Spy photographers caught the facelifted 2008 Mercury Montego in testing this week. According to the Detroit News, Ford is hoping updated to the Montego and Ford Five Hundred “buy some time” for the cars before a full-scale redesign in a few years. Both cars were criticized from launch for being bland and underpowered. With the visual update, the cars will also get the new 3.5-liter V6 from the Ford Edge.
New car price quote
Zero obligation price quote from a trusted local dealer.
05/19, 10:40 AM
posted by:
Mike
the new engine will be very well received… but why all the hype on this site and others about a different grill?
05/19, 11:47 AM
posted by:
BAMF
I dont think this qualifies as “all the hype.” I think this is more of a notification of a facelift.
05/19, 1:49 PM
posted by:
aj
I have nothing to say about the car itself, but the girl in the Mercury commercials is HOT. Holy hell, like donut grease!
05/19, 6:36 PM
posted by:
BCM
This front end looks a lot like the Lincoln Zephyr/MKZ. How do they know this is a Montego facelift and not a mule for the MKS?
05/19, 8:39 PM
posted by:
illnevertell
BCM, just click the link in the article. This is without a doubt a facelifted Mercury Montego. There were more pictures at Edmunds.com a few weeks ago too.
05/20, 12:54 AM
posted by:
BCM
I have seen the picture in question, and I didn’t say the body wasn’t a Montego. But the face is pure Lincoln; the headlamps are identical, and the grille strakes appear to angle towards the center instead of being parallel like every other Mercury. If this really is Mercury’s new face, it seems like a dumb idea. The Montego has much less need for a new look than the 500 to begin with; to make it look like a Lincoln instead of a Mercury probably doesn’t help Lincoln and may not help Mercury.
Where does this leave the MKS? It’s true that back in the ’70s it was sometimes hard to tell a Grand Marquis Brougham from a Continental, or later the Town Car, but I don’t know whether that works today.
05/20, 1:18 AM
posted by:
Patrick
Mercury needs to be shot. It sucks. The only car they sell moderately well is the Mountaineer, and it’s not a good enough reason to keep this brand around to simply sell exact cloned replicas of Ford products for $2,000-$4,000 more. Pointless.
05/20, 1:49 PM
posted by:
StephenJ
Patrick: Actually, Mercury is profitable and has been increasing in sales year-over-year. Not a bad thing…
05/21, 10:00 AM
posted by:
Patrick
Where’s your source StephenJ?
05/22, 7:03 PM
posted by:
SJS
StephenJ is right. I read that a few months back in all of the big car mags. I know at least one of them and maybe all of them made the observation that of all the Ford brands in the U.S., Mercury and Land Rover were the only profitable ones in 2005. It’s just one of those things that people ignore because they’re to busy being critical and uninformed.
As to the design the look is 100% Mercury. The headlights are almost identical to those of the Milan and the grille, while slightly curved, is by no means a Lincoln waterfall.