This business plan was inspired by Proud Pony or Bob Cosby I can't remember who mentioned it but I have been thinking about it for a few weeks now.

Considering Lincoln's position in the market place to Mercury's I think Mercury stands a better chance of climbing the luxury ladder to become a sport lux make offering RWD cars. The key to this plan is that Lincoln has an older image than Mercury, which doesn't have much of one at all right now.

The plan is simple take what Ford already has in Australia and bring it to the states as the Mercury brand. I know that their plant doesn't have the capacity to export like Holden does but Ford has excess plants they aren't using right now and one could be converted pretty easily I imagine.

Their BA platform isn't LHD also, RHD only, but it would be cheaper to re-engineer the firewall, underhoond, and dash than it would be to make an all new platform. Bring over the I6. People like I6s because they are different and they are also inheirently smooth, BMW 3.0 I6 for example.

Planning the marketing is simple. Compare the car to BMWs in every commercial, ad, and opportunity. BMW might win but if the reviews are good enough, as I imagine they would be, you could likely steal quite a few sales like Lexus did, by offering value pricing but still be in the Luxury realm.

I wouldn't offer the lower models just the Falcon and Fairlane at first. Each year you could introduce something new, like the Territory. Then you could offer the Ute as a low priced sport model, it would be different and likely garner quite a bit of enthusiasm from the enthusiests.

I would just use the I6 and turbo I6 for the first two years to save on emissions testing, unless demand for a V8 was seen.

Some pictures so you guys get the idea:

Falcon Exterior

Fairlane Exterior

Ute Profile

Interior of Ute, same as all others in range


More images and information can be found at www.ford.com/au

So what do you guys think? Would this be a good busines move? Could Ford pull it off and elevate Mercury to a true lux status?

 

Those ideas have been thrown around for years on the message boards as well as Car and Driver, but there is no evidence that Ford is considering it. Besides, Mercury has failed in the past selling foreign Fords (Merkur XR4ti, Merkur Scorpio, Australian Capri).

 

You do know the Ute is a Holden and not a Ford.......right?

 

the Pursuit is the same idea, though.
me want XR6T or XR8 Pursuit in lightning blue.....me cry now...

 

The Falcon "Ranchero" is also called "Ute" in Oz.


91_z28_4me, I believe this was tossed about at Ford a few times. Most recently, right after Jac Nasser left (I suspect he initated it since he once headed Ford Australia). Ford had been (perhaps still) cycling assorted Falcons through upper management and engineering. One ended up at Jim Wanger's company north of San Diego for testing by Ford, and wound up tested by Car & Driver while they had a hold of it.

Like you said, Ford of Australia, while selling neck to neck with Holden in Australia, is alot smaller than Holden, and has no where near the production capacity. Holden has an extensive export market for their Oz built cars, while Ford of Australia is limited to Oz, New Zealand, and perhaps South Africa. US made Crown Vics and Lincolns represent Ford's large RWD cars in the middle east, a market represented by Holden for GM.


Personally, I think your idea should have been done when the Falcon was reengineered. It would have cost extra engineering money (Falcons aren't nearly as adaptable as Holden's V series). But I'm guessing the problem was first, the local factory capacity.

The second problem (and I'm only guessing) is that by setting up an Australian Falcon factory here brought up the same problems that kept GM from setting up a Holden plant here to make VEs like originally planned. It's just as cheap and perhaps easier to set up a an entirely new structure than take an existing one and trying to adapt it to the way things are done here in the US without ruining the thing.

At any rate, if Ford refuses to even import or manufacture the revised Ford Focus here, and plans to use the Volvo structure instead of a D2C as the basis of Crown Vic's replacement, I doubt their going to cough up the cash (at least in the near future) to get a Falcon produced here.