Mercury Colony Park

History

The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Mercury Colony Park page on 27 October 2018, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Mercury Colony Park is a full-size station wagon that was marketed by the Mercury division of Ford Motor Company between 1957 and 1991. Distinguished by its simulated wood-grain paneling, the Colony Park was marketed as either the premium-trim or the sole full-size station wagon offering of the division. Following the demise of Edsel, full-size Mercury and Ford vehicles adopted similar bodyshells, with the Colony Park becoming the counterpart of the Ford Country Squire until their discontinuation.

As the minivan and four-door SUV segment expanded in the late 1980s, sales of full-size station wagons declined, including the Colony Park. As the Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis sedans underwent a major redesign for the 1992 model year, the station wagon body style was dropped from the model lineup, leaving the Colony Park with no direct replacement (through the closure of the Mercury brand).

For 1957, the Mercury model line underwent major revisions. Instead of sharing bodies with trim distinguishing each division, Edsel and Mercury would share the chassis and powertrain (an all-new line of V8 engines), with each model line having different wheelbases and completely distinct exterior panels.

Another change involved the branding of station wagons, involving both Ford and Mercury. Split away from the Monterey model line, Mercury introduced three new station wagons as a separate model line for 1957. Two-door and four-door station wagons were sold as a base-trim Mercury Commuter and mid-price Mercury Voyager; the top-trim wood-grained Mercury Colony Park was sold with only four-doors. To distinguish itself from Ford (and Edsel), all Mercury station wagons given hardtop rooflines.

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