Mercury was the Ford Motor Company's mid-priced marque situated on the pricing ladder between Ford on the bottom rung and Lincoln at the top. Mercury's marketers often struggled to position it in the market - was it an upmarket Ford, or a more affordable alternative to the pricey Lincoln ?
In 1958 the Ford Motor Company launched the ill-fated Edsel which was marketed as an upmarket Ford, the next step up for the man who could afford something better. This clearly set Mercury's positioning closer to the Lincoln. To this end, the glamorous all-new Park Lane model was launched as Mercury's top-of-the line model for the discerning buyer who wanted an automobile of distinction. The Turnpike Cruiser, which had been top-of-the-line in 1957 was downgraded to being a jazzed-up Montclair, the Montclair became the mid-range model and the Monterey became the base model. There was also one rather bare model below these again - the Medalist.
Unfortunately the USA entered its first post-war recession in 1958 and the automobile segment that was to suffer the most was the mid-priced field. Those who could afford the luxury top-of the line marques still did and those who couldn't stuck to the base-line marques. Americans also chose smaller and more economical cars and so the massive
longer, wider, lower cars produced by the Big 3 manufacturers were shunned by the buying public. Mercury sold only about 130,000 cars that model year, of which only about 9,000 Park Lanes. The Edsel also floundered because of the recession. It was really the wrong car at the wrong time. Mercury kept the Park Lane model for only three years - 1958 to 1960 - before it was dropped as Edsel disappeared and Mercury repositioned itself once again as an upmarket Ford. The name was reintroduced between 1964 and 1968, but as one word "Parklane".
The 1958 Mercury Park Lane exemplifies the outrageous excesses of the 1950s American automobile industry - the bigger and flashier, the better. Chrome, anodised aluminium and stainless steel were applied everywhere possible, engines got bigger and bigger and a dizzying selection of optional accessories, sometimes of dubious utility, whetted the appetite of the American public. It was the era of
glitz, gadgetry and go. The 1950s was also the era of the US-Soviet space race and rocket and jet themes influenced styling everywhere. By the late 1950s most independent car manufacturers in the US had disappeared leaving the Big 3 with virtually the whole market. Mercury offered 22 different models and body styles in 1958. The Park Lane measured 7" longer, 0.2" higher and had wider rear Flairlites than the rest of the Mercury models. With a captive market the crazy excess of tooling up to produce 22 different models was possible.
