Did Mercury Build a Pickup Truck?
The short answer is no, Mercury did not build a pickup truck. The Ford Motor Company introduced the Mercury brand in 1939 as an entry-level luxury car.
Throughout its history, the brand was known for producing mid-size and full-size sedans, coupes, and station wagons. Although the brand was associated with power and performance, it never ventured into the pickup truck market.
In the early 1950s, the American pickup truck market had become saturated with models from Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and International Harvester. Each of these brands had multiple models to choose from, ranging from small half-ton trucks to heavy duty three-ton models.
It was a highly competitive environment and there was little room for new players to enter the market. This is why Mercury chose to stay away from pickups and focus on its core strength of luxury cars.
In 1975, Ford introduced a new light duty pickup truck called the Courier. It was a compact truck that shared many components with the popular Pinto subcompact car.
Although it was marketed as a Ford vehicle, it was actually built by Mazda under license from Ford in Hiroshima Japan. The Courier had some success in North America but it never wore a Mercury badge so technically speaking it wasn’t part of Mercury’s lineup.
The last time that Ford considered putting a pickup truck under the Mercury brand was in 1982 when they decided against introducing a modified version of their Ranger compact truck for fear that it would cannibalize sales of their existing products like the Ford F-150 full size pickup truck and Bronco SUV.
In 1999, after 60 years of producing luxury cars and SUVs, Ford decided to discontinue production of their Mercury brand citing declining sales figures as well as rising costs associated with developing new products for an aging customer base. Since then there has been no mention of any plans to bring back the brand or produce any pickups under its banner.
Conclusion: Although there were rumours that Mercury might eventually venture into building pickup trucks in its heyday during the 1950s through 1980s, it ultimately never happened due to competitive pressures in an already crowded marketplace and declining sales figures towards the end of its life span. As such we can definitively say that no – Mercury did not build any pickups during its time on this earth!
