1977 looked like Mercury’s year at last: While its GM rivals downsized, Lincoln-Mercury proclaimed, “We still build them like we used to,” and even invited buyers to compare the full-size Mercury Marquis to the latest Cadillac De Ville. Buyers took interest, but even the posh Grand Marquis remained an also-ran in the hotly contested mid-price segment. Here’s how it fared in 1977.
I’ve remarked before that the Mercury brand often fared best when it stuck closer to the Ford end of the mid-price pool. Lincoln-Mercury had often been reluctant to test the brand’s luck in the upper-middle-class realm occupied by the senior Oldsmobile and Buick models, and their occasional stabs in that direction had missed more than they hit.
However, for 1977, it looked like GM had finally given Mercury an opening. All the GM B- and C-body cars were downsized, meaning that the full-size Mercury was now clearly bigger than the rival Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight and Buick Electra.
The size difference wasn’t as dramatic as you might think without looking at the specs — the Marquis was 6.9 inches longer than the Buick, 8.6 inches longer than the Olds, and 2 to 3 inches wider — but it gave Mercury a unique selling point. Lincoln-Mercury ad agency Kenyon & Eckhardt jumped on it, emphasizing that Mercury was “still building our cars the way we used to,” with no unseemly size reductions.
Probably the most audacious part of the campaign was the above ad, launched in March 1977, which gave consumers a toll-free number to call for more information on a Nationwide Consumer Testing Institute marketing study comparing the Marquis to a Cadillac De Ville. Lincoln-Mercury got about 25,000 calls in the first 48 hours.
The Marquis was now one of the world’s biggest cars. It wasn’t THE biggest; the Chrysler New Yorker and Lincoln Continental were a little larger still. However, the Marquis stretched 229 inches overall (almost 582 cm, for our readers in the metric world) and weighed over 4,600 lb.
There were three sub-series: the standard Marquis, the Marquis Brougham, and the top-of-the-line Grand Marquis. The Grand Marquis two-door hardtop started at $6,880, which was a little bit cheaper than an Olds Ninety-Eight Regency or Buick Electra Limited, although the Olds and Buick included some standard features that were optional on the Mercury, including power windows and a power seat.
This Grand Marquis hardtop has an interesting “Tu-Tone” paint scheme, with a darker color on the hood, lower body sides, and the front part of the roof. On the Grand Marquis, the Tu-Tone option deleted the bright molding normally fitted to the tops of the rear fenders and the otherwise standard padded vinyl roof.
Skipping the vinyl top was an unusual choice for the late ’70s, since it was a very common “luxury” feature. Almost 65 percent of 1977 full-size Mercury production had a vinyl roof, so I don’t think the two-tone option was very popular, but it is certainly distinctive. This is not a car you’d be likely to lose in a parking lot.
The oddest styling feature of the 1977 Marquis was the textured panel on each headlamp cover, which I think matched the texture of the optional vinyl body side inserts. On the Grand Marquis, the covers also had “Gold Marquis” crests.
In back, the “M E R C U R Y” lettering was set into another textured panel between the taillights.
Although even the Grand Marquis wasn’t quite as well-equipped as the senior Olds and Buick models, it offered a good dose of Lincoln-esque luxury for the price.
The front Twin Comfort Lounge Seat, which had been restyled for 1977 to look like bucket seats, had real leather bolsters around its striped velour inserts. (You could also get all-velour upholstery.)
The Marquis had the same two-spoke steering wheel as the Lincoln Continental, although it had a different dashboard that lacked the Lincoln’s secondary gauges.
Mercury advertising made a big deal of the “ride-engineered” concept, which meant old-fashioned softness and isolation. The downsized GM big cars were a bit firmer than before, with noticeably greater handling composure, but Lincoln-Mercury figured there was still a market for the traditional land yacht boulevard ride.
One thing you notice looking at this car is that for all its size, it’s really not that roomy inside. The two-door Grand Marquis hardtop had LESS head and legroom in back than the downsized GM C-body coupes, and the four-door didn’t have any more room than the Buick and Oldsmobile sedans.
The Marquis was wider, so it had a bit more shoulder room, but it still wasn’t very inviting for three-abreast seating even in back. This is part of why GM was so successful in downsizing its big cars: They were better-packaged, so all buyers were really giving up for the smaller outside dimensions was a few inches of width most people didn’t use anyway.
Maybe the biggest surprise in that respect was that the Marquis really didn’t have a very large trunk for a car this big. The usable trunk space was wide and deep, but surprisingly short.
The reason was that Lincoln-Mercury had used carpeting to conceal the spare tire well and decklid hinges. Most of that space wouldn’t have been easy to use anyway, but it seems like a weird choice.
One area where the Marquis was definitely bigger than its GM rivals was under the hood. The Grand Marquis came with the 460-cid V-8, where the biggest engine available on a Ninety-Eight or Electra was now the Oldsmobile 403. However, the 460 engine (which wasn’t certified for California sales) had only 197 hp, just 12 hp more than the smaller Olds engine, and its extra 33 lb-ft of torque was offset by an extra 600 lb of curb weight and an Everest-tall 2.50 axle. (You could still get a 3.00 axle, but this car doesn’t have it.)
The bigger engine also cost you dearly at the pump. The optimistic EPA ratings for the 460 Marquis were 11 mpg city, 16 mpg highway, but Consumer Guide warned that under 10 mpg was more likely, where as an Electra or Ninety-Eight with the 403 could do 13 mpg, and one with the 350 might return 16 mpg. Since the oil embargo, big car buyers were more concerned about fuel economy than they had been in the past, and such outright gluttony was at least temporarily out of fashion.
Still, swimming against the current was a boon to sales, at least for a while. Full-size Mercury sales swelled by almost 60 percent for 1977, to 147,969 cars. However, mid-price buyers turned out to be a lot less resistant to downsizing than Lincoln-Mercury had hoped: Oldsmobile sold 385,331 full-size cars, while Buick sold 377,428. As for the De Ville, people bought it because it was a Cadillac rather than because it could pass a blind taste test against lesser cars; Cadillac C-body sales for 1977 totaled an impressive 266,083 cars.
Most Marquis buyers still preferred the four-door models: the two-door hardtop accounted for only about one-quarter of sales. Production of the two-door Grand Marquis hardtop was only 13,445 cars, so they aren’t a common sight.
If you aspired to a Lincoln Town Car, but couldn’t justify the extra $3,000, the Grand Marquis was a pretty satisfactory consolation prize. In the kind of driving the car magazines favored, it was as out of place as ballet slippers on a hockey rink, but it was good at most of the things it was designed to do. However, the downsized Ninety-Eight and Electra were as good or better, and they were obviously superior in other areas, like the ability to pass a gas station. There was really no advantage to “building them like they used to,” and buyers had recognized that. Eventually, the whole full-size segment would go the same way.
Related Reading
Curbside Find: 1976-1977 Mercury Marquis Brougham – 2-Door Hardtop Grandeur (by Rich Baron)
1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V: Bigger Than Ever, This Defiant Dinosaur Was Rolling In Green (by me)
1977–1980 Lincoln Versailles: Slow-Selling, Cynical, But Very Profitable (by me)
My Curbside Classic: 1977 Buick Electra 225 – The Green Goddess Of Linden (by Orrin)
Curbside Classic: 1978 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency – All The Brougham You Want, In A Tidier Package (by Tom Klockau)
Looks like the sort of car you would be able to drive in all day and arrive relaxed and unstressed.
Built for different times when the roads weren’t packed. Still preferable to a modern electric appliance style car.
I’d certainly rather make the trip in a Prius, at least if I were paying for my own gas out of pocket. But it’s a crying shame I can’t get one in 2-tone green with a matching green interior.
These ads didn’t ring true because it was widely known by this time that Ford was also planning to down-size their big cars but was taking longer than GM to do so, and that CAFE regs would force them to build smaller cars even if they didn’t want to.
The trunk in these big Mercurys, as well as the succeeding Panther versions, were very deep, but also quite short, because Ford pushed the gas tank forward against the back seat. GM’s big cars had the gas tank below the trunk floor, resulting in a shallower but longer (front to back) luggage compartment.
As for that padded vinyl on the headlamp covers and elsewhere – appearances are deceptive. It may look soft and squishy, but I recall it was really just hard plastic that was cleverly shaped to resemble padded vinyl.
That phone dial looks like it’s from 1948. I’m guessing nearly everyone shopping upscale big sedans in 1977 had upgraded to touch-tone dialing by then.
800.443.4221
We had a rotory phone when I was a kid, around 1990-92 it went away. Grandma had the big black rotary phone in her bedroom until 2007 or so. She never used it, always had a cordless land line cause the back den didnt have a phone jack.
As for these old Fords, they steered any which way but straight down the road. Lincolns, Fords of the 70s/80s, their trucks, cars, vans were all horrible with the amount of slop/vagueness in the steering. GM cars and trucks were much better about this, especially the smaller 77 and up cars.
I drove a ’75 or ’76 Lincoln Town car a few times back in the day. The ride provided isolation, maybe too much isolation. What really scared me was the lag between steering and braking inputs and the car’s actual carrying out of those inputs. A quick lane change required turning the wheel 90 degrees and a count to “2-Mississippi” before the car moved in that direction. The same count off was required with the brakes.
That’s why they were called boats. Change course and correct for drift.
The gas tank had been placed there since 1965 in all full size Fords and Mercury’s. My 67 is exactly the same but without the carpet cover. Although I wouldn’t say it is all that short. Compared to my 73 Polara, where all full size Mopars had the gas tank as the floor, it’s trunk is very shallow. Need to be careful with something taller. The spare is of course center back so the Mercury actually has more usable cubic feet.
This cars trunk will swallow 2 trash cans with their lids on easy standing up. Really! That is a stat that matters when you need to go to the dump!
As a college freshman, I accomplished something I never imagined. I influenced my father to buy his 1st Ford product. He purchased a 1977 Grand Marquis coupe as featured in the article. Our car was a light gray (I think the actual color code was Dove Gray) with the half vinyl top. I absolutely loved driving this car. My father was shot during a store robbery where he worked. He trusted me with the car for four months as he recovered. I was a sophomore by then and very popular on campus.
I can vividly remember my dad in 1977 talking with me about the new downsized GM cars. I thought for sure (he was done dealing with his lemon 1976 Cadillac) he going for a Grand Marquis. He was one of those people who felt he had survived WW2 and living with a horrible alcoholic father so bought cars to show he’d made it.
In a twist, and for the first time, he came to his youngest child and only son for car advice!
I immediately worked on the downsized GM cars, which he agreed with. And we agreed to wait until 1978 . He said he liked the Bonneville Brougham but didn’t have much time with Pontiac, then he mentioned an Oldsmobile 88 diesel, which I vetoed. He was an engineer so I used the “it may be engineered well but let’s see what happens “ line! He thanked me many years later.
It was down to a Caprice or Buick, and we chose the Electra. And I call say the driven to old 55mph that car did deliver 16-17mpg.
While I still like the looks of the Grand Marquis that is featured, and I’m one of only one who likes fender skirts, it’s not a car I would have bought new
Very nice Mercury, Uncle Buck would have liked this one as long as he maintain it properly. 😉
https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_11993-Mercury-Marquis-Brougham-65K-1977.html
A 60% sales jump was nothing to sneeze at. What was the percentage change for Olds and Buick (and Pontiac) from 76 to 77? In absolute numbers, GM had owned that upper middle of the market for decades. I think these Mercurys competed in that segment as successfully as Mercury ever did.
There is “statistics” room and there is “real life” room. Both the interiors of these cars and the trunks excelled in real-life room. GMs (and Chryslers) flat trunks of that era were not as useful as they looked.
For full-size cars, gains of 33.8 percent for Buick, 38 percent for Oldsmobile, and 47.5 percent for Pontiac. Pontiac, like Mercury, was in a weak position in this segment, so the big percentage gain still left them in a distant sixth place in full-size domestic car sales. Mercury was still eighth, although their full-size cars picked up about half a point of market share.
This generation of the Marquis (and the Ford LTD) always struck me as ungainly, particularly in 2-door form.
Perhaps the only worse large American vehicle in this regard was the ElDorado generation beginning in 1971.
The 1977 GM B-Bodies were so much more trim and tasteful, especially the very clean Caprice.
That’s a beauty. As a vociferous Lincoln guy back in the day I would have defended my 78 Lincoln Town Coupe as being “different” from this lower Merc….but now I know except for the Lincoln badges it’s 99% the same car. I knew it then too, I was just too stubborn to admit it 🙂
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1978-lincoln-continental-town-coupe-one-of-those-once-in-a-lifetime-finds/
I think the Mercury was the best looking car that year in it’s class, especially when compared to the GM full size cars. I was not (and I’m still not) an opera window fan.
It looks larger as a two door than as a four door. That’s a lot of green, but it does make you miss color keyed car interiors. Can you imagine that green car with black, grey or beige interior? I can’t. My grandpa leased business cars every two or three years. He graduated from a 60s LTD to a big green Grand Marquis and then to a series of Lincoln Town Cars beginning around 1973. Metallic baby blue, then light metallic green (maybe the same vintage as the Grand Marquis?), then a silver Cartier edition and finally a big light metallic blue one that he kept until he passed away. Lots of big, plushy cars.
We talked about the Westmoreland Rabbit jumping the shark a few days ago, but I believe the same could be said for these full-size coupes of the Malaise Era. They really don’t make sense as 2-doors, it’s a different story for the 4-door sedans.
I had one of these (a 1977) as my first car in 1987. Mine was a four-door. Silver with a dark red vinyl interior. 460. I bought it for $1500 off an acquaintance of my dad. He was a boat broker and he changed cars every two to four years and kept all his previously owned cars in a yard at his marina. He told me I can pick whatever he had sitting around. It came down to a choice between the Marquis and a 1978 Riviera with a 403.
I loved the car as it was my first. However, for a 460 it was painfully slow and had absolutely no steering feel. I kept it for a year and ended up getting an early Fox-body Mustang.
I have a similar 1977 that I’m working on right now . I love this car . Whoever said it looks ungainly is most likely a clown. Adding a straight up timing set up, intake, and Edelbrock Carburetor Plus RV Cam really wakes this thing up .