Lincoln-Mercury hadn’t had much luck with its senior full-size Mercury models until 1969, when they made the big Mercury Marquis look a lot like a Lincoln Continental. For 1970, the Continental was redesigned … to look a lot like the Mercury Marquis. Was a Marquis Brougham the budget Lincoln, or was the big Lincoln now just a gussied-up Mercury?
Probably the single most important quality of any luxury car is image, and about half of that comes down to the prestige of the brand name. It helps if the car is well-engineered, good-looking, comfortable, etc., but it’s clear that for a lot of buyers, all of that is secondary to the cachet of the badge. For cars that don’t have a prestigious marque, shameless imitation is often the next best thing, commercially speaking.
Ford’s Mercury brand spent most of its history wavering between “fancy Ford” and “junior Lincoln”; the former was better for volume, the latter was probably more profitable. When Lincoln-Mercury redesigned its full-size Marquis for 1969, there was no question which direction it had swung. Especially in fancy Brougham trim (still an option package in 1969, promoted to separate model status for 1970), the Marquis wasn’t so much “junior Lincoln” as just “cheaper Lincoln.”
This became especially pronounced when the Lincoln Continental was redesigned for 1970. As I’ve previously discussed, the 1970 Continental was in some respects a better car than the unit-body Continental it replaced. On the other hand, it was now essentially just another big Ford, and its resemblance to the Mercury Marquis had become especially pronounced. Cultivating a family resemblance between cheaper and more senior models was an old, old trick — many a Chevrolet had a distinct whiff of Eau de Cadillac, which was wholly intentional — but this was a particularly extreme example.
You might assume that the Continental was bigger than the Marquis, but the differences were slight. The 1970 Mercury Marquis was 224.3 inches long, the Continental was 225 inches; with a width of 79.8 inches without mirrors, the Continental was a mere 0.2 inches wider. Also, the Marquis was offered in four body styles, including a true four-door pillarless hardtop, while Lincoln offered only a pillared sedan and a two-door hardtop coupe.
Although it was only 0.7 inches shorter overall than the Continental, the Marquis had a 3-inch-shorter wheelbase (124 vs. 127 inches) and was 1.6 inches lower than a Continental sedan in either four-door hardtop or four-door sedan form. It also lacked the Continental’s skirted rear fenders. Nonetheless, I suspect bystanders could easily mistake one of these cars for the other, especially if they were too far away to read the badges.
In 1970, the full-size Mercury line was divided into six models: cheaper Monterey and Monterey Custom, sporty Marauder and Marauder X-100, and the plusher Marquis and Marquis Brougham. The Lincoln-eseque nose with concealed headlamps was limited to the latter four models; the Marquis Brougham also added the bright fender peak moldings that further cemented the Lincoln resemblance. Both the brochure and the dealer guide say the Brougham had the padded vinyl roof as standard, but this car’s reproduction window sticker indicates that the original buyer was charged an extra $33.70 for it; I don’t know why.
The Marquis Brougham also included fancier door trim panels with diamond-pattern stitching like the previous year’s Continental Mark III. (This car’s vinyl drive’s side pull handle seems to be damaged and patched with green tape.) Unlike the Lincoln, or the senior models of this car’s GM rivals, Lincoln-Mercury still charged $110.10 for power side windows on the Marquis Brougham; they were installed on 58 percent of production.
Other key Marquis Brougham features were a rim-blow steering wheel and Twin Comfort Lounge Seats, a split bench with two separate fold-down armrests. This car also has the optional 6-way power seat adjusters for both sides, plus a reclining passenger seat back.
Unlike the Continental, you couldn’t get real leather upholstery on the Marquis Brougham, although the nylon tricot upholstery (which Ford designers privately dubbed “panty cloth”) was suitably luxurious. At least on this car, however, it seems to have quite a bit of staining; leather or vinyl might have avoided that.
This Marquis Brougham is quite loaded, including air conditioning and a Stereosonic 8-track tape deck — the main omission from its $1,474.70 list of options appears to be cruise control. C6 Select-Shift automatic was standard on the Marquis and Marquis Brougham, although power steering and power brakes were still technically optional on both models. Only a handful of Broughams (about 135) went without power brakes, which also included front disc brakes, but it appears no 1970 Marquis Broughams were built without power steering. One notable point was that Mercury no longer offered the secondary gauges that were standard on the new Continental; you got only a speedometer, fuel gauge, and clock.
Although it was almost the same length as the Continental, the specifications reveal that the four-door Marquis Brougham had a small but noticeable deficit in rear seat room compared to the Continental sedan. Compared to the Lincoln, the Mercury sacrificed 2.1 inches of rear legroom and 1.6 inches of rear headroom. I think that was probably mostly a consequence of the lower roofline; the Lincoln, being taller, had room for rear passengers to sit a little more upright.
There were various detail differences between the two cars, including different side moldings, different rear marker lights, and different taillights as well as the Lincoln’s skirts, but the basic shapes were very similar. Surprisingly, Mercury claimed 2.5 cu. ft. more trunk space.
Both the Marquis and Marquis Brougham used the big 429 engine. A two-barrel version (still requiring premium fuel) was standard, with the four-barrel version optional for $64.80. For the moment, the bigger 460 cid version was still a Lincoln exclusive, but it wouldn’t stay that way for much longer; by 1972, the 460 would be optional on the Marquis Brougham as well. For the moment, the bigger engine was worth 5 gross horsepower and 20 lb-ft of torque compared to the 429-4V.
As you’d expect, Lincoln was somewhat more generous with standard features than Mercury. A Continental sedan included around $400 worth of equipment that cost extra on the Mercury, plus the bigger engine, some extra sound-deadening material, and a few other features (or options) you still couldn’t get on a Marquis Brougham.
However, the plain fact remained that the sticker price of this very well-equipped Marquis Brougham was still south of $6,000 ($5,974.70, not including destination charge, a relative worth of about $55,500 in 2025 dollars), whereas the most basic Continental sedan without air conditioning started at $6,211.
You paid more for optional equipment on the Lincoln as well — for instance, manual air conditioning cost $82.70 more on the Continental than on the Mercury, and the AM radio/Stereosonic 8-track tape system with power antenna would cost you an extra $67.20 — and Lincoln buyers also paid extra for the Twin Comfort seats that were standard on the Mercury. A Continental sedan equipped similarly to the Marquis Brougham pictured in this post would have stickered for around $7,400 (a relative worth of almost $69,000 today), and that was without additional options like leather upholstery and Sure-Track rear antilock brakes.
As Lincoln-Mercury was certainly aware, that was pretty similar to the price spread between Cadillac and the other GM senior brands. In 1970, you paid between $1,200 and $1,500 more for a Cadillac De Ville than for an Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight or Buick Electra 225 Custom, and if we’re being candid, at least $1,000 of that premium was for the intangible virtues of the Cadillac badge rather than any quantifiable advantage. However, the GM cars at least looked different from one another, and they weren’t sold side-by-side in the same showrooms, which the far more similar-looking Lincoln and Mercury often were. (There were a few standalone Mercury franchises, though not many, and close to half were paired with Ford.)
The Marquis wasn’t quite as successful in 1970 as it had been the previous year, although all new car sales were down in this economically rocky period. Marquis production for 1970 totaled 66,301, split roughly evenly between the “plain” Marquis and Marquis Brougham. That was still a whole lot better than the old Park Lane, and the posher models now accounted for about half of full-size Mercury sales, which was encouraging. The Marquis Brougham also outsold the new Continental by a narrow margin (33,656 to 31,695), although neither sold as well as the outgoing Continental, which had sold 38,383 cars for 1969.
Some of that was due to the downturn in the market — 1971 sales were better for both models — but I can’t help wondering if Lincoln-Mercury did themselves a disservice by making the Marquis and Continental so similar. They were fairly obvious variations on the same chassis and powertrain; they looked a lot alike; and while the Continental was nicer in minor ways, it’s hard to see a buyer who liked the Lincoln being dissatisfied with the much cheaper Mercury. A customer who wanted a four-door hardtop might prefer the Marquis, since Lincoln didn’t offer that body style.
What about badge cachet? The Lincoln brand didn’t lack for prestige, but judging by the sales numbers, the number of buyers willing to pay a premium for it still wasn’t huge. (Lincoln was getting a lot more traction with the Mark III and Mark IV, which had more of a unique identity.)
As for Mercury, it generally seemed to remain at least a little ahead of Ford in public perception, but I’ve never been entirely clear how it stacked up relative to Oldsmobile and Buick back when those brands still meant something — and it was probably that factor, more than any other attribute, that would determine whether you decided the Continental was worth the extra money or thought the Marquis Brougham was the better deal.
Related Reading
1966 Mercury Park Lane Vs. Ford LTD: Did The LTD Make Ford’s Mid-Priced Mercury Obsolete? (by me)
Vintage Car Life Review: 1967 Mercury Marquis — “Has The American Public Gone Soft?” (by me)
Vintage Review: 1973 Mercury Marquis Brougham – Getting Ready For Steve McGarrett (by GN)
1974 Mercury Marquis Brougham — The Costume Makes The Character (by Jason Shafer)
1970 Lincoln Continental – All-New, Lighter, Faster, But Not Quite Good Enough? (by me)
The 1969 Mercury Marquis was, if not the home run that the 67 Cougar had been, a good solid triple. I was there when these cars came out, and two things were plain – the Marquis shared its basic structure with the big Ford and at the same time that each car had a highly distinct vibe for the first time in ages. That 1969 Ford-Mercury body was a really nice piece of work. My father had a 69 LTD, itself a very nice car, and I was there when a friend of his visited in a new Marquis. He was really proud of it, and called it a “baby Lincoln”. Dad agreed.
If there was a problem in 1970 it was that the new Continental (which was a separate and distinct body, not a simple restyle of the big Ford/Mercury structure) was not “Lincoln-y” enough. I think this was finally addressed by 1972 and really resolved by 1975. If you spent any time in these cars at the time, it was clear that the Lincoln was definitely a more expensive car. The Mercury got close in length, but only by making the tail end longer (hence the trunk room figures). If you have ever opened and closed a door on an example of each of these cars, let alone driven one, there would be no confusion – One was a really nicely worked over big Ford and the other was a Lincoln. Not as much of a Lincoln as the 1961-69 version perhaps, but a Lincoln nonetheless.
The following year had the Marquis being totally restyled (in synch with the LTD). That car suffered from a significant reduction in structural stiffness. If there had been any confusion about which was a Mercury and which was a Lincoln, that confusion was resolved by the changes in the 1971 Marquis. But the one thing that FoMoCo did well for the second time in 2 years was to introduce two variations on the Ford/Mercury which had customers feeling good about spending the extra money on the more expensive one at the L-M dealer.
On looks alone, I think the Mercury is nicer than the Lincoln. It’s slightly softer overall but it really comes down to the endcaps; the front is fussier but works better than the Lincoln which looks heavy handed, and same for the rear. That slight mismatch of the decklid chrome strip would drive me nuts though.
Some GM dealers were dualled with each other in small towns. The Mississippi town my grandparents lived in (Mendenhall) had a Pontiac/Buick/Olds/GMC dealership until the 2000s ( they also absorbed the Chevy store there in 1982). The same group as also had other GM stores across south central Mississippi. The nearest other store was a Chevy/Olds store in Magee. Last time I looked, neither Mendenhall nor Magee had any new car dealers (even the Ford dealerships closed) I guess people there just go to Jackson or Meridian to buy new.
Wow, I knew the the circa-1970 Lincolns and Mercurys looked similar but didn’t realize just how close they’d become. I still find the Lincoln more attractively shaped though, particularly the placement of the front wheels – the Mercury looks to have too much front overhang. The Lincoln interior also looks quite a bit more upscale, with full-length door armrests and a nicer dash. As to how Mercury’s prestige compared to Olds and Buick, my memory only goes back to about 1975 but I thought both GM brands were a bit more upscale – they had distinct engines and were less obviously based on Chevys than Mercurys were on Fords. Even the Chrysler brand seemed more upscale than Mercury, as this was the period when the car originally sold as an Imperial became the New Yorker Brougham, which looked distinctly more elegant inside and out than a Plymouth or Dodge. (sadly, Chrysler would squander that prestige in the ensuing decades).
> Probably the single most important quality of any luxury car is image, and about half of that comes down to the prestige of the brand name. It helps if the car is well-engineered, good-looking, comfortable, etc., but it’s clear that for a lot of buyers, all of that is secondary to the cachet of the badge.
Curiously, that is true for cars and SUVs, but not for pickup trucks. Attempts to sell Lincoln and Cadillac pickups fell flat, and it was postulated here – correctly I think – that they sold poorly because of their luxury badges. Pickup trucks have a “working-class hero” image that’s a key part of their appeal, that no matter how fancy they were, you could still haul your gardening equipment or bags of mulch and fertilizer, or whatever messy stuff you had into the bed and head over to the job site and get busy. And that image is easier to maintain with a Ford F-150 (even if it’s a F-150 Platinum Titanium King Ranch) than a Lincoln Mark LT or Cadillac EXT. The luxury badge just made it look like you didn’t really need or use a pickup truck for work and were just a poseur.
I was six years old when the 1969 models appeared, and the bit of curb detail that gobsmacked me was the Marquis’ wall-to-wall taillights. I was almost convinced to punch one of the red lenses, and have a jukebox record pop out, and begin playing. The 1965-1972 era was a Golden Age of styling for all makes. Between the loop bumpers, hidden headlights, and coast-to-coast taillights, I was in Detroit nirvana.
When I saw the second image, I thought for a brief moment that I was looking at a similar era Olds Ninety Eight.
And it looks like Ford stole the tail light design for the 1971 LTD:
Quibble: In 1970, the full-size Mercury line was divided into six models: cheaper Monterey and Monterey Custom, sporty Marauder AND MARAUDER X-100, and the plusher Marquis and Marquis Brougham. The Lincoln-eseque nose with concealed headlamps was limited to the latter FOUR models.
I also disagree with your statement that about Ford-Mercury franchises. I don’t believe there were many standalone Mercury franchises (probably only one or two in the entire U.S.), but Ford-Mercury franchises were quite common in small rural towns throughout the U.S. in the ‘60s and ‘70s (and probably in the 1940s and ’50s). I suspect Ford thought that, based on the comparatively small populations of these small rural towns there weren’t enough wealthy people who might buy Lincolns to make having a dealership worthwhile, but that there were enough middle class people who could afford to buy a Mercury and that it was worthwhile to go after those potential buyers.
We had a Ford-Mercury dealer in my home town of 9,000 and there was one in a smaller neighboring town of 6,000 a short distance away. Both of those dealerships closed in the 1980s (victims of the Reagan Recession). A larger neighboring town of 30,000 had a Lincoln-Mercury dealer AND a Ford dealer which are both still in operation.
Although I was only a kid when the 1970 Lincoln Continental came out, at the time I thought it looked like a big Mercury and I was surprised by magazine reviews where the writers said they didn’t see much difference between it and the previous 1969 model. I liked the concealed headlamps and fender skirts, but was disappointed by the elimination of the suicide rear doors. (At the time I wasn’t aware that the 1970 model had a different chassis.)
You are right that Mercury remained at least a little ahead of Ford in public perception, but it never really had quite as much status as Oldsmobile and Buick back when those brands still meant something. It was also a step below Chrysler. Mercury had really begun to more obviously steal styling cues from Lincoln beginning with the 1965 models.
Still, full-sized Mercurys of this period, and to a lesser extent, Chryslers, all looked alike and shared the same wheelbases and sheet metal. I think that potential Mercury and Chrysler buyers looked at the various trim levels, and didn’t see much difference between a lower-priced Monterey and a higher-priced Park Lane, Marquis or Brougham or between a lower-priced Newport and a higher-priced (non-letter) Three-Hundred or New Yorker and they bought the lower-priced model.
In contrast Oldsmobile and Buick were better able to make the subtle distinction between more medium-priced models (88 and LeSabre) and the more upper-medium priced models (98 and Electra), what with the 88, LeSabre and Centurion having shorter wheelbases and open rear wheel wells and the 98 and Electra having longer wheelbases and fender skirts (most years). (Wildcats bounced around between having shorter and longer wheelbases these years.)
The perception of Mercury improved with the introduction of the 1969 Marquis. Although it still shared the same wheelbase as the lower-priced Monterey, the Lincoln-eseque nose with concealed headlamps really distinguished it from the lower-priced Monterey. (Something the concealed headlamps on the Chrysler (non-letter) Three-Hundred never managed to do.) The standard fender skirts that came the Marquis’ 1971 modest restyle (they were optional on the Monterey, but not all that common) further enhanced the upscale Lincoln resemblance. I don’t think that Mercury every achieved the same level of prestige as Oldsmobile or Buick, or even Chrysler, but they certainly got closer, at least until 1979 when the full-sized Mercury Marquis became just a fancy Ford LTD.
Chrysler also squandered their prestige during 1980s but got some of it back with the redesigned ‘94 New Yorker and LHS and the subsequent 300. Sales of the Lincoln Continental greatly improved during the 1970s, at least in contrast to what they were in the 1960s, so the 1970s Lincoln Continentals would have to be considered sales successes.
Oops, quite right. I’ll fix that.
According to Automotive News, there were 188 Mercury exclusives as of January 1, 1969 and 139 as of January 1, 1970. Automotive News tracked franchise counts closely and published updates about every six months; I’m inclined to take their word for it.
You raise a good point. Looking at the franchise breakout, something close to half of Mercury franchises were paired with Ford. (The Automotive News counts don’t actually indicate how franchises were paired, only “exclusives” versus intra-corporate “duals” or “multiples” (terms they used interchangeably). Total Lincoln “multiples” at that point were 1,362, so by process of elimination, at least 1,180 Mercury franchises were dualed with Ford.) I’ll amend the text on that point as well.
However, Lincoln did not have any exclusive franchises at this point, so they were almost always paired with Mercury. (I assume there were a few Ford-Lincoln stores here and there.) So, while the Marquis wasn’t always sold next to the Continental, the Continental was almost always sold alongside the Marquis, if you see what I mean.
That’s more standalone Mercury dealerships than I would have guessed.
The green cloth interior of the 70 model looks just like to cloth in my 67 in many ways.
Book’em Danno was my first thought at the sight of that Mercury.
In the pilot episode of “Hawaii Five O,” Steve McGarrett had a black 1967 Mercury Marquis hardtop coupe with a red interior. Then a triple black1968 Mercury Park Lane Brougham 4-door hardtop, and then, finally, a triple black 1974 Mercury Marquis Brougham 4-door hardtop.
I also think about how on the first few seasons of “Green Acres,” the Oliver and Lisa Douglas drive 1965 to 1967 Lincoln Continental convertibles. After that they drive 1969 and 1970 Mercury Marquis convertibles (probably because Lincoln had quit making convertibles). There was also a cross-over episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” where the Clampett family visits Hooterville (the setting of “Green Acres” and “Petticoat Junction”) and meets with the cast members of those two shows. Lisa Douglas shows up driving a Plymouth Sport Fury convertible in that episode. The Beverly Hillbillies was sponsored by Chrysler while Green Acres was sponsored by Ford which explains it.
Do you mean Donna Douglas?
No, I mean the character of Lisa Douglas (played by Eva Gabor) on Green Acres. Lisa Douglas was one of the main characters on Green Acres, but the character made appearances on crossover episodes of Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies.
Can’t still quite believe that power brakes and pas were options on this heavy car. Speaks loads about Detroit’s then lack of safety promotion. What’s crazier is that 150 buyers choose not to tick the on box!. Perhaps they hope to go drag racing….
Uncle Jim and Aunt Joann liked big four door Mercurys. The first I can remember was a tan 1962, I’m unsure of the model. They traded it on a new 1969 Marquis, off white with a dark vinyl top with a gray cloth/vinyl interior. In time it was traded on a new 1977 Marquis, green with a white vinyl top and a green cloth interior. All were garage kept and completely rust free. But when the Buick Roadmaster came out in 1992 Uncle Jim was smitten with it and bought a burgundy one with a matching cloth interior. Aunt Joann was less than thrilled with it and traded it on an early 00s Lincoln Town Car after Uncle Jim died. She kept it until she quit driving when she was about 95.
I’d take a 1970 Marquis Brougham 4-door hardtop in McGarrett-spec triple black…..
I was always more of a GM guy. That said, I do like me some big cars regardless of make.
I don’t mind the Merc shown here, with the exception of the front end. The top/bottom don’t really blend well (IMO), like one group designed the top and a different group designed the bottom half. Maybe sort of a “Family Truckster front end” vibe.
Maybe just me. I’d still drive & love one, but ya know, just giving my valuable opinion.