Merkur
 |
|
| Industry | Automobile |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1985 |
| Defunct | 1989 |
| Headquarters | Dearborn, Michigan, USA |
| Products | Luxury cars |
| Parent | Ford Motor Company |
| Website | www.merkurclub.com (unofficial) |
Merkur (German pronunciation: [mɛʁˈkuːɐ̯]), Mercury) was a short-lived automobile brand sold by the Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford Motor Company from 1985 to 1989. Using captive imports produced by the German division of Ford of Europe, Merkur was targeted at buyers of European luxury brands.
After only five years of sales, the Merkur division was discontinued by Ford, making it one of the shortest-lived automotive brands.
In the early 1980s, for various reasons, buyers of traditional American luxury brands such as Cadillac, Chrysler, and Lincoln began to shift their buying preferences towards European-produced cars from Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo. As a response, Japanese automaker Honda launched Acura in 1985 with their contemporaries Nissan and Toyota, later developing Infiniti and Lexus, respectively. In its own response, Ford created the Merkur (German for Mercury) franchise for select Lincoln-Mercury dealers in the United States and Canada; approximately 800 Lincoln-Mercury dealers would take on Merkur franchises. Building on the success of the original Mercury Capri (during the 1970s, the most imported car in the United States aside from the Volkswagen Beetle), Ford intended to import cars (the Ford Sierra and Ford Scorpio) targeted toward European import buyers, a market that Lincoln-Mercury did not have any competitive vehicles ready for sale.
When the Merkur name was launched in North America, advertising and PR materials strongly urged the proper German pronunciation of the brand name. Below the Merkur badge was a script stating Ford Werke AG-Cologne, West Germany, indicating the car's place of manufacture.
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