• Edsel Ford named his mid-price product line for the messenger of the Roman gods, also the god of commerce.mercure, messager des dieux. image by Bruno Bernier from Fotolia.com
  
  From the initiation of the Mercury line in the 1930s, it was intended to be "large, stylish and modern," according to Mercury's website. In the '50s and '60s several Mercury models contributed to the establishment of "muscle car" culture. The 1970s, however, brought a gas crisis and a market that demanded economy. Mercury quickly introduced two compact models, and by the end of the decade redesigned one of its vehicles for the new conditions.
  
  

Capri

• The first of the new models was introduced in 1971 and built in Germany through the 1970s, though it had existed as a racing car in the 1960s. It hit the streets as the Ford family's first production car with fuel injectors and went from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 8.6 seconds on the way to a top speed of 124 mph. A Yahoo! group of enthusiasts has been sharing love of Capris since the middle of 2000 and has more that 1,200 members as of the end of 2010.
  
  

Bobcat

• Along with the economy drive, this little three-door led the pattern of feline-named Mercury versions of Ford equine cars, in this case the Pinto. Unfortunately, it had the same design flaw that made the Pinto infamous for exploding when rear-ended. It wanted to be sporty, with advertising that sang "fun, fun, fun" and "priced hundreds below" European competitors, according to a Mercury advertisement of that era. It did have front bucket seats, but also came in station-wagon models, including the Villager model with trim to connect it back to Ford's classic woodies.
  
  

Cougar XR-7

• The first Cougar had been the Motor Trend Car of the Year in 1967, an upscale, stretched Mustang, leading the cat line and Ford's status in the development of muscle-car culture. Then the XR-7 designated an interior trim and instrumentation package. Cougars got longer, wider and heavier, and sales declined as the decade turned. By 1971, still growing bigger, Cougar advertising shifted from performance to luxury. Musclecarclub.com's history ends at 1973, sniffing that later models simply "appl[ied] the Cougar name." The decline in sales prompted Ford to redesign the Cougar for 1977, offering the XR-7 strictly as a sport coupe. Within a year sales were back to record levels at more than 213,000 units.