Ford announced on Wednesday that it would phase out its 71-year-old Mercury brand as part of restructuring that will also see an expansion of its luxury Lincoln line-up.
Ford will end production of Mercury vehicles in the fourth quarter of this year “to fully devote” its resources toward “further growing its core Ford brand while enhancing the Lincoln brand,” a company statement said.
Edsel Ford, son of company founder Henry Ford, established Mercury during the Great Depression as a mid-priced alternative to mainstream Ford and upscale Lincoln.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
Mercury will now join a host of other Detroit brands that faded away this decade. Last year, General Motors (GM) said it would eliminate Saab, Saturn, Hummer and Pontiac, as it carried out a revamp following bankruptcy. Chrysler, which also filed for bankruptcy last year, dropped the Plymouth brand in 2001.
Mercury sales peaked at about 580,000 units in 1978, reports said.
Its sales fell another 10.7 percent last month to 9,128 units compared with May last year, Ford said on Wednesday in announcing its latest sales data.
Ford said its luxury Lincoln line-up would be expanded with seven “all-new or significantly refreshed vehicles” in the next four years.
“We have made tremendous progress on profitably growing the Ford brand during the past few years. Now, it is time to do the same for Lincoln,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas.
Ford said that its US sales soared 21.9 percent last month from a year earlier, the sixth month in a row its sales have increased more than 20 percent.
The company said total sales rose to 196,912 units from 161,531 units in May last year.
Toyota, reeling from a recall crisis, also saw its sales modestly rise as Americans continue to have faith in cars produced by the Japanese giant.
The best performer last month was Chrysler, posting a 33 percent increase in year-on-year sales about a year after emerging from bankruptcy protection.
GM, which reported last month its first post-bankruptcy quarterly profit in three years on the back of cost-cutting measures, said its sales rose 16.6 percent.
Overall, sales of auto companies in the US rose more than 19 percent last month to 1.1 million units from a year earlier, the seventh straight increase. On a month-on-month basis, auto sales increased 3.8 percent last month to 11.6 million units from 11.2 million units in April.
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS