Auto Nostalgia - Lost Brands

Perhaps I'm dating myself, but I find it a bit sad to have seen recently the demise of several auto brands that I grew up with: Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Mercury. Especially the last brand since that is what my parents drove throughout my childhood and teens and it was in Mercury models like the 1966 Monterey "breezeway" pictured at left that I learned to drive (the other was a 1968 Colony Park wagon). Amazingly, the 1966 originally sold for about $2900. By today's standards, they were two ton land yachts, but with five children in the family and SUV's not invented, we needed those huge cars. The New York Times has a piece on Mercury's demise and here are some highlights:
*
LAST month was the end of the line for yet another American automotive brand. Assembly plants produced the final vehicles to carry the Mercury nameplate, an unceremonious end for a marque that had been introduced in 1939 as an upscale companion for basic Fords — but more recently allowed to atrophy to little more than a selection of lightly modified Ford sedans and S.U.V.’s.
*
Still, Mercury leaves behind a history peppered with compelling and even innovative cars that at once conveyed a clear message: based on Fords, but better. Depending on the year and the car, better could have meant any combination of bigger, more stylish, more powerful or more luxurious. Pairing Mercury with the Lincoln franchise after World War II underscored the theme of what is today called entry-level luxury.
*
From the mid-1960s, full-size Mercurys adopted Lincoln-influenced designs and ran with Ford’s top engines. On TV, the top cop of the original “Hawaii Five-O” series, Steve McGarrett, cracked crimes in a black ’68 Park Lane.
*
In 2003, Mercury revived the Marauder moniker for a performance-tuned Grand Marquis, but sold just 11,000 over two years. By then, the boundary between Ford and Mercury vehicles had all but vanished. That line, though, was still clear when Gary Davis he bought a new 1970 Mercury Marauder X-100, a full-size coupe with a 429 cubic-inch V-8, for $5,100. He still owns it.