's luxury division, Cadillac, and what better way to amortize the cost of building the feature rich luxury-buyer targeted automobiles than to offer less expensive versions of them. Again, that works on paper. 

It would have worked better if the '52's didn't look like warmed over versions of Lincoln models that didn't sell well. If Ford couldn't figure out what to do with Mercury, they really had no idea how to make Lincoln's appealing to Cadillac buyers. 1950's Lincoln's were gross attempts to out-Cadillac Cadillac and were fussy and clumsy looking. Had they instead made the 1949 Mercury's Lincoln's instead would things have been different? The world will never know. "Crazy 'bout a Lincoln" doesn't have the same ring to it either.  

1950 Ford Custom DeLuxe Club Coupe 

1951 Mercury Eight 

1952 Mercury Custom     

1952 Lincoln Capri

Above we see the familial similarity in early 1950's Ford designs and the only one, in my humble opinion, that should and actually does get any respect is the 1951 Mercury Eight. Some say James Dean drove a '51 in "Rebel" but I've deduced it was in fact a '49. And as dorky as the '52 Merc is, the 1950 Ford here makes it look positively beguiling. The Capri here is does look somewhat elegant but it has none of the presence of a 1952 Cadillac. 

The axiom of "what's a Mercury" dogged the division from it's get-go as a competitor to GM's mid-priced models going back to 1939. Sometimes they were dressed down Lincoln's and other times they were dressed up Ford's. Again, save for the '49-'51's and, the Cougar;s Ford could never figure out what to do Mercury. That dogma plagued Mercury through its demise after the 2010 model year. 

I ain't crazy about this Mercury. 

"Mercury Blues" was written by blues musicians K.C. Douglas and Robert Geddins.