We’ve heard rumors of a Ford Capri revival before, but now CARandDRIVER reports that Ford is planning a Capri Concept for 2009 to celebrate the model’s 40th anniversary.

The concept will hint at a future successor to the Ford Capri (previously sold as Mercury in the U.S.) and will be built on the next-generation global Focus platform. Styling is expected to be influence by the Ford Visos and Iosis concepts with a hint of Ford’s European Mondeo.

Continue reading…

According to a company document reviews by The Detroit News, FoMoCo plans to half production of the Mercury Sable and the Ford Taurus X crossover starting next year. The current Ford Taurus, which is built on the same platform, will continue production. All models are built at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant, which also produces the new Lincoln MKS.

Speculation has it that Ford may eventually end production of both models since sales are down and they don’t fit with their respective brands new image.

Continue reading…

After all the speculations that the brand will eventually die , Mercury dealers are celebrating after Ford finally unveiled a new strategy for the struggling brand.

So far Mercury is expected to get a new small car 2010 . Ford hasn’t given out any specifics on the model but the car is expected to be similar to the Focus and will be a derivative of a Ford vehicle, continuing Mercury’s current strategy.

Continue reading…

Ford is expected to make some significant announcements along with its quarterly results this Friday. Along with the announcement of retooling U.S. plants to produce its European models , The New York Times reports that Ford will also announce a drastic shift to build more small cars.

According to sources, FoMoCo will announce that it will completely convert three of its North American plants from trucks to cars. Ford will also realign factories to produce more fuel-efficient engines and will produce six of its next European cars for the U.S. market.

Continue reading…

While FoMoCo executives keep saying that Mercury is a very important brand of the company’s portfolio, dealers are worried mainly because execs have yet to give them a straight answer on future products and future strategy. Well, Ford has shined some light onto what it has planned for future Mercury models. However, with no future vehicles planned or any updates after the 2010 model year, the future for the sluggish brand doesn’t seem very promising.

The Mercury Milan will be updated for the 2009 model year along with the Milan for the 2010 model year. As we all know, Ford has planned a Mercury Milan hybrid for 2010 as well.

Continue reading…

Dealers have been worrying while speculations continue of Mercury’s future. But, like many times before, Ford has denied and has shown interest in Mercury’s growth. According to Mark Fields, FoMoCo’s president of the Americas, Ford considers Mercury a very important part of its lineup and will continue to invest money in the brand.

“It is an important part of the stable of brands,” Fields told reporters at the recent 2009 Lincoln MKS event.

Continue reading…

Edmunds.com has announced the winners of its first ever Consumers’ Top Rated Vehicle Awards. Consumers are given the control by rating the vehicles in eight different categories including performance, comfort, fuel-economy, fun to drive, interior and exterior design, quality and reliability.

Audi led the list with four awards while Toyota, Lexus and Chevrolet tied for second place with two awards each.

Click through for the full list.

Continue reading…

The decision of Mercury future has been pretty vague, but speculations of the brand being sold have dealers worrying. According to Detroit News, Mercury dealers are asking FoMoCo for a straight answer: Does Mercury have a future?

Basically dealers have asked Ford execs to outline their future strategy for Mercury. If the brand has a future dealers want to know what’s next and what products to expect. If not, they want to know how they can manage their businesses accordingly. Following that Ford had allegedly scheduled a meeting for April in Las Vegas. Ford supposedly canceled the meeting and moved it to September in Detroit.

Continue reading…

After Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover the automotive industry is waiting to hear word on when Ford will sell Volvo and Mercury. Although Mulally has denied reports of the Volvo and Mercury being on the auction block, Ford may still sell the two brands.

Jerry York, a former auto executive who now represents Kirk Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp, met with FoMoCo CEO last month. Interestingly enough a press release was released yesterday stating that Kerkorian plans on acquiring 20 million shares of Ford.

Continue reading…

In 2006, Mark Fields, Ford Americas President, said that Lincoln will eventually take over as the volume brand of the Lincoln-Mercury business. Well Lincoln did that in March, but just by 12 units.

In March Lincoln sold 24,462 Lincolns to retail customers, while Mercury came up with 24,450. Nonetheless, Mercury is still in ahead with total sales by nearly 6,000 vehicles. Sales for both brands are down in 2008 with Mercury by 21.5 percent and Lincoln by 18.9.

Continue reading…

Jim Farley, Ford Motor Company’s marketing chief said that Mercury’s role is changing as the company concentrates more on Ford and Lincoln models.

“Its role is changing, but we’re not going to compromise Mercury,” Farley said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg at the Chicago Auto Show. “No doubt Lincoln and polishing up the Blue Oval,” the symbol of the Ford brand, “is absolutely our priority.” He didn’t elaborate about Mercury.

Continue reading…

In a recent ‘Brand Perception Survey’ by Consumer Reports, consumers perceived Toyota and Honda as the best brands by a wide margin. Toyota and Honda had an overall ranking of 189 and 146 respectively while Ford came in third with 112 points followed by Chevy at 110. What surprised us about the survey was that Acura and Audi were considered the worst and were at the bottom of the list with brands like Mitsubishi, Mercury and Buick. I mean are things really that bad at Acura and why is Audi even down there with their recent onslaught of vehicles?

Well for one the survey says that car buyers considered safety and quality as the most important, followed by value, performance, environmental friendliness, design, and technical innovation.  

Continue reading…

According to a Ford marketing head, Lincoln sales have been on the rise and are showing signs of taking over its Mercury sibling in 2008. Lincoln is on track to finish the 2007 year with its first annual sales increase since 2003. Sales were up in October by 14.7 percent, to 112,678 units.

“We are above what we expected to do,” said Mike Richards, Lincoln Mercury general marketing manager. “We’ll have continued growth next year.”

Continue reading…